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The Green Dot Spotlight: September 2007

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The Green Dot Spotlight
The latest news and events about Green Dot Public Schools
September 2007
 
 
In This Issue
L.A. School Board Gives Green Dot Control of Locke High School
Mark Your Calendars for the Green Dot Ball
Winners' Circle
Spotlight: Johanna Matamoros
Green Dot in the News
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For more information about Green Dot, our students' successes, and our plans for transforming public education in Los Angeles, visit our website:
www.greendot.org
Dear Green Dot Supporters:
We are excited to announce one of the most significant events in Green Dot's history: the L.A. Board of Education has approved Green Dot's plan to transform Locke High School in Watts into ten small, safe, high-performing Green Dot schools.
We are also eagerly looking toward the Green Dot Ball: A Benefit for Great Public Schools on October 29 to raise awareness and funds for making L.A.'s public schools the best in the country. I hope you can join us for a beautiful and festive night.
As always, we thank everyone who supported us in our push to transform Locke High. And we welcome your continued support in our drive to make all public schools in L.A. small, safe, and successful at graduating kids and sending them to college. Please join us!


Steve Barr
Founder and CEO


 
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Locke High Transformation Gets Green Light from L.A. School Board
LockeVote1Green Dot Public Schools made history in Los Angeles education when the city's Board of Education voted to allow Green Dot to take over Locke High School and break it up into smaller charter schools. This is the first time in LAUSD history that a non-district group will run an L.A. Unified public school.
"I'm proud of the board and proud of the parents and the teachers of Locke," said Green Dot's Founder Steve Barr. "...We're going to work together and make Locke a great school. People around the country are going to come to Watts and see what a great urban turnaround school looks like."
Locke High is one of the city's and the state's lowest-performing high schools with very few students who are proficient in math or English and a graduating class that is one quarter the size it was in ninth grade. For example, in 2005, 332 students graduated from a class that, as ninth-graders, had 1,318. In contrast, Green Dot schools have consistently outperformed nearby public schools on standardized tests and graduate 100% of our students. Parents, students, and many teachers at Locke have long supported Green Dot's transformation plan to convert the high school into smaller, high-quality schools.
"Today is about historic accountability," Bruce Smith, an English teacher at Locke who gathered signatures for the Green Dot petition, told the Los Angeles Times after the board's vote. "Finally a day of reckoning has come. ...Real change is coming to Locke High School."
 Green Dot will take control of Locke High in fall of 2008. As part of the transformation plan, Green Dot will restructure the Locke campus into several college-prep high schools of about 500 students. The schools will follow Green Dot's Six Tenets for High-Performing Schools: small, safe schools; getting parents involved; holding students and staff to high expectations; maximizing funding to the classroom; giving principals and teachers significant authority over school-site decisions such as budget and curriculum; and keeping schools open later for community use.
 
 
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to Invest $4 Million in Green Dot
Green Dot is pleased to announce that the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation will invest $4 million to support Green Dot and the Locke Transformation Project. A significant portion of the implementation of Green Dot's business plan is being underwritten by a 34 month grant of up to $4,000,000 from The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, which makes substantial multi-year investments in leading youth-serving organizations as part of its ongoing efforts to help young people from low-income families develop the skills and abilities that will enable them to make a successful transition to productive adulthood. Thank you to the Clark Foundation and to all of our supporters!
 
2007 API Results Show Continued Success
Recent API scores for Green Dot's Jefferson Transformation Schools outpaced neighboring Jefferson High School by nearly 200 points. The five schools' avlocke studenterage API for 2007 is 628 out of a possible 1000, while Jefferson High recorded an API of 457, a 171-point difference. All of Green Dot's schools' scored significantly higher than their neighboring high schools. Overall, Green Dot's average API is 689 while the API average for neighboring schools is 116 points lower at 573.
"When we give kids a small, safe environment with dedicated educators given the autonomy to make the best decision for their students, we will continue to see these kinds of results," said Steve Barr.
Congratulations to our fantastic school leaders and teachers for these tremendous results. Green Dot would not be where it is today without them.

 
Join Us at The Green Dot Ball: A Benefit for Great Public Schools
Mark your calendars!! On Monday, Oct. 29, Green Dot will hold the first annual Green Dot Ball: A Benefit for Great Public Schools Dancing graphicat the Griffith Observatory. The dinner and benefit is a unique opportunity to celebrate Green Dot's success in the past year and to honor all who have helped us reach these heights. This year Green Dot will honor Eli Broad, Andy Stern, Oscar De La Hoya, and the Teachers of Green Dot as our "Champions of Great Public Schools."
Please join us at this important and festive event. Your support of Green Dot Public Schools will help us create and sustain high-achieving public schools for every child in Los Angeles. To attend, call Sarah at 310-899-9191, or email sarah@newphilanthropygroup.com.
We look forward to seeing you at the Ball!
 
