YES Prep Public Schools, a member charter school system in Houston, Texas, recently was named one of the 10 Best Places to Work in Houston by the Houston Business Journal!  No school has ever made the list.  YES Prep shares their view of this accomplishment below: 

My name is Ryan Dolibois and, as the Chief Development Officer of YES Prep, I am excited to have an opportunity to contribute to this blog. TCSA is doing incredible work and this blog will further help charter schools collaborate and communicate across Texas.

For those of you who don’t know YES Prep Public Schools, I should first introduce us.  Founded in 1998, YES Prep Public Schools is a Houston-based public charter school system serving over 4,000 low-income students in 6^th-12^th grade on eight area campuses. YES Prep was founded to prove a simple hypothesis: that students from low-income neighborhoods can achieve at the same level as their more affluent peers when given access to the same great opportunities, experiences and resources that exist in great private schools and great suburban public schools.  This video (written, composed, and filmed by YES Prep students and staff) provides the best introduction to who we are and what we do. 

YES Prep East End students serve at a local community garden in the spring of 2010.

Our goal is to Transform Houston by preparing a critical mass of low-income students for college graduation and creating “proof points” around the city that challenge the status quo in public education. Even though most students enter YES Prep up to two grades behind in math and reading, 100% of our graduating seniors have been accepted to four-year colleges across the country, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Rice, University of Texas, and Texas A&M. Even more exciting—over 90% of our students are the first generation in their family to attend a four-year university! In early June, we celebrated as our tenth class of seniors walked across the stage at graduation. This spring, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, honored our seniors’ achievements by serving as the keynote speaker at our annual “Senior Signing Day” ceremony.  We are truly proud of the Class of 2010 and all the work they have done to achieve their dreams of college success!

I am also pleased to report on another recent accomplishment. The Houston Business Journal just named YES Prep one of Houston’s Best Places to Work in their annual publication. We are the first public school system to ever earn this recognition and the only nonprofit (outside of the medical field) to make the list.  The ranking is based on an independent survey conducted and analyzed by the Houston Business Journal. To make the list, a large percentage of staff have to answer questions about team effectiveness, feeling valued, trust in senior leadership, and a host of other quality-defining metrics.

9th grade English class at YES Prep East End

So, a school district is one of the BEST PLACES TO WORK in Houston!?!? At the awards ceremony, there were definitely a number of people in the audience that were scratching their heads. We have all grown accustomed to seeing articles in the paper about teacher dissatisfaction with inequity in pay, the long hours, the ungrateful parents and students, and all of the other factors that seemingly make being a teacher so difficult and unappealing.

In contrast, winners of the Best Places to Work survey this year and in the past have included hospitals, law firms, financial institutions, and energy companies.  They win because their employees enjoy company sponsored birthday parties, tricked-out staff lounges, creatively decorated and well-attended holiday parties, and other “perks.” In the words of the Business Journal, these companies are noted for achieving “the often difficult balance of maintaining a stable, productive work environment that is also fun and fulfilling for employees.”

So a school system? What do we possibly have to offer, right? This year we employ roughly 325 staff, and the average age of a YES Prep teacher is 25. Our staff work long hours—our school day runs over 9 hours a day and every teacher is equipped with a school-sponsored cell phone so students and families can reach them even after the school day is over. “Just another day at the office” includes teaching, collaborating, tracking student achievement data, taking students on college visits, tutoring, disciplining, participating in community service, calling parents, and – of course – grading! Despite all of this, over 95% of our staff on our annual survey say that they feel like they are making a difference. As one employee wrote, “I cannot imagine doing anything with my life more meaningful than what I am doing now.  The thing I love most about YES Prep is that we are NEVER satisfied with the status quo.  Not for our students, not for us, not for education, not for Houston.  I love that we are always evaluating and reflecting on everything we do and we are not afraid to cut things that aren’t working and retry things that we should have done better!”

