JAN 17, 2008

PIONEER TECHNOLOGY CHARTER SCHOOL

RESPONSES TO DENIAL REASONS

Explain

  1. the plan to market to diverse populations, including detailed examples,

The PioneerTechnologyCharterSchool will serve students who are from the Southeast Portland and the areas adjacent to the local district. The purpose of the PioneerTechnologyCharterSchool is to prepare students for academic success in their further education with highly experienced and qualified staff, and strong academic program.

Target Marketing Strategy

Our target customers can be defined as low-income families who want their children to get a college-prep private education, and the round-the-corner parents. To garner enough interest in Pioneer, to allow the school to reach its anticipated enrollment and also to understand parents' expectations better, we will pole at various events which will be held in southeast Portland and will have door-to-door canvassing in various parts of the city.

RoseEducationCenter uses a variety of activities to attract and enroll students, which includes newspaper ads, direct mailing, open houses and tutoring centers for the students of the area schools. We will hire public relations managers and rent a tutoring and information center to reach out our target student population. We will also open booths at the regional malls and community centers. Recruitment activities will start as soon as the Pioneer Technology charter proposal is approved by the Portland Public Schools. We expect to get the result in February 2008 and scheduled to start recruitment in March 2008. We will inform our parents on our intent to enroll list during and after the charter approval process. They will be our ambassadors in the community on our effort to recruit students and families.

There are a number of unique groups that present marketing opportunities for the PioneerTechnologySchool. The key groups vital to the successful opening of this school include teachers, students, families, businesses, and universities. To promote and recruit, we plan to leverage the experience and networks of the founders and advisory board members.

Advertising

Information about Pioneer and the admissions process will be disseminated throughout the city via flyers, bulletins, media, mailings, and workshops at schools and other public institutions. This process will also include outreach to parents, teachers, pediatricians, counselors, social service agencies, and other youth advocates. At open houses held in the spring, prospective students and their parents or guardians will hear a comprehensive presentation about the school. Discussions will include the school's academic program, the schedule for an extended school day, and expectations for student behavior and parental involvement. Also discussed will be any other community programs that exist to support the operations or mission of the school.

Interested parents and guardians who did not attend one of the school's springtime open houses will be provided with a packet of written materials covering all the topics formally discussed at the open houses, and a meeting will be scheduled with appropriate school staff for interested parties to verbally review all the materials and answer any questions.

Our plan for a comprehensive community outreach and advertising includes meetings with community leaders, door-to-door advertising, direct mailing, fliers, bulletins, media coverage, and public presentations such as open houses at the MSA and other public institutions (public libraries, community centers…). We have met with several community leaders, and we have set up a web page at to provide online presentations and information about the school.

The purpose of the open houses, which will be held in March through August, is noted above. Invitations to “open houses” will be widely distributed to parents and students throughout southeast Portland and neighboring areas. The school will vigorously get these announcements to the public through as many available routes as is practical, including (but not limited to):

  • Supporting Parents: Rose Education Corporation has a group of actively involved parents at each school location, who helps advertise the school.
  • Public Relations Managers: We will hire PR managers bilingual in Spanish, Russian and other local languages to publicize our new schools.
  • Free-tutoring and Information Office: We will open a small free-tutoring and information office to inform and attract students and parents.
  • Flyers, Brochures: Rose Education will post brochures at common places such as public libraries, and community centers. Flyers will be printed in the area minorities’ languages such as Spanish and Russian.
  • Newspaper ads: Local newspaper ads will also be used.
  • TV ads: Rose Education will run TV commercials in Spanish, Russian and other local languages as well as English.
  • Open houses: Two open houses per month from March to August.
  • Direct Mailing: Dialog Schools will get student mailing addresses from a PR company which sells customer addresses with certain criteria such as age.

Then mail them information about the school’s alternative educational programs.

These methods will help ensure that the invitation to hear directly about the opportunities offered to children by the charter school gets widely circulated.

Printed information about the charter school and the application process and its time frame will be widely distributed in a similar manner, affording families who do not attend one of these “open houses” the opportunity to learn about the charter school and to apply for admission for their children.

