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| | | University High spurs uproar as it seeks charter school status | | March 05, 2010 | | | | Staff Writer | | This story has been altered and updated from its original version
The controversial case of University High, a would-be charter school that wants to occupy the International Graduate University building on D Street SE, is now in the hands of the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
The board, which held a hearing this week on the school’s application, will issue a decision on April 19.
At the March 16 hearing, a handful of residents spoke against the school, pointing to hundreds of signatures on two petitions opposing the school, as well as the school’s relationship with the failed International Graduate University. No one spoke in favor of the application.
“The IGU and the proposed charter are one in the same,” said Mark Segraves, who lives across from the school and is also a former Voice reporter and current WTOP radio reporter.
Segraves said the International Graduate University has another charter application before the board for the same space, and is simply “hedging its bets” so it will not lose the former Buchanan School building at 1325 D St. SE.
University High has proposed to eventually host 260 at-risk high school students who would earn 60 college credits during the program, according to its application.
The school plans to rent the D Street building with $275,000 in loans from the International Graduate University, the application says. The International Graduate University officially closed last year after it lost its District license to grant post-secondary degrees. The school had been operating there since it bought the building from the District in 1998, after losing its license in Virginia. Residents have said there weren’t a lot of comings-and-goings at the school, which served mostly foreign students.
Residents say University High executive director Terry Shelton has not addressed most of their concerns directly, but at a recent community meeting he praised the residents for being “responsible citizens” -- which he said was in line with the school’s intended theme of politics and democracy.
“There are no problems with your concerns because they are very valid concerns,” Shelton said.
Among other questions, charter school board members asked Shelton how University High plans to deal with a deluge of students who are likely to enter the school with below-grade-level proficiency.
University High representatives responded that teachers would be trained to use "proficiency data" to help students, who will also be assigned mentors. Virginia Hayes Williams, mother of former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and a founding member of University High, also said the school would work to reinforce the idea that students are valued.
“When we teach our children that we love and respect them — that’s why I’m here,” Williams said. “We want to be sure they are prepared to live a good life.”
But the detractors have questioned whether the school’s founders are prepared to run the operation. They have pointed to an apparent case of plagiarism as cause for concern: In University High’s charter application, the description of many proposed classes nearly exactly matches those of Gonzaga College High School in the Northwest portion of Ward 6.
The plagiarism, discovered by residents who live near the building, was reported by blogs at The Washington Post and Washington City Paper. At a recent community meeting, Shelton apologized for the incident. “Due to extenuating circumstances, perhaps my oversight wasn’t as it should’ve been,” he said at a committee meeting of the Southeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission (ANC 6B).
But Shelton said the issue should not stop the charter board from approving the school next month. “I’m sorry and I’m not sure how that happened or why that happened.”
The neighborhood commission unanimously voted to “strongly oppose” the charter school.
Residents have expressed other concerns about aspects of the would-be charter school’s plans, and said they were put off by a tense initial meeting with Shelton and Walter Boek, president of the International Graduate University.
At that meeting, Shelton said University High might partner with the Community College of the District of Columbia. The college has denied any intention to partner with the charter.
The application also announced the proposed charter school’s plan to use nearby Watkins Field for outside playing space. But residents noted that Watkins Elementary School students already use the field most of the time.
“Our children are there all day everyday. It’s highly inadvisable and perhaps dangerous to have 3- to 10-year-olds mixing with high-schoolers,” one Watkins parent said at the charter school board hearing.
Residents also criticized the application’s lack of a security plan, but Shelton added that element to the document in time for the charter school board meeting. Some have said they’re still not satisfied with the plan.
Several residents have also voiced discontent with the plan to bring in at-risk children from other areas instead of limiting enrollment to at-risk children who live in the neighborhood. At a recent meeting, neighborhood commission chair David Garrison warned residents against using that argument, since charter schools, by law, have to open their doors to students from all over the city. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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