Last Thursday evening my wife Michele and I had the pleasure of attending the retirement and birthday party for the founder, chief executive officer, and chairman of Friendship Public Charter School Donald Hense.  Mr. Hense retired this evening as CEO, as he continues his role as chair of the school’s board of directors.  Held at Washington, D.C.’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, it was as if someone had thrown open a powerful electric circuit feeding one of the Friendship Teacher of the Year ceremonies that Michele and I have had the honor to be guests of for many years.  In fact, just as with the Teacher of Year events, the television commentator and author Roland Martin was the Master of Ceremonies.  The night included speeches, roasts, song, poetry, and much laughter.  But I do not think any affair can really fully capture the legacy of this man that is bigger than life.

Mr. Hense had gotten to know Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was at Morehouse College.  Later, as the executive director of Friendship House, he saw first hand the problems facing those living in poverty.  “You cannot provide a child with a vision if the parent doesn’t know where rent or the next meal is coming from,” Mr. Hense realized. “How are parents with that kind of stress going to tell their children they can become the next president of the United States?”  He came to understand that schools were not preparing these kids adequately for college so he opened Friendship in the poorest areas of D.C.

Friendship PCS was founded in 1998 which makes it one of the first charters in the nation’s capital.  I would start my involvement in this movement a year later.  So allow me to give you a sneak peak into what this was like.  Charters were looked at as organizations that were trying to steal kids from the traditional public schools.  Distrust was rampant, with many accusing this movement of privatizing education by making it a for-profit business.  I remember like it was yesterday approaching a bank for a loan to acquire a building.  The official looked at me like I was crazy when I explained that the only collateral we had was students.

Friendship has grown to 11 campuses teaching over 4,200 children.  In addition, there are two partnership schools in Baltimore and one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  99 percent of Friendships student population is African-American with 75 percent qualifying for free or reduced price meals.  Three out of four pupils live in Wards 7 and 8.  15 percent are special education students.

Three of Friendship’s campuses are now classified as Tier 1 on the DC Public Charter School’s Performance Management Framework.  Friendship’s four-year high school graduate rate is around 95 percent, much higher than DCPS’s 64 percent and the overall rate of charters at 72 percent.

Over 95 percent of its 2,500 high school graduates have gone on to college.  Through Friendship’s efforts these students have been awarded over $40 million in scholarships.

Mr. Hense turned 74 years old on July 4th.  He summarizes his motivation for his exceptionally difficult work over the last 18 years this way:

“I believe the best thing you can do to get people out of poverty is to educate them. The most valuable skill in today’s economy, where jobs can be located anywhere there is an Internet connection, is knowledge. And knowledge, for the vast majority, is nurtured within our local public schools. We all share the responsibility to make a difference in the lives of our children. I know it can be done. We do it every day at Friendship.”

Yesterday, the Center for Education Reform sent this tidbit from Dr. Howard Fuller who is attending this week’s National Charter School Conference.  The entire quotation is as follows:

“Charter schools are kind of like Snoop Dogg. Nobody ever thought he’d be mainstream.  Now charter schools are mainstream. But we have to go back to selling mix tapes out of the back of a car.”

His is of course echoing the call to arms that CER’s founder and chief executive officer Jeanne Allen offered a few weeks ago in which she advanced the argument that the school reform movement has become complacent and stale.  She was talking about change on a national level but she could have been referring to the situation right here in Washington, D.C.

I can even tell you the date that things started to go drastically downhill.  It was March 20, 2015.

Please consider that we have a FOCUS engineered lawsuit regarding the fact that charters receive about $100 million a year less in funding than the traditional schools but no one really seems to care.  In fact, if it wasn’t for the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools becoming a party to the legal action only two charters, Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS would have joined the effort.  This is exceptionally sad.

There was a concerted campaign in this budget cycle to raise the charter school facility allotment from $3,124 a pupil a year where it has stood for years to $3,250. It didn’t happen, but no one really seems to care.

Charter schools are desperate for permanent facilities and DCPS is holding about a dozen empty buildings.  Is there an organized effort to have these spaces released so that they can be filled with kids learning in the classroom?  Not at all.  No one seems to care.

Meanwhile, we drive around town seeing the capital renovations to the traditional schools that seem to escape any type of budget cap.  It appears these DCPS palaces are everywhere. Charters are severely limited in the amount of money they can borrow from private sources to acquire and renovate buildings, if they are even permitted to obtain a loan that must be paid back.   But do we in our local movement even offer a whisper about this situation?  No.  No one seems to care.

