SchoolStart Success Stories
100% of full-partner charter schools which SchoolStart helped to start continue to serve students today. Emphasis is on the schools sustaining viability in three areas: finances, educational program, and organizational leadership.
SchoolStart also specializes in turning around troubled schools. Examples include:
- Converting failing public schools into high performance charter schools with a longer school day, longer school year, extended after school programs, an educational program integrating the Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence Curriculum with Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and supported by an exceptional integrated learning technology component.
- Facilitating educational program and organizational changes for charter schools as they achieved adequate yearly progress and were removed from their state’s watch list for No Child Left Behind.
- Facilitating the Reconstitution of two charter schools sponsored by the Saint Paul Public Schools, one of which is now recognized as a School of Excellence in Minnesota.
Several SchoolStart full-partner charter schools have achieved exceptional early success with students:
- In its first three years of operation Minneapolis Academy students (5-8 urban middle school with a balanced student population of African American, Somali, Latino, White, and American Indian, 90% qualifying for free or reduced lunch) out-performs all Minneapolis District middle schools, and out-performs the students from a charter school recognized the past eight years as the outstanding school in urban Minneapolis.
- In its fifth year, Partnership Academy students (Twin Cities first ring suburban k-6 charter school) achieved at higher levels than the students in any of its host district’s elementary schools and gained AYP safe harbor status. It is a school with 85% Latino students and 50% English Language Learners.
- Now in its second year, Carbon Valley Academy (a Colorado k-8 charter school just north of Denver) has a 97% daily attendance rate, a 95% rate of returning enrollees in existing grades, a growing waiting list, and NWEA assessment results showing significant gains over first year baseline data.
- Banning Lewis Ranch Academy (a first year k-8 charter school in Falcon, Colorado) is a new venture for SchoolStart. It is the first charter school we’ve assisted in start-up in which we partnered with a developer and an educational service provider (ESP) company. Its board participated extensively in SchoolStart training and has model policies and clearly defined roles and relationships with the ESP, a major accomplishment for local boards working with management companies. The school already has a growing waiting list and early assessments show great promise.