Friday afternoon, the District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a charter petition for Design Tech High School for the next five years. The charter school is slated to open in fall 2014 and will serve approximately 520 students grades 9 through 12.
The petition was brought before the Board of Trustees in early September by Design Tech Director Ken Montgomery and his team, but Superintendent Scott Laurence said that the petitioners came before the Board over a year ago with a presentation.
Montgomery said that he and Nicole Cerra, an English coordinator at Capuchino High School, began working on developing the idea two years ago. Cerra will be the Design Tech Director of Curriculum and Instruction.
Montgomery, assistant principal at Capuchino, was inspired by his doctorate work at Stanford University and his work with Stanford’s d.school, its Institute of Design, where there is an emphasis on “content-knowledge” and “problem solving.” Design Tech has also been collaborating with the d.school throughout the process.
Board member Linda Lees Dwyer said she was expecting an approval. “This charter was coming from within the district and it was developed by people who worked for the district, so I had a high level of confidence in their ability,” she said.
Board member Marc Friedman agreed. “You can look at charter schools a bunch of different ways. This charter that came up was put together by an administrator of one of our high schools, teachers at our high schools, and supported and built up by parents of our high schools, so it was internally developed … There’s other charter schools where outside organizations try and come in and do it. I’m not necessarily a fan of those.”
Laurence noted that there has been little to no opposition.
He added, “We’ve had two public meetings about this and there hasn’t been a single speaker [against]. I have had a few concerns raised, but nothing substantial.”
Indeed, the meeting was attended by an audience including numerous parents and their children who were touting stickers in support of Design Tech.
Rich Hall has grandchildren who he hopes will attend Design Tech. He explained his reasons for supporting the school. “It allows students to have the latitude to learn in a different environment that doesn’t work well for every student, so it’s nice to have the option and a good option is available through Design Tech.”
Margaret Mefford, whose son currently attends Bayside STEM Academy, said her son will likely attend Aragon High School but that she heard about Design Tech at a presentation last year. She said, “For him, he’s very interested in digital photography and sound and video editing, so knowing that he has such a drive and a focus on that one thing, I think it’s cool that there would be something that would be so individualized that would help him figure out what schooling he needs now and any college he might need to get him into that career path.”
For Drewry Wolf, the school was attractive because of the model of personalization that it offered. She elaborated, “The number one [reason] would be class sizes, just the size of the school in general and more intense focus on something my child was interested in.”
Design Tech’s model was awarded a $100,000 grant from Next Gen Learning Challenges and also received a $100,000 in a grant from Silicon Schools, a philanthropic fund that provides seed funding for personalized learning schools.
The school will use the CK-12 online platform for its curriculum, which will allow Design Tech teachers to manage students at different paces based on weekly assessments.
Montgomery said the model is flexible and competency-based. He added, “You can move through the curriculum as fast as you can or as slow as you need to.”
Laurence, however, noted the academic program as one area for concern. “While they had some really good ideas, [there was] not a lot of detail, and that’s one of the things we’re going to try to work with them on.”
The district’s Staff Report and Analysis also included several concerns regarding the operational costs of the school, which will be addressed in a Memorandum of Understanding, a contractual agreement that indicates an intended course of action regarding issues like facilities use. Since the petition has already been approved, the school’s charter will be effective so long as officials agree to a Memorandum of Understanding that is substantially similar to the one currently in discussion.
Of particular concern is the budgeting of average annual teacher salaries at $50,000 when the average annual district teacher’s salary is over $85,000 and the lowest is nearly $55,000.
Laurence in particular voiced his concerns about the salary and the amount of work that will be placed on staff. He cited his own experience hosting two Teach for America participants: “The concern is that they were ok with making a fairly low salary because they were right out of college.”
He noted that while such is possible with younger teachers without families, such a salary is likely insufficient for those with families.
Furthermore, in the 2013–2014 state budget package, the previous K-12 financing system will be replaced with a new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which will provide a base grant for all students and supplemental and concentration grants for English learners or students from low-income families. The apportionment level as determined by the California Department of Education has not yet been finalized, and the district is awaiting word from the state. As of now, schools should expect funding levels similar to 2012–2013.