It is not a surprise that charters have been frozen at teaching 44 percent of all public school students in the nation’s capital.  We are fortunate, considering the efforts of DCPS Chancellor Kay Henderson to attract families, that this number is not lower.  But stay tuned.  It could go down.  And then guess what?  No one will seem to care.

Last week the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued a report critical of the academic performance of online charter schools. The organization states that as of August, 2014 there were 135 such full-time schools operating in 23 states and the District of Columbia educating about 180,000 students, a jump of 50 percent in the number of schools since 2008. Three states, California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, enroll over half of all full-time online charter school students, and 25 percent of all online charter schools enroll over 80 percent of all students. 70 percent of online charter schools are run by for-profit companies.

Demographically, online charter schools enroll more white students than regular charter schools, fewer English Language Learners, a lower number of Hispanic students, and about the same number of black students.  They also serve a lower number of special education students and a higher proportion of kids living in poverty compared to brick and mortar charters.

Academically the two models perform much differently.  In Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) most recent study in 2015 regular charter schools added “40 additional days of learning growth in math and 28 days of additional growth in reading” a year compared to traditional schools.  Here in D.C. the results are significantly greater with Scott Pearson, the executive director of the Public Charter School Board, pointing out to me recently that students gain an extra 70 to 100 days of learning a year compared to those that go to a DCPS facility.

But this is not the case when it comes to online charter schools.  In the NAPCS examination conducted by three research groups, in a year “full-time virtual charter school students experience 80 fewer days of learning in math and 72 fewer days of learning in reading in comparison to traditional public school students.” The organization then offers a set of policy solutions to try and turn this situation around.

Jeanne Allen, the founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, has attacked the report’s findings.  “Researchers agree that this view of the data is superficial and ignores who and what is gained by a particular kind of schooling approach. Many students who enroll in virtual charter school do so because of extenuating circumstances or because they simply are not served well in a brick-and-mortar learning environment. This report is troubling in that it suggests that the measure of a school’s effectiveness is an average of who gets tested, not who gets served and the conditions under which they enter or leave.”

But I have to disagree in this case with Ms. Allen. One of the researchers for the National Alliance study is CREDO, and their investigation is anything but superficial.  The Stanford University group does point out that when it first looked at the academic performance of charters in 2009 learning in these schools lagged compared to that going on in regular classrooms.  These authors speculate that the same pattern of improvement may come about as online schools mature.  Let’s all hope that this is the case.

Yesterday, was an emotionally charged day for me as I attended the 5th Annual Public Policy Symposium for the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy.  It had special meaning for a couple of reasons.  First, I started my involvement in D.C.’s charter school movement almost 20 years ago as a volunteer tutor at Chavez before quickly joining its board of directors.  I had been to many student thesis presentations during that period.  The second reason that this event was significant was that it was held in the spectacularly ornate Healy Hall and Gaston Hall Auditorium at Georgetown University.  It was from exactly this stage in 2012 and 2013 that I addressed the scholars of Washington Latin PCS as board chair during this school’s first two high school graduations.  A chill went down my spine as I saw in attendance Dr. Darren Woodruff, chair of the DC Public Charter School Board.  He had handed out diplomas to the students during one of those Washington Latin ceremonies.

The symposium began with a welcome from Chris Murphy, vice president for government relations and community engagement at Georgetown.  In fact, this setting was a perfectly appropriate place due to the University’s special relationship with D.C.’s Ward 7 where Chavez’s Parkside Campus is located.  Georgetown is heavily involved in supporting the D.C. Promise Neighborhood Initiative in which Chavez PCS plays an important part.  Volunteers from the Georgetown campus are engaged with D.C. Reads, a program that works with seven public schools and one community center in the area.  Georgetown students also participate in Ward 7 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day activities and the Community Service Day program at the University which helps people living in that neighborhood.  Mr. Murphy mentioned that all of these efforts are consistent with the University’s mission of helping others.