What we’re proving—as are many other charters across the state—is that it’s not just about ping-pong tables in the staff lounge and a large bonus at the end of the year that play a role in job satisfaction. We are all working hard to demonstrate that a school can and should be an awesome place to work. It IS possible to create an incredible work environment, most importantly because our biggest “perk” is not some material reward, but rather the opportunity to impact our students and make a true difference in our communities.

So, three cheers for charter schools! I look forward to the day when the annual Best Places to Work list is filled with more schools and nonprofits who are proving what is possible in public education.

“Discover + Create = Achieve.” 

At the end of our first school year, we’re proud to say that this is more than just a tagline. 

HFA students at the University of Texas.

From the very first week of school, when we visited the University of Texas in Austin and St. Edwards University, our 9th graders began to understand that college is an expectation for all students at Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design. Over the course of the year, they had the opportunity to visit five other college campuses, and started to discover what it takes to become college ready. 

But whether our students realize it yet or not, we are also helping them acquire the skills they’ll need to solve real-world problems.  As a part of our college prep curriculum and “design thinking” approach, our students work together on meaningful, hands-on projects — just like they will in college as they move toward their chosen careers. Our quarterly design challenges integrate what they are learning in core classes with a central question; the students collaborate with their peers and community members to develop possible solutions and their creative confidence.

One of our first design challenges focused on the question, “How might we develop a better carryall for someone?” Student teams worked with a nearby homeless center, Haven for Hope, to develop a backpack design that could enable their clients to keep their most vital belongings at hand.  As with all of our design challenges, they used a design process from the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University that’s adapted specifically for use by middle and high school students.

San Antonio community members gather at the unveiling of a mural painted by HFA students.

One 9^th grade student, Issac Lara, made a really powerful statement about our approach: “When we were designing the backpack, I learned that I can use the design process to create something that helps people in my community.”  We think it helps kids like Issac, too.

By the end of the year, our students were engaged with a broad range of partners in their design challenges.  To address the question, “How might we reduce vandalism in our community?” our students partnered with residents, the police department, city council representatives, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, a city planner, and internationally renowned muralists to understand of the causes of vandalism in San Antonio and develop a possible response that leverages their artistic talents – a 1600 ft. mural in downtown San Antonio.

There’s a lot of hard work ahead for all of us at Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design — but we think we’re onto the start of something special.  Interested in learning more about Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design?  Watch a video of our recent appearance on Great Day San Antonio, visit www.thealamedaschool.org, call us at 210-226-4031, or “Like” us on Facebook to stay updated!

Jeffrey D. Flores is Superintendent/Principal of Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design, which opened in August 2009.  An administrator, teacher, and technical assistance provider for more than fourteen years, Jeff has been responsible for the development of quality educational opportunities for students in charter, parochial, and traditional public schools across Texas. He earned an undergraduate degree in history, a master’s degree in education from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, and a master’s degree in management from Indiana Wesleyan University.

Our member schools work relentlessly to ensure that they are providing meaningful summer opportunities for their students. This summer, ten students from six different Texans Can! Academy campuses were the the first students from Dallas and Austin to participate in a week-long program  developed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for students and teachers in Washington, D.C.    

They will be participating in the summer leadership seminar called Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community Leadership Program. Arthur R. Brown, the Museum’s Manager of Community Programs, will lead the students and four faculty and staff members in an overview of the Museum’s program, in which students and teachers explore Holocaust history and why it remains relevant today.   

Texans Can! students in the Dallas airport on the way to Washington, D.C.!

The following blog was written by Knycole Smiley, a sophomore at Texans Can! Academy who participated in the program.  

7/23/2010 

Yesterday, we went back the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. to hear from Henry Greenbaum, a holocaust survivor. He and his family were sent to the ghettos when he was twelve years old – not even a teenager.  

The Nazis separated him from his mother, sisters, and younger family members. If you were too young to work, you were killed. Later, they were taken from the ghetto and sent to a concentration camp by train. Some were sent to the left, and others to the right. At that moment, he was separated from his mother and sisters, and never saw them again. He was not certain, but he believed that they had been murdered and buried in trenches that the Jews had been made to dig earlier. 

Greenbaum had to sleep in the barracks on a board with two other people.  There wasn’t a mattress, a pillow, or anything more than a small blanket to cover himself with. 

