Teachers and parents had the first opportunity Tuesday night at a virtual town hall to meet officials with Green Dot Public Schools, the Los Angeles-based charter operator that will be staffing ML King Middle School next year.
“The district is extremely excited to partner with Green Dot,” Anetra Cheatham, the innovation officer for Beaumont ISD, said during the meeting. “We want to dispel this idea that we have now given our school to Green Dot. It is very much both a Green Dot school and a Beaumont public school.”
Cliff Claflin, the executive director of Green Dot of Southeast Texas, echoed those sentiments, adding that the partnership is focused on academics.
“Academic programming and what will happen in the classroom will be different,” he said. “The length of the day will look very similar, but it will run on a block schedule.”
During the meeting Claflin introduced the new principal for the campus, John Burnett, a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta who started his teaching career through the nonprofit Teach For America.
“I am excited not so much to transform kids, as to empower them,” Burnett said. “I am excited to come and serve the community and work with you.”
Burnett taught several grades of Language Arts in Atlanta before moving to Brooklyn where he taught at a Boys Charter School. He was most recently the principal at KIPP Texas Public Schools in Houston.
Cheatham explained the process of the partnership laid out in State Bill 1882, a law that outlines how schools can partner with outside operators to pause accountability penalties for two years.
“We are a community school,” Burnett said. “Charter school, public school — I guess technically we are an 1882, but in my mind I just see us as a community school.”
The agreement with the company reached at the end of last year ended an extensive search process that spanned over last year and gives BISD a two-year grace period to turn around unsatisfactory accountability ratings.
The district first made several failed attempts to find a charter to operate King Middle School through a process known as “Calls for quality schools” that allows public schools to secure outside partners to help rehabilitate schools struggling with academic and accountability rankings, as well as to provide innovative and different options for parents.
In its application to the district, Green Dot laid out its vision “to prove that it is possible to address pernicious discrepancies in access and opportunity between low-income students and their more affluent peers by purposefully locating schools in communities made up largely of low income families in need of high quality educational partners and programs.”
The company said in its application that it operates schools in California and Tennessee that are demographically and socioeconomically similar to Beaumont.
Brittney Garza, the community engagement manager for Green Dot, underscored that during the meeting.
While the agreement is called a partnership, the contract gives Green Dot authority to hire and fire all employees, principals and other academic instructional employees, specifying that the company is “under no obligation to hire or contract with any person currently employed or contracted by the district in any capacity.”
Claflin said teachers who currently work there have been given the opportunity to apply and stay on in new roles.
“We are working primarily with the internal staff right now,” he said. “We are also parallel to that working to recruiting the strongest teachers we can, not just in Jefferson County.”
The district has similar agreements in place to operate Fehl-Price Elementary School, Jones-Clark Elementary School and Smith Middle School.
While there has been some apprehension leading up to the partnership starting next year, parents during the meeting share optimism about the partnership.
“I am so excited about my child attending King now,” Gayla Young said.
The charter partnership is part of a broader push to increase academics and standards across the district, an increasingly important push as scores have slipped due to what the district is calling the COVID slide.
The meeting Tuesday was the first of several planned, with a community advisory team being formed to discuss issues, plan activities and “cultivate a strong sense of community among all members of MLK and the surrounding community.”
Those interested in joining can email Garza at brittney.garza@greendot.org.
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