This spring, Aspire celebrates its fifth anniversary. In five
short years, Aspire has grown from being a bold vision for public school
reform to an organization of ten living, breathing charter schools. Aspire
CEO Don Shalvey comments on our remarkable progress and our outlook for
the next five years.
This spring, Aspire celebrates its fifth anniversary. Five years ago,
we were considered “outrageous dreamers”. Now, we are called
“ambitious doers.” This academic year, we have grown from
seven to ten schools, serving over 3,000 students. And we’re poised
to grow to 25 schools over the next five years. Our dream – a statewide
organization of high quality small schools in California’s neediest
communities - is becoming real.
We are incredibly grateful to the many individuals and organizations who
are helping to make the dream a reality:
- Over the past several months, with the help of not-for-profit consultancy
firm The Bridgespan
Group, we have created the next version of our business plan. Our
new plan will guide us as we refine our systems, metrics and organizational
design, enhance school quality and open new schools. Bridgespan’s
work with Aspire was generously supported by The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Don Shalvey, CEO
Aspire Public Schools
- Several of our investors are helping us create a culture of “College
for Certain” for all our students. “Hire & Higher,”
an internship program for juniors and seniors in our secondary schools,
will commence this summer at East Palo Alto High School and Lionel Wilson
College Prep. We are grateful to The
James Irvine Foundation For their support of this program. Students
will intern in local businesses while taking community college courses
and workplace readiness training, linking classroom academics with the
relevance and rigor of the workplace. We’re also thrilled to have
the support of Ashoka
to implement College
Summit at two of our high schools. College Summit is an award-winning
program that helps students, staff
and families with a long-range strategy for advancing to college.
- In January, the Starbucks
Foundation announced its support for the literacy program at Lionel
Wilson College Preparatory Academy, our high school in Oakland. John Zwolinski,
literacy specialist at Wilson Prep, is working with the managers of three
local Starbucks branches to provide volunteer after-school tutors and
establish a book drive campaign for the school.
We are incredibly proud of the individuals in our organization who do
such extraordinary work:
- Five members of our East Palo Alto High School staff - school principal
Nicky Ramos-Beban, assistant principal Jeff Gilbert, and teachers William
Dean, Beth Injasoulian and Rachel Shea will be among only 50 educators
honored at a celebration at Stanford University hosted by comedian Bill
Cosby on May 23. The fundraiser, Cosby
on Campus: Celebrating Teachers will provide fellowships for students
who are passionately committed to teaching low-income youth.
-
Congratulations are also in order to University Charter School in Modesto,
which will be recognized as a California Distinguished School for its
outstanding achievement, parent support, community participation and strong
professional staff. The school is Aspire’s second Distinguished
School, and received the award during its very first year of eligibility.
Staff will receive the award at a celebration event at Disneyland in May.
In December, Aspire won Fast
Company’s magazine’s inaugural Social Capitalist
award. Aspire was one of 20 innovative social sector organizations selected
by the magazine following a six month process in which the magazine’s
expert panel analyzed our business model and financials, interviewed Aspire
leaders and consulted with experts in the social entrepreneurship field.
Other award winners included Aspire’s investors the New
Schools Venture Fund, and Aspire collaborators KaBoom!
and College Summit www.collegesummit.org. Fast Company ranked Aspire highly
in terms of entrepreneurship, innovation, social impact, aspiration and
sustainability. Aspire was featured in the January
issue of the magazine. We are extremely proud of this honor and its
statement about Aspire’s impact in the social sector.
Looking
to the future, we see more small Aspire schools that make a big difference
for a greater number of students. Aspire is preparing to open 5-6 new
schools by the fall of 2005 in locations including Oakland, East Palo
Alto, Stockton, and Sacramento. We also anticipate expanding to Southern
California in the next 2-3 years.
Research
consistently shows that education determines the economic destiny of low-income
families. College diplomas enable graduates to earn family-sustaining
incomes, which lead home ownership and neighborhood safety rates to increase,
along with volunteerism and civic participation rates. In the neighborhoods
we serve, the college graduation rate is currently below five percent.
Over 40 percent of our current students do not have a parent who has graduated
from high school. But Aspire is making college a reality for all of our
students. Aspire students will make greater contributions to society,
improve their neighborhoods, and make a positive effect on our economy
and the quality of life in California.
To keep opening new schools, we need your continued support. Every gift counts. A new school takes about $1 million to get off the ground. But each school will exist for more than 40 years, serve more than 3,000 families and advance thousands of students to college and lifelong success.
If our vision still sounds like an “outrageous dream,” consider the words of Tomas Marquez, a junior at Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy, in an email to school principal Troyvoi Hicks: “Thank you for giving us this great school, for giving me a chance to do my best, and having a chance to succeed. I’m behind you one hundred percent and I am willing to do whatever is necessary to make our school a better place. I’ll paint bathrooms. If we have more fundraisers I’ll sell all that I can. Like you said to Edgar, Eduardo and me, ‘you and everyone else CAN go to college’. I know you won’t give up on us. We’ll try our hardest, succeed in this world, and kick its butt!’”
Thank you, Tomas. Thank
you, Troyvoi. And thank you to all of our supporters. You’re making
our outrageous dreams come true, every single day.
Don Shalvey is the CEO and Co-Founder of Aspire Public Schools
