Starting Tuesday, April 3 2018 at noon, an alternative charter to Dayton Public Schools will begin accepting preliminary applications from parents of Dayton Public Schools students, and parents who have been choosing charters and parochial schools to avoid the constant chaos of DPS.
There will also be an area for DPS employees to privately register their interest in joining this new soundly run alternative to DPS.
When the sign ups cross over 60% of students, and 75% of staff, the alternative charter will ask the state board of education to place them as the primary operators of the district, accepting full responsibility for the failings of existing leadership to bring order to the district.
The leadership team started organizing Dayton Public Preparatory as an alternative in the wake of the non-action to remove Dr. Adil Baguirov from the board even after his residency was clearly in violation [1] of all board policy. The ridiculous glowing review of former Superintendent Rhonda Corr [2] just previous to their buyout of Corr moved the timeline up from fall of 2019 to fall of 2018. Further actions, including the turmoil caused by incompetent communications surrounding the eventual announcement of the closing of one school [3] was the final straw.
The team behind Dayton Public Preparatory is proposing a totally different approach to education in Dayton, very similar to the proposals in the video that I released in December of 2016: “There ain’t no “F” in Dayton”- to include only 2 bell times, transportation for all students at all grade levels, year round schools, longer school days with much shorter instructional time per-day, and higher expectations and standards. Details will be released on the sign up page on April 3rd.
The new organization will essentially take-over the existing district, with state support, instead of the previous interventions with power handed to other organizations that have no more experience than the failing districts had before- see Cleveland, Youngstown and Elyria for examples of State failure to improve schools via intervention.
While the organization will not have a public school board, much like the Dayton income tax supported “Learn to Earn” folks, they will fully comply with all requirements of the laws and rules governing public school systems, and will have a three year window to successfully move the district from failing to Annual Yearly Progress with a D average.
All union contracts will be honored, however, instead of working a 1080 hour school year, employees will be expected to work a standard 2080 hour year for the same pay. If the district moves to a C average, all pay will increase 25% for anyone at the building level. Administrators pay will remain the same.
The leadership team includes highly skilled and proven executives that are well known to the community. The superintendent will have had over 20 years experience in the district, the head of business operations and HR also has over 15 years experience with the district as well as at a much larger district and the DPP treasurer never had the turmoil the current treasurer has had in her last 2 years.
This new district management team promises top to bottom cultural transformation of the district, with in service training beginning in July of 2018 with school to open on the year round full-time schedule in August. This will not be public education like any other in the United States, it is set to be a new model for urban and
Their names will be released to all who have signed up as interested after the signups reach 5,000 students and 400 teachers, which is expected to take less than 2 weeks.
Sign-up at https://daytonpublicprep.org [4] after noon on April 3rd.
There has been a major commitment of funding from several national educational foundations based on the boldness of this plan, totaling pledges of $62.3 million dollars to date. Additional funding is still being sourced and some is contingent at how quickly the new organization reaches its sign-up goals. A local philanthropist has been briefed and is willing to step in with additional funding anonymously, to match the funding of national organizations dollar for dollar when this team gets state approval.
National backers include:
- The Emerson Collective [5]– backed by Laurene Powell Jobs
- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [6]
- Kaiser Family Foundation [7] – Contingent on staffing each building with a nurse and a social worker.
- MacArthur Foundation [8]
- Annie E. Casey Foundation [9]
- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative [10]
Full disclosure, my firm [11] has been involved in talks with the founders of this organization since January of 2017, 2 weeks after I released the video. We have not been compensated for our work thus far, but, have been awarded a contract to begin when the threshold for announcement is reached. The contract is for the same amount we bid to manage DPS marketing in 2017 [12], but were rejected by the board and district for the highest bidder.
such good news
So let’s see; you all seem to think that teachers who currently are contracted for 1080 clock-hours are:
(a) only working during clock time. Do you know any good teachers who aren’t spending serious time outside of school hours, grading and prepping and advancing their own education and particpating in required professional development?
(b) will be entirely happy being asked to double clock time–unless you’re going to follow the Japanese model where teachers spend only half their clock time in the classroom and then are given the rest of the day for prep, grading, collaboration and study?
Certainly I don’t know the details of how you all plan to pull this off, but I’m wary that there’s some sand in your lubricant there.
You had me going!I really wanted to believe this, but then remembered the date. Well done, Esrati!
please tell me this is an April Fools joke.
TRuddick- did you watch the video? Half day instruction, quarter day planning/grading, quarter day guided activities.
Pat, Becca- I assure you the registration site will go live on Tuesday at noon. Too much work and thought has gone into this.
I did not watch the video today b/c I believe I watched it when it was first produced.
