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Citing budget problems, the company that operates East Palo Alto’s high-performing Edison Brentwood School will cease managing the campus in June.
EdisonLearning Inc. of New York, a for-profit firm that has led Brentwood to become one of the top-performing schools in the community, will stay on as a $200,000-a-year consultant on curriculum, staff development and student evaluation.
The company stressed that students and families at the school will notice little change — teachers and classes will remain the same. The difference will be that overall school management will be handled by the Ravenswood City School District rather than by Edison.
The change was initiated by Edison, which cited financial reasons, and was approved by trustees of the school district, according to Ravenswood Trustee Saree Mading. Edison has operated Brentwood since the late 1990s.
Termination of the Edison charter means East Palo Alto will begin the 2010-2011 school year with three charter schools –two fewer than it had in September 2009.
The three are the top-performing K-8 East Palo Alto Charter School and its sister high school, the 9-12 East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy, both operated by Aspire Public Schools; as well as the East Palo Alto Academy High School operated by the Stanford University-affiliated Stanford New Schools.
Stanford New Schools’ elementary school, East Palo Alto Academy Elementary School, will close its doors in June after Ravenswood trustees last month declined to renew its charter, citing poor performance.
Ravenswood agreed to extend the Stanford high school’s charter for just two more years, giving the school time to find a new chartering agency at the high school level.
Both Edison and Ravenswood officials said students and families will notice little change at Brentwood this fall.
“We’ll continue to perform curriculum work, professional development with teachers and the like,” Michael Serpe, EdisonLearning’s director of public affairs and communications, said.
“Our relationship on the academic side continues exactly the same as before. It’s the management standpoint — lights, bill paying, and so forth — that we won’t continue to do.
“In reality, the students and certainly the parents of the students aren’t going to see any difference. It’s probably going to have the same teachers, same principal, same everything.”
Ravenswood School Superintendent Maria De La Vega could not be reached for comment, but Mading corroborated Serpe’s remarks.
The staffing is likely to remain the same this fall except for one teacher who is pregnant and another who has irregular credentials, she said.
“Edison terminated because they can’t afford to operate it,” Mading said. “They approached the district.”
Mading said the school’s name will revert to Brentwood School, its historic name before Edison became its manager in the late 1990s.
Edison Brentwood is one of Ravenswood’s top-performing schools according to the most recent API results, second only to the East Palo Alto Charter School.
In an interview last December, Edison Brentwood Principal Tami Espinosa attributed the school’s success to a stable, well-trained staff and a laser-like focus on curriculum.
Bait and switch.
No Profit Found.
East Palo Alto’s Ravenswood City School District is in bad shape. It possibly has little to do with the school, the teachers or the resources. I think it has everything to do with the parents. People wake up, minority people historically score low on these API tests, the precendent is already being set. What educators and social service folks need to do is try the Harlem School Zone model in East Palo Alto.
Some rap around services to help the parents to help the children. Not only with language issues, but to help socialize the children to limit behaviors that get in the way of learning, proper food and nutrition which could help learning and health.
Rap around services that support the development of healthy young minds and excellent behaviors and set expectation of performance. Punishment for poor behavior. Demand parents get involved force volunterring, force homework monitoring, force mainstream, or I can asure you these children will not make it in the real world. Even if they make it in EPA to stay alive. They will be very far behind.
Those children will not be able to compete in the peninsula. They will not be able to care for themselves, feed and cloth their own children. So, damn it get ready, pack yo bags and move out to the central valley, where you can afford to live.
East Palo Alto will soon be predominatley white and asian and those folks will have children they protect, demand a level of performance and who will vote and elect officals who will make the city new. Get ready, its a hard reality, but its true.
Take your city back or get it taken away.
I need to say that I think it inappropriate that Sharee Mading, who is a Charter School principal be allowed to be on the school board even though she is a EPA resident. There appears to be a conflict of interest.
The city attorney and the superdnt of public instruction needs to check into that. Furthermore she should not be giving interviews for the entire school district.
I have worked in Ravenswood District for the last 12 years, and really know what’s going on. The District is far, far, far better since the change in leadership in 2003. Yes, it’s harder to get good test scores from students who don’t speak English at home. It’s an uphill battle, and resources have a great deal to do with it. Yes, the Harlam School model is amazing, and EPA is looking seriously at that, but Harlam spends $70 million each year doing this. Ravenswood has a General Budget of about $25 million, except they expect a cut of about $5 million this coming year. Counselors are gone. Secretarial support is almost gone, custodian support was cut in half, technology support was cut in half — and that was all done with last year’s budget cuts.
But the administration and teachers and support staff are working very hard to teach kids basic curriculum and help them to be ready to succeed in high school and beyond.
While you are at the website looking at API scores, look at Palo Alto. The African-American students only do 694 on the test, and the Latino students 757. That’s not much better than Ravenswood’s scores.