Knycole Smiley (fourth from left) with Texans Can! classmates, visiting the White House.

  I cannot imagine having to live under such conditions.  We only got a taste of it at The Catholic University of America, where we lived in dorms that were bare. We had one sheet and a thin blanket, but no pillow. I complained all night and woke up with a crook in my neck, but when Mr. Greenbaum talked about his sleeping conditions, it put things in perspective. 

After his speech, I went up to him and told him how grateful I was that he was able to share such a strong story with us. Many of the things he talked about reminded me of the segregation in America that was going on when my grandparents were younger. At that time, blacks weren’t allowed to walk on the sidewalks when whites were on the sidewalks. In Europe, Jews were being treated exactly the same by the Germans. 

Mr. Greenbaum taught me a lot that day. I complain about a lot of things and give my mother a hard time, but the things I go through are not even half as bad as what Mr. Greenbaum went through. After that day, I promised to be more appreciative. 

After this leadership training, I made pledge, a future commitment.  I pledge to be responsible and to take a stand against hate and enforce unity. I pledge to be confident and encourage others. I pledge to make a difference in my community. I pledge to be a leader, so that something this tragic and terrible cannot happen again where I live. 

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What do the students at your charter school do over the summer?  What kinds of summer opportunities do your students engage in? We’d love to hear from you!

Member school Rapoport Academy opened in 1998 with only 16 students.  This past school year, it served 375 students from 13 school districts in the greater Waco area.   Rapoport recently garnered some very postive attention from Baylor law professor, Mark Osler.  Below is an introduction from Rapoport Academy and then a guest column that Professor Osler wrote for wacotrib.com about his visit to Rapoport Academy.*

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Rapoport Academy fosters a college-going culture for all students (70% of whom are economically disadvantaged) through rigorous academics, high behavioral standards, an emphasis on STEM education, a college focus beginning in pre-K (with college tours beginning in 5^th grade and college courses in 9^th grade), and small class sizes (15 or fewer at all levels) that allow teachers to meet the individual needs of each student. Rapoport Academy’s Paul and Jane Meyer Public High School graduated its inaugural senior class on May 29, 2010. This class of 24 graduates earned 588 college credit hours through Rapoport Academy’s Early College High School Program, and each student was accepted to college. Rapoport Academy staff are mission-driven and passionate about knowing and meeting the needs of individual students in a rigorous, relevant, and relational school environment. 

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Mark W. Osler, guest columnist: Knowing the students right down to their pencils      — Wacotrib.com, Friday, July 9, 2010

The best things often reveal themselves in quiet moments. They are worth listening for, and worth celebrating when they are found in our midst.

8th grade students have science class outside with Ms. Jill Barrow!

There are three quiet moments that have told me everything I need to know about the Rapoport Academy, the no-tuition charter school which has developed three thriving campuses on the east side of the Brazos. Yes, Rapoport has achieved exemplary rankings from the state, but that doesn’t tell me much about what it is they do. To find that out, I had to listen.

I’m an eavesdropper, and it is this tendency that led me to that first quiet moment. I was sitting in a hallway in Rapoport’s middle school. There was a pencil on the floor with a design on it. A teacher walked over, picked up the pencil, and called to another teacher. “Whose pencil is this?” she asked.

“That’s Darius’ pencil,” the other replied.

I was stunned. The children at this school are known. What they do, who they hang around with, how their studies are progressing, what pencil they use — they are known. It wasn’t until that moment that I fully identified that remarkable trait of this school, and my subsequent encounters confirmed it: The teachers were more engaged with the full lives of their students than I could have imagined possible.

The second moment occurred at lunch months later. I was sitting with five middle school kids, eating. I told a funny story and everyone laughed; I was loving it. It got a little loud. The lunch monitor came and gave me that look that lunch monitors have: “Quiet down.” Me. It didn’t matter who I was — she knew that I was the one causing the problem, and she was right.

In the quiet moment that followed, I reflected on the meaning of such properly equal treatment. My belief in the school deepened.