The energetic Chavez PCS chief executive officer Joan Massey was then introduced, who proclaimed the Public Policy Symposium her favorite day of the year.  She quickly brought to the podium David Johns, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Academic Excellence for African-Americans.  Mr. Johns is obviously a passionate individual.  He revealed to the audience that he had given up a trip to Italy to be here today.  He felt that it was too important to miss.  It turns out that Mr. Johns has a special relationship with the charter; Ms. Massey described him as “their angel.”  In his moving remarks Mr. Johns wholeheartedly thanked the students, teachers, and parents of Chavez for their unwavering commitment to a high quality education even when times are tough and at these particular moments school is not at the top of their priority list.  His speech made an instant sincere connection with everyone in the room.  It was clear that if it were up to Mr. Johns all of these students would go on to college and then to jobs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We had then reached the point when it was time for Erik Jones, Chavez thesis teacher and symposium moderator, to introduce the student presenters.  In the order in which they appeared, Alexys Hewlett, enrolled in the Parkside Campus, spoke on the topic of residential segregation; Nicolas Villarroel, attending the Capitol Hill Campus, covered the Syrian Refugee Crisis; and Brenda Guevera-Ortiz, also from Capitol Hill, discussed access to college for undocumented students.

I have to admit I don’t know how to adequately pay tribute to what I observed.  Each of these professionally attired young men and women lectured for about 20 minutes as if these were Ted Talks.  Accompanied by clearly laid out PowerPoints, they explained their material in a uniform outline format which included background, controversy, and alternative sections.  A long list of references were provided at the end of the decks.  All you really have to know to visualize the afternoon is that immediately after Ms. Hewlett started she was unable to automatically advance the slides.  With the calm cool that accompanies someone who does this type of public speaking for a living, she simply waited until help arrived to solve the technical issue.  She then picked up right where she left off as if nothing had transpired.  When it was Mr. Villarroel’s turn to address the guests, he tested the operation of the software first as if he was about to reveal his business plan for his brand new company.

We were witnessing the culmination of a year’s work by these students which were summations of their individual 20 to 30 page senior thesis papers.  I was most impressed with the ability of these pupils to explain equally both sides of the argument around the issues they had selected, and their skill in detailing and supporting their proposed public policy remedies. These were not superficial conversations about current day controversies.  They were three sophisticated in depth investigations of serious world problems whose solutions have major consequences.  So much progress has been made at Chavez PCS over last two decades.  It was enough to make you cry.

Last Thursday evening my wife Michele and I had the fortune to attend the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Toast to Transformation event, held as it has been traditionally at the LongView Gallery on 9^th Street, N.W.  Much has changed since the last time I was fortunate enough to join this celebration.  Jennie Niles, the city’s Deputy Mayor for Education, was on hand.  Ms. Niles is of course the founder and past executive director of E.L. Haynes.  Hilary Darilek, who is now the chief executive officer for the charter and someone I recently interviewed, was the master of ceremonies for the formal program.  I also had the opportunity to speak with Abigail Smith.  She was the Deputy Mayor for Education the last time I was here; Ms. Smith is now the chair of the E.L. Haynes Board of Directors.  I have to admit that she looks much more relaxed now compared to the previous occasion in which we were in the same room.

The Toast to Transformation is really a party in which open bars and food stations appear everywhere you go in the space.  Waiters bring plentiful appetizers to the guests.  Early on I ran into Dr. Ramona Edelin, the executive director of the D.C. Alliance of Public Chartered Schools.  She was only too excited to tell me that the fight to raise the financial floor of the annual charter school facility fund is definitely not over with the passage of the Mayor’s 2017 fiscal year budget.  The goal, Dr. Edelin stated, is to increase this revenue level 2.2 percent from its current amount and then tie enhancements to this number to inflation.  Based upon her determination I had the sense that in the not too distant future her objective would become a reality.

Moving toward the entrance I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Soliyana Seyoum, an eighth grader who was demonstrating the results of her science project along with other scholars who were doing the same with other guests regarding their own work.  She had investigated what type of dance shoe was most amenable to performing a ballet pirouette.   In an enthusiastic and perfectly articulate manner she explained that she had looked at four different possibilities including bare feet.  Ms. Seyoum’s hypothesis was that ballet shoes would provide the most support but in the end it turned out that tap shoes were the clear winner.

After a stimulating performance by the elementary school’s choir, Ms. Darilek took the stage.  I continue to be extremely impressed with her as E.L. Hayne’s representative.  She comes across as such a sincere and caring individual.  Ms. Darilek spoke proudly of some of the accomplishments of her student body.  “In only six months,” she stated, “I’ve already seen so much – a group of high school students’ award-winning National History Day presentation on the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, our high school Robotics team’s competition-winning robot that is here with us tonight, middle school science fair projects on friction, perception, and the effects of video games on memory; and, our youngest students in pre-K teaching me about impressionist art.  I learn from our students every day and hope you did tonight as well. They will reach high levels of academic achievement with all of our support, and so much more. Thank you to E.L. Haynes teachers and leaders – many of you are here in the room – for making these opportunities a reality for our students.”

