The DC Public Charter School Board revealed yesterday that it has received five applications to open new schools at the start of the 2022-to-2023 school term.

The first applicant, Capital Experience Lab PCS, came before the board last year. I thought it should have been approved by the board. Here’s what I wrote then:

“The presentations by the new applicants were fascinating. Right out of the gate I’ll wager the entire pot on the Capital Experience Lab PCS being given the green light. Sometimes new bids for charters have an alignment in components that cannot be stopped and this is the case with this school. The support from CityBridge Education combined with Friendship PCS’s CEO Patricia Brantley as a board member and the selection of Lanette Dailey-Reese as head of school present a powerful foundation. I hope you remember Ms. Dailey-Reese as the highly impressive individual who almost single-handily saved City Arts and Prep PCS from closure. This mission of the CAPX LAB around utilizing the wealth of resources present in the nation’s capital as its classroom cannot be topped.”

Ms. Dailey-Reese reprises her role as executive director and Patricia Brantley remains a board member. It would be a sixth grade through ninth grade charter that hopes to locate in Ward 2 or Ward 6 with a total of 622 students at full capacity. As a reminder, this is the applicant that wants to integrate Washington, D.C.’s rich presence of cultural institutions into its pedagogy.

Wildflower PCS would become a pre-Kindergarten through fifth grade charter that would create eight “micro” Montessori schools in Wards 5, 6, 7, and 8 instructing a total of 300 students. Now before you reject this application right off the bat due to its complexity, you need to know that there are Wildflower schools today in 13 states, with several localities having more than one school. These are teacher-led institutions supported by the Wildflower Foundation. The first Wildflower school opened in 2014.

I’m sure that the board will heavily scrutinize the relationship between the Wildflower Foundation and the individual schools, especially after the mixed track record out-of-town franchises have had in the District.

An application that has to be taken seriously is the one from Heru Academy PCS. The founders want to create a kindergarten through eighth grade school in Ward 7 or 8 that focuses on teaching children with emotional and physical disabilities. However, there are some red flags here. The application states that the school wants to open and expand to the fifth grade but the growth model in the document goes to grade eight. The narrative states that the school eventually wants to expand through high school. In addition, the charter board often does not like schools that start at kindergarten. Why not teach kids at pre-Kindergarten? There is also a foundation that sits above the school. Explanations will have to be provided around the structure.

Another strong bid is from Lotus PCS, which wants to become a pre-Kindergarten through eight grade school with 342 students in Wards 5 or 6. The mission of this charter is to close the academic and opportunity achievement gap. Lotus PCS would be the first school in the nation’s capital to be affiliated with Big Picture Learning, a network of 65 schools in the United States, with other facilities around the world. Lotus PCS is centered on an inclusion model of teaching that revolves around the way students learn.

Again, look for the DC PCSB to want information on Big Picture Learning and its relationship to the school to be opened in our city.

The fifth applicant is the M.E.C.C.A. Business Learning Institute PCS, an applicant that was rejected in 2018. But now the number of students the charter wants to enroll is tremendously different. Three years ago, the total size of the school reached 990 students in grades six through twelve. Now, the total count for this business education-based and vocational charter is just 175. I remember that the group did not impress me years ago and we will have to see if there is a much improved presentation in 2021.

This will be the first application cycle for new DC PCSB executive director Michelle Walker-Davis. Under her predecessor Scott Pearson the board only approved around 20 percent of those seeking to open new charters. Let’s sincerely hope that her support for school choice is stronger.