Finally, there was a day about a year ago that I had to meet with the superintendent, Dr. Nancy Grayson. I went to the desk at the middle school and asked where I could find her. The receptionist pointed over the driveway to a field, so I walked into the blistering heat in the direction she had given me.

In this 7th grade science class, students dissect frogs with a local physician.

There, in the middle of the scorched field, was Dr. Grayson. She was laboring in an orange jumpsuit, spraying weeds. If you want a lean staff, it appears, look no further than Rapoport, where the esteemed and successful superintendent meets with community and national leaders, then straps on a tank of weed killer and gets down to work.

Yes, the best things do reveal themselves in the quiet moments, but they’re created in quiet as well. The lesson from Rapoport may well be that a great school is not about what curriculum you buy, your PR campaign or the pre-existing advantages students might have, but about something more lasting and eternal: That there is no substitute for hard work, high expectations and the value of knowing the students right down to their pencils.

Mark Osler, professor of law at Baylor University, is a Yale Law School graduate and a former federal prosecutor. As lead counsel, he won the case of Spears v. United States (2009) in the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the court held that sentencing judges can categorically reject the 100-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine in federal sentencing guidelines. He will leave Waco to teach at the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) School of Law this fall.

*Reprinted with author’s permission.

Member school system Uplift Education currently serves students in the greater Dallas area and was recently ranked the 14th best public high school in America – and highest ranking public school from Texas – by Newsweek magazine. Read their take on how they accomplished this achievement:
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Newsweek magazine recently ranked North Hills Preparatory, Uplift Education’s oldest campus and one of the original charters granted in Texas, as the 14th best public high school in America. This marks North Hills’ fifth consecutive appearance in the Top 20 – a showing that Newsweek itself was quick to point out was quite an accomplishment. Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way and that we keep in the forefront of our minds as we scale our model to educate 10,000 students in underserved communities by 2020.

1. College access and success for all students is the goal

This is the first and last measure of success in everything we do at Uplift. We take pride in our ability to be an incubator for innovation in education and embrace best practices to develop a model that advances student achievement for all students in meaningful ways.

2. Entrepreneurial innovation is critical to our human capital strategy

Having the best school leaders and teachers drives student achievement. We’ve invested considerably into recruiting and retaining the best through professional and leadership development efforts, “pay for performance” measures, Master Teacher career paths, and using predictive research to recruit teachers who will be successful under the Uplift model.

Students in class at North Hills Prep

3. ALL students can be successful academically – regardless of their ZIP code

Uplift offers a proven model that emphasizes high expectations and rigor, based on our belief that ALL students can benefit from a rigorous curriculum including Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes. In addition to North Hills, we have successfully replicated this model at our six urban campuses – Peak Prep (East Dallas), Hampton Prep (South Dallas), Summit International Prep (Arlington), Williams Prep (Northwest Dallas), Heights Prep (opening in West Dallas in August 2010), and Laureate Prep (opening in Downtown Dallas in August 2010). We set the bar high for our students and continually move expectations forward, using data to tailor student plans and key initiatives. We are committed to spending more time on task and being relational with our students and families. The result? Our students will continue to outperform their peers and have a passionate desire to succeed in college.

4. If college is the end goal, it has to be the focus from day one

The Uplift culture stresses that every student will go to college. By providing a K-12 continuum, we’re able to ensure rigor and college readiness from the first day a student comes into one of our kindergarten classrooms. Participation in our Road to College program gives all students access to college field experiences, test prep, and help applying to schools and scholarships. Because we work with many first generation college-going students, we work closely with both students and their parents, ensuring they believe in their ability to enter and succeed in a college environment.

– Yasmin Bhatia, Uplift Education CEO

Yasmin joined Uplift Education in 2009 after having been a consultant at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, for 9 years.  While at McKinsey, Yasmin served the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the City of Dallas, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 

Yasmin holds an undergraduate degree in Finance and Business Honors from the University of Texas in Austin and a MBA from Stanford University.  She and her husband reside in Dallas with their daughter Isabel and son Ian.