The high performing charter then honored John “Skip” McKoy for his years of support for all schools in Washington, D.C. through his service on the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which he chaired for a couple of years, and through his role as director of programmatic initiatives at Fight for Children.  Mr. McKoy paid perhaps the highest compliment to the institution when he emphatically exclaimed that E.L Haynes “is raising confident, competent, and contributing young people who represent the rich variety of DC’s urban demographic, with the skills base to become tomorrow’s effective global citizens.”

Most fittingly, the next speaker was Ariela Garcia-Queche, a senior who has been with the school since the third grade.  Ms. Queche explained that through the outstanding preparation E.L. Haynes has provided she will attend college next year at Salisbury University in Maryland to study nursing.  I now understand perfectly why this event is called a Toast to Transformation.

Last Friday I had the honor of attending the tenth annual D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation luncheon which was held in the intimate performance space of downtown’s The Hamilton.  It was a momentous occasion because this was the first year that the program that trains high school students to be able to work in the construction industry has operated out of IDEA Public Charter School.  For the past nine years the foundation had a relationship with DCPS’s Francis L. Cardozo Educational Campus.  It has been about fifteen months since I last interviewed IDEA’s head of school and chief executive officer Justin Rydstrum, and he was only too happy to catch me up on the school’s progress.

“It has been a tremendous experience having these courses at IDEA,” Mr. Rydstrom exclaimed.  He revealed to me that as part of the new relationship with the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation the organization invested $500,000 in the charter school in order to take six small classrooms and turn them into four state-of-the-art learning facilities with updated air-conditioning, heating, and bathrooms.  The IDEA CEO explained that about one third of his student body, or about eighty to ninety high school pupils, participate in the training program.

Another extremely exciting part of the cooperation with the Trades Foundation is that the parents get to take advantage of this course of study.  Mr. Rydstrom detailed that there are classes for adults four nights a week.  In addition, the Memorandum of Understanding between IDEA and the Foundation provides for an additional teacher and a director.  Next year an extra half-time instructor will be added.  Examples of some of the classes that are offered include architecture, carpentry, design, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing.

It was then time for me to meet others in the room.  The first individual I ran into was former DC Public Charter School Board chairman Tom Nida.  Mr. Nida remarked that an interesting aspect of the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation is that its board of directors, upon which he serves, includes representatives from the leading builders in the nation’s capital.  For example, Mr. Nida pointed out, the effort is led by Foundation president John McMahon who is also the chairman of Miller and Long Concrete Construction.  Of course, as Mr. Nida revealed, the advantage of this board composition is that when these students graduate from IDEA they are practically guaranteed jobs because the market is so tight for people with the skills being taught at the charter.  The former PCSB chair stated that another fascinating aspect of all of this is that women now make up half of all enrolled students.

Representing the PCSB on this day was Steve Bumbaugh.  I asked him how the things were going on the board.  “You know,” he asserted without hesitation, “I really believe that the board is approaching its third phase.”  The first phase, Mr. Bumbaugh opined, involved simply opening charters.  He went on to detail that the organization, under Scott Pearson, then went on to transition to a focus on openness and transparency it its operations.  The third phase, Mr. Bumbaugh, believes, involves equity.  He asserted that we have to figure out how to provide the same level of educational quality to those living in poverty as we do for those kids who are better off financially.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Shelly Karriem, the program director of the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation.  She has been in this role since 2006.  Ms. Karriem spoke passionately about the changes and growth the program has experienced in her ten years in her position.  But mostly she wanted to talk to me about how fortunate she feels to be at IDEA PCS.  She highlighted the fact that everyone, from Mr. Rydstrom to the school’s faculty to the students, have welcomed her staff with open arms.  She is excited that the scholars have shown such a high level of respect for the courses and the physical space.  The program director expressed that, as the daughter of a handyman and as a past educator herself, she now feels like she is really home now that the foundation is operating out of this charter school.