However, the district staff report was concerned that the petitioners’ assumption of a per-pupil LCFF apportionment of about $9,000 is an overestimate and stated that a more realistic estimate is closer to $7,300. The district report stated that there is a potential for a deficit of over $170,000 in the first year of operation.
The staff report expressed further concerns regarding food budget, a low substitute budget, provisions for Special Education, and the petitioner’s cohort attendance projections. Design Tech’s petition assumes that 140 of the assumed 150 in the freshman class will continue into the second year and that all will graduate in four years. But in general, some students disenroll from a school between grades, causing resulting gaps in revenue due to the fact that enrollment is one of the largest factors in determining revenue.
However, with the petition approved and the Memorandum of Understanding effectively developed, Design Tech looks to be on schedule.
Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Kirk Black said, “What’s next for them is to get the students they need and find a location.” An area will either be designated on one of the district’s current facilities, or Design Tech will find a place to rent.
Board member Peter Hanley is looking forward to the new option. He added that revenues were looking better than in past years and said, “I think they have a very good chance to be successful. They’re experienced school administrators and bring a lot of expertise to the school and to the effort, so I expect that they will be successful and bring a new choice for parents and students to our school district.”
Regarding competing enrollment with the other district schools, Hanley added, “It’s supposed to [create competition]. I don’t think that’s a problem. I think that’s a good thing.”
177 students have currently signed intent to enroll forms, and Design Tech currently has three staff on board. Cerra will be working with curriculum development and staff recruitment in the coming months.
As part of its outreach, Design Tech even ran a pilot program for local students through the district GATE organization this summer. Cerra said, “We ran a two-week summer program to teach kids about design thinking, which is kind of the heart of our approach at the new high school.”
Montgomery said that they will continue outreach efforts.
“If anything, we’ll be able to be more diverse because as a charter school, it doesn’t matter where you live, so we can target any place in the district,” said Montgomery.
Access is often a common concern with charter schools. Opponents argue that social stratification and even racial segregation can occur due to charter schools’ sometimes limited accessibility and the draw for potentially more motivated, higher income students.
Thus, Design Tech is looking into a more central location in the district to provide greater access. Montgomery added, “We can build a diverse student body because a lot of the racial segregation that occurs in the schools has to do with where people live.”
Laurence added, “I don’t know what it’s going to look like. It’ll be interesting. They’ve got petitioners from all over the district, and it’ll be interesting to find out the first year, where the kind of bubble is that they pull from.”
The school will also be working carefully to help transition its diverse body of students into the new environment. Cerra added, “One of the things we’re going to be doing with the d.school is planning our opening of the school year: what do the first two weeks look like, how do we help transition kids into high school, how do we help them understand our culture and our process—which is going to be really different, and how do we help kids realize that they have a lot of power and a lot of say in the way our campus operates and how our school functions.”
Like many of the other board members, Dwyer is optimistic about the change. She added, “Nothing can change or improve if you don’t try new things, so we need to be willing to not be stuck in the mud, and let people try new things in a safe environment.”
She concluded, “We’re not a one-size-fits-all district, and we need to pay attention to that.”
wow do you think i can just flunk the next four years of high school
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no seriously i’m super jealous
I really like the idea of design/tech/specialized schools but sometimes I wonder to what extent people can be sure of the field they want to go into before entering high school.
That’s an interesting idea to start a charter school specializing in Design and Technology, but their plan seems to have a huge flaw in it in that they so far haven’t found a location. Apparently the district will either allocate space on current facilities, or find a place to rent. Perhaps I’m missing something, but there doesn’t appear to be ANY extra space on current campuses, nor are there any giant, inexpensive buildings for rent…
@Travis There was no opposition because they did say where it was going to be located. My daughter attends Mills. There are many parents that oppose the concept of two schools on one campus. We filled the Burlingame Theater at the last school board meeting. I wasn’t oppose to charter schools as there a fit for them in districts where schools are under performing. Mills is not a under performing school. Parents also resent how the school board did not name the campus until it was too late to speak out. The problem they have now is the charter school does not have the number of in-district students to qualify for facility. The losers in all this are the students at Mills and the charter school.