Keep in mind that, in my experience, being able to work at home makes more sense for teachers. I’m able to work in an environment that’s more comfortable and set up for my personal productivity, with my own materials close to hand–that’s better than, for example, working in the government-issue office with the limited materials.
Truddick- it may not work for all teachers. We expect to lose about 20% who can’t live without their summers- but, we’ll be actively recruiting new teachers from across the country- with our attractive cost of living- and incentives to buy homes in Dayton.
There are people who want to be involved in the remaking of urban schools- and solving the effects of poverty on education.
The details will certainly be intriguing. Be aware that, if attention is paid, you’ll find that many of these ideas will suffer from the law of unexpected consequences. If you focus less on days and hours, and more on efficiency and productivity and results, those consequences may be dire.
I so want this not to be an April Fools prank…
Charter schools are soooooo terrible but “we’ll make this one ‘different'”.
Hall- with this school board- anything will be better.
It’s been constant chaos for 3 years.
It’s time for something different.
When are the teachers supposed to get additional training and professional development (usually scheduled during the summer and traditional vacation times by the organizations that provide that kind of thing)?
I also heard that Sid Finch will be hired as the baseball coach if this all comes to be.
I understand Raleigh Trammell will be the principal, and that they’ll be holding classes in the Arcade.
Also, Larry Flynt will be returning to Dayton to publish the school yearbook.
I am hoping that other DPS student’s parents will join me in registering their kids when the website launches Tuesday!
There will be an exchange student program with North Korea, too. Such innovation!
The Dayton schools are beyond saving so yes a radical change. This eliminates the problem of openness and transparency by eliminating it. A reasonable question would be what is the track record in urban districts and how many kids do they leave behind?
It is such a sad situation. Everyone wants a miracle but no one believes in magic.
This website looks like a joke.
Your first post indicated that after 5,000 students and 400 teachers, the new administration would be revealed. Now you saying that after 7,500 students. You are starting off with conflicting information.
Thanks for catching the typo Elizabeth- those were the numbers for petitioning the state. It’s been fixed.
You’re a moron for thinking this will work. Just move out of Dayton and badger some other community that refuses to offer work to an arrogant, self-serving, narcissistic, not-real media, nobody.
Several comments from previous posts challenged David to contribute his ideas and offer his solutions to the public for discussion/consideration. Now, he has answered that challenge. Although the viability of his proposal is questionable, he is doing something. I do not agree with David on many things, or agree with some of his tactics. However, he cares about the community and attempts to make it better. Personal attacks on David (or anyone else for that matter) do not advance an argument against his ideas.
Do I think that the Dayton Public Preparatory will succeed in replacing the DPS? Its is possible, but unlikely. In my opinion, there are just too many hurdles to overcome in the few months prior to July 2018. Regardless of the success or failure of this venture, at least there are still people who care enough about the education of our children to take actions that they think will create an improvement from the current condition. At the very least, this may motivate the DPS board to consider other options to improve the performance of the district.
I’ve given it some thought. Anything would be better than the Dayton Public Schools.
Lisa, when you write “anything would be better”–come on, we had ECOT and ASiS and many other failed attempts at things that were heralded as better–and in the end students suffered.
Don’t know if this would be better, but it’s time for standards. I say no public money goes to any school unless teachers are in charge of curriculum and instruction and class sizes are proper for the grade level. That requires a state-level fix and not a local initiative.
Dear Truddick, I wish. As a parent in Dayton I would never allow my children to go to public schools. As they became high school age the reality was awful. There are high school students who attend school in fear. You can see it in their eyes. All types of crime was a reality. Yes it is everywhere but it is worse in the Dayton schools. On top of that the instruction just is not there. The kids are way behind in every subject matter compared to children in other schools. Just time for a restart. It was very expensive to find an alternative. We are not wealthy people. Not a fan of traditional charter schools either. The children deserve to at least have a chance for a decent future.
So you can’t get elected to anything, and so now you are trying to stage a coup of the school board? Nice. By the way, it’s preparatory, not prepatory.
Joe, thanks for being a loyal reader.
I don’t see any other misspelling of preparatory.
I’ve been elected to Precinct captain 3x- just FYI.
And, I don’t recall ever seeing your name on any ballot.
How close to 5,000 students did you get? And how close to 400 staff?
Not close enough- the board is scheduled to meet to discuss the 2019 time schedule again.
“Not close enough” was pretty obvious since the team was never unveiled as was promised if the numbers had been met. Does “Not close enough” mean “no comment” and “don’t bother asking”? Can’t even give us a ball park, such as you got 60% of the targets or you got 25% of the targets?
[…] also admits that his post of April 1, 2018, about a new Charter taking over Dayton Public Schools was, you guessed it, an April Fools day […]