The schedule for the event was filled with awards and scholarships to students who have demonstrated qualities such as an outstanding character, competence, good citizenship, competitive spirit, and a drive to meet every challenge.  These traits were certainly expressed by the tenth grader I was introduced to by the name of Donovan Cayard.  After his firm handshake, Mr. Cayard handed me a business card with his name on it, the title of the program, and the year of his graduating class. Looking me straight in the eyes this student boasted about how happy he was to be studying construction.  Mr. Cayard confidently expressed that he would like to go to college one day but that his studies in computer design provides him with a trade he can practice as a profession and one that “in the future allows me to be a better person.”  I believe in that one sentence Mr. Cayard has expressed everything you need to know about the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation.

My wife and I had the distinct pleasure last Thursday evening of attending the 15 year anniversary Shining Star Gala hosted by the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter School.  Note to all other charters out there:  if you want to stage a perfect celebration follow the pristine example established by this institution.  We had never been to a Shining Star event and now we wish that we had had the opportunity to attend all 16.  Here is the way it works: You proceed from classroom to classroom, and in each one students proudly demonstrate material from their academic courses.  One of the first scholars we met in the Celebrating Our Roots classroom was Dayell Preston, a tenth grader who is spending his second year at TMA.  He was playing Martin Luther King, Jr. and provided the packed house with an exquisite rendering of a portion of Dr. King’s infamous “I have a Dream” speech.  A second student offered an interpretation of remarks by Supreme Court Judge Thurgood Marshall.

There was one part that was particularly remarkable.  In talking with Mr. Preston and other Thurgood Marshall students such as Deonna MaKoy in the advanced geometry class, we found that it was not only the subject matter that these young people had mastered.  They were uniformly perfectly articulate in the manner in which we were addressed, and their attire was chosen as if they were about to go on a job interview.  We were consistently spoken to in a highly respectful manner while being looked directly in the eyes.  In other words, it was obvious that this charter spends as much time on teaching the soft skills that will lead these individuals to becoming successful adults as it does providing them the knowledge necessary to go on to college and beyond.  Perhaps all of this effort accounts for students proudly remarking to us about how challenging it has been to get to where they are, as well as being effusively grateful for the numerous flexible office hours provided by the faculty.

It didn’t hurt our moods that we were greeted upon our arrival with some special cocktails.  In addition, many of the rooms had food stations in the back complete with catered items such as chicken sausage sliders and jalapeno-spiced hush puppies.  Hors D’oeuvres were passed as we scurried through the eight student demonstration centers.  In the hallways above our heads were banners that read “Over 93% of alumni enroll in college within one year of graduation,” and “100% of Thurgood Marshall Academy graduates have been accepted to college since 2005.” As a long-past high school debate team member I especially enjoyed seeing a rhetorical volley between two pupils taking the pro and con positions regarding whether this country should accept Syrian refugees.  Some of the other presentations included Five In Five, a demonstration of legal skills such as argumentation, negotiation, and advocacy; Stem Fair, a re-creation of STEM booths from this year’s Fair; and Clubs Showcase, which shared information about some of the after-school enrichment programs in which 80 percent of TMA students participate, such as the Chess and the Green Club.

After about an hour it was time to proceed to the gymnasium for the formal program.  The many multicolored tables were filled with a plethora of savory desserts.  Attendees were each provided with a highly professional glossy brochure that described the Gala’s activities.  Waiters served wine and coffee to the guests.  Welcoming us from the stage was Richard Pohlman, who became TMA’s executive director this term after serving four years as the chief operating officer of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School.  He is only the third person to hold this title in the school’s history, and the two previous E.D.’s, Josh Kern and Alexandra Pardo, were in attendance for the night’s festivities.  It is fitting that Mr. Pohlman is now the head of the school since in my 2011 interview with Mr. Kern he commented that E.L Haynes is the charter with which TMA shares the most characteristics.  Jenny Niles, D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Education and the founder of E.L. Haynes PCS was also in the audience.  Mr. Pohlman then turned over the lectern to Richard Roe, director of the D.C. Street Law Program, a professor of Law at Georgetown University, and a member of the TMA Board of Trustees.  According to the Georgetown University website, the “Street Law Project specializes in educating the public about the law. In the Street Law High Schools Clinic, law students teach practical law in high schools in the District of Columbia. In the Street Law Community Clinic, law students teach in community and correctional settings, such as the D.C. Jail, homeless shelters, addiction treatment centers and juvenile correctional settings.”