Winners Circle
Sophomores Win Essay Contest & $500
Jennifer Quintero and Viridiana Estrada-Mateo each won $500 scholarships in the "Save Me a Spot in College" essay contest, sponsored by The Campaign for College Opportunity. Jennifer and Viridiana, both sophomores at Ánimo Ralph Bunche, had to create a poster, video, or write a 400-word essay answering the question: "Why should California leaders save you and your peers a spot in college?" Viridiana, 15, wrote a recipe for what it takes to be a good doctor: hard work, support, good study habits, and, a spot in college. Viridiana says she would like to study law or medicine, but definitely knows she's headed for college.

Junior Makes Prestigious Who's Who List
Ánimo South L.A. junior Jhakil Doyle was accepted into the Who's Who Among American High School Students, 2006-07 edition. Each year, over 24,000 youth groups, service organizations, and public, private and parochial high schools nominate students for the publication who have a "B" grade point average or better and have demonstrated leadership in academics, athletics, or extracurricular activities. About 67% of students selected for publication maintain an "A" average. Jhakil has been involved in basketball and football, and has volunteered for several organizations including the Expo Center (formerly EPICC) and S.L. Franklin's Urban Design program. He also participates in his church's youth ushers group and youth choir.

Congratulations to Jhakil, Jennifer, and Viridiana for their successes.

If you have success stories to report about Ánimo students, let us know. E-mail info@greendot.org.
 
 
Johanna Matamoros:
Ánimo Venice, Class of 2008

Growing up in Culver City's projects, Johanna Matamoros feared her life was predetermined: she'd be pregnant by 18, maybe graduate from Venice High School, and land a low-wage job. She didn't know anybody in her community who had gone to college and nobody ever really taljohanna matamorosked to her about it.
But Johanna and her parents wanted more for her life, so they seized at the chance to sign up for the lottery for the founding class of Ánimo Venice. Today, Johanna, 17, is on the path to college, with schools like University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and West Point at the top of her list. She wants to study criminology and can't wait to experience the challenges and adventures that college has to offer. Sometimes she sees some of her old middle-school classmates, several of whom are already young mothers.
"Sometimes it's hard being a Hispanic girl because people don't expect much from you," says Johanna. "But what's great about being here [at Ánimo Venice] is that they expect a lot from you. They don't expect you to fail and become a statistic. They expect you to go to college and to be successful."
Johanna gives a lot of credit to the one-to-one relationship with her teachers and principal for opening new possibilities and continuing to raise her academic achievement. "The teachers are more like my friends," she says. "They're always there for me. They know my family. Even [Principal Tommy] Chang knows the names of almost every parent. In a big school, the principal barely knows the students' names."
The school also not only tolerated, but encouraged Johanna's outspoken nature.
"I feel like my voice is heard," she says. "They've allowed me to express who I am and by doing that I've been able to discover who I am. I've found myself and what I like and what I know I want to do. That's been incredible."
Johanna says that attending Ánimo Venice has given her experiences she never dreamed of having, such as a tour of East Coast colleges that included a trip to New York City. At the same time, it instilled a necessary discipline.
"They're really strict, but in the long run it's for your own good," she says. "They're trying to get you somewhere that a big school wouldn't."
 
News to Know.........
LAPU Gets New Executive Director
The Los Angeles Parents Union (LAPU) has been changing, growing, and galvanizing support over the summer. The organization has added four new positions to mobilize even more parents to demand equitable and high-achieving public schools in their communities. To help with the organization's growth and progress, LAPU's board of directors named Ryan Smith as the group's new executive director. Smith most recently managed public affairs for Green Dot Public Schools. He has been involved in education and community organizing for a number of years. A former teacher in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, Mexico, Smith was a founder of California's statewide Higher Learning Project, which is dedicated to grassroots and social justice advocacy. He has worked for youth-related nonprofits, the California Democratic Party, and was a researcher and writer for the Los Angeles Times' editorial pages. Smith said he is looking forward to engaging parents throughout the district in his new position. "We at LAPU want to make sure parents know the power they have to demand and implement change in their local schools," said Smith.
* * *
LAPU is pushing forward with is work to LAPUvastly improve L.A.'s public schools. The organization recently launched projects in Silverlake, East L.A., and Venice to help parents work with education leaders to create plans to improve their local middle schools and high schools. The organization is also planning a districtwide effort in the coming months to empower more parents around improving public schools.

To learn more about the parents' union, visit the LAPU website.

Ánimo Schools Update
Our schools have been moving, growing, and achieving. For a list of all Ánimo schools, their principals, grade levels served, and future locations, just click here, or visit www.greendot.org/schools.
 
Green Dot in the News
There has been a flurry of news about Green Dot and its successful model. The vote to turnover Locke High to Green Dot has dominated local and national news and online blogs in recent weeks, in addition to profiles of Steve Barr in Forbes Magazine and The New York Times. Read several of the stories, and view video clips, on our website. Some recent coverage includes:
"Finally, Some Real Changes in Public Education" by Steven Barrie-Anthony (The Huffington Post)
"Watts Riot" by Peter C. Beller (Forbes Magazine)
"Union-Friendly Maverick Leads New Charge for Charter Schools" by Sam Dillon (The New York Times)
 
 
 
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