It was most appropriate that Mr. Roe spoke because, as we quickly learned, Thurgood Marshall Academy was created as a project of the Street Law Program as eleven students and professors saw a need to provide the type of education to children living in poverty that was available to them growing up.  As Mr. Roe explained the motto of Georgetown Law is “Law is the means – Justice is the end” and it was heroes such as Mr. Kern who took these words to heart.  400 students attend TMA annually, with over 90 percent living in Wards 7 and 8.  75 percent of those enrolled qualify for free or reduced cost lunch.  100 percent are African-American.  TMA students are awarded millions of dollars in college scholarships each year, and based upon reading and math standardized test scores it is one of the highest performing open enrollment high schools in D.C.

Also, to consistently round out the event, TMA’s Warrior Award was presented to at-large D.C. Councilman David Grosso.  Mr. Grosso also participated in the Street Law Program when he attended Georgetown University Law School.  The Councilman spoke about his passion to improve education in our city as part of his strong desire to strengthen human rights.  He informed us that he had the opportunity earlier to play chess with a member of the school’s Chess Club although he observed that “he’s really more of a checkers kind of guy.”  He stated that he is proud of the fact that Thurgood Marshall Academy is one of the most academically successful schools in the city, but that his dream is that one day the students at Ballou High School reach the same level as those enrolled in TMA.  From the people I recognized in the crowd, I can safely say that the entire room shares exactly the same goal.

My wife Michele and I had an unbelievably enchanted experience last Thursday evening when we joined seven exceptionally fortunate individuals for one of the monthly Community Culinary Events presented by the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School.  Picture this:  you enter the spectacular Sonia Gutierrez Campus of Carlos Rosario PCS that I wrote about when it opened towards the end of 2013.  Then you progress up to the third floor which houses the school’s Culinary Institute.  Your eyes are immediately taken by the long corridor whose massive plate glass windows allow you gaze directly into the spacious stainless steel kitchens where you observe the frenetic activity of the students learning to prepare restaurant quality meals.  We are ushered into an adjacent intimate room, The Bistro, with just enough seats at a dining table for 10 people. Sebastien Lamerre, the charter’s Culinary Arts Academy director, is our host for the night.

At each setting is a menu with the four course meal that is about to be presented.

Mexican Medley
Cactus Pad Salad, Fish Salpicon & Roasted Poblano with Mushroom & Corn

Joining us are guests Christopher Britton, president National Capital Chef’s Association; Eric Gomes, talent acquisition manager ThinkFoodGroup; and Ino Okoawo, owner Education Compliance Associates.  From the school, in addition to Mr. Lamerre, are Benjamin Velasquez, food service director; Dr. Ryan Monroe, chief academic officer; Patricio Sanchez, director of accountability; and Mandy Toomey, communications manager.  Anticipating the reason we were all assembled in one place meant that everyone was in an exceptionally good mood.

Fish & Shrimp Ceviche with Green Plantain Chip

 We learn from Mr. Lamerre that the Culinary Program currently has 98 students enrolled, most of whom will enroll for two years.  At the end of that period they will receive certifications in Culinary Arts Fundamentals, International Cuisine, Baking and Pastry, and Servsafe, which focuses on instructing the proper handling of food.  The tidbits prepared for us today are from the Baking and Pastry class taught by Chef Mariano Romos.

Seared Port Loin with Adobo Sauce

At the beginning of each course the approximately 12 pupils enter the room to remove the uniformly empty plates and then they return with the next delicacy.  The student responsible for the new dish provides a short introduction as to what we are about to eat and the individual’s country of origin.  Mr. Velasques explains that about 70 percent of the chefs in training are already working in the restaurant industry.  They come to the award-winning Carlos Rosario because they know they need to formalize the skills they learned on the job, and recognize that they cannot really progress unless they learn English.  Many are in in fact somehow miraculously balancing two paid positions, studying, and raising young families.  They attend the charter in either the morning or evening tract.

 Pastry Display
Crème Brulee, Chocolate Mousee & Biscotti

 To say we are impressed is the understatement of the century.  Michele and I agree that we have never tasted anything as fine.  The group collectively feels like we have been to a five-star restaurant.  Mr. Gomes is practically ready to sign up these stars up for one of Jose Andres’ many establishments.  It is of course, extremely good that he is here.  Several of these scholars need places to intern, and eventual employment, once they complete the classes of Carlos Rosario.  It looks like they will have no problem finding a location in which to practice their craft.