When the school starts its operation, prospective students and their parents or guardians also will be encouraged to spend a day visiting the school and sittingin on classrooms.

It is important that the school ensure that students and parents/guardians understand the values of the school and its academic and social expectations before they are asked to make a decision to enroll their children. The school will take whatever additional steps are deemed necessary to make sure that parents/guardians are armed with this important information.

  1. where the potential pool of students for the charter school reside, taking into account that, consistent with ORS 338.125, the first priority for enrollment will go to students who reside within the sponsoring district,

An analysis of where the potential pool of students for the charter school reside is shown on the following table with the school districts students are enrolled.

Total / PPS / David Douglas / Vancouver / Beaverton / Other Districts
6th Grade / 51 / 15 / 12 / 7 / 4 / 13 / Tigard - Tualatin, Centennial, Parkrose, Reynolds, Gresham, West Linn-Willsonville, Oregon Trail, Canby, Camas
7th Grade / 50 / 25 / 12 / 9 / 0 / 4 / Scappoose, St. Helens, Tigard-Tualatin, Parkrose
Total / 101
  1. how many of those students there are and where they are enrolled in school now,

As it’s indicated above on the table there are 101 of these students and they are going to school in various districts.

  1. which district schools’ enrollment trends may be affected if those students enroll in Pioneer,

As shown above 40% of our students are from Portland Public Schools. No district schools will be affected considerably by these numbers.

  1. the impact on those district schools if the students in the potential pool enroll in Pioneer,

Pioneer has proved its ability to attract students not only from Portland Public Schools, but also from neighboring school districts, private schools and homeschooled students with the parent signatures submitted.

Students from Portland Public Schools: 40 % (maximum: 50%)

Projected number of students from

Portland Public Schools at Pioneer’s full capacity: 265

Maximum number of students otherwise would be

at a particular PortlandPublic School at Pioneer’s full capacity: 50

Maximum number of students otherwise would in a particular grade

level of a particular PortlandPublic School at Pioneer’s full capacity: 20

Therefore the school will not cause any adverse impacts

  1. how the potential pool of students are those targeted by the charter school proposal, and

Development team members needed further clarification to be able to answer this question.

why Pioneer would provide new, innovative, or more flexible ways of educating children that are not already available in other district schools or programs. Describe the methods used to make that determination.

For three reasons:

  1. Pioneer will replicate a unique and very powerful research-based, proven method that has been very successful with low-performing and minority students.
  1. Target area has many low performing students.
  1. None of the area public schools has similar programs.

Educational method briefly:

1-Pioneer will diagnose its students’ educational level in English and Math immediately in the first two weeks of the school year with MAP tests. MAP tests are computer-adapted tests, which post individual student results in just 24 hours.

Education of every student is immediately tailored according to individual student needs that were determined with a standards-based and widely implemented test. MAP tests will be implemented 3 times a year and education will be revised and refined for every single student.

None of the area public schools has such a testing and tailored education program. Students are tested through the end of the year which is too late to make adjustments.

2-Home visits are a unique component which provides especially minority and low achieving students with a unique opportunity to get their parents involved.

None of the area schools has such a program.

3-Mandatory free after-school tutoring is another unique component that is not provided in any of the area schools.

4-Through Saxon math and Silent sustained reading with Descartes, students receive their appropriate level math instruction and read their appropriate level books chosen according to the standards they missed on the standardized tests.

5-Technology Integrated Education, a unique program, motivates students towards math, science careers which is much needed in Portland. This unique program also helps greatly teach core subjects.

None of the area schools has such a program.

6-Math, Science Olympiad Program (MSOP) © is another unique program, no schools in Portland has such a program.

Pioneer will be successful with the southeast Portland and the neighboring areas’ low performing students who has not been performing well in the traditional educational settings.
Applicant intends to replicate programs offered by Magnolia Science Academy (Magnolia) in Reseda, California. Provide additional information about Magnolia’s performance as measured by California standards.

Magnolia Science Academy Demographics

Free and Reduced Lunch Rates

Include,

  1. for the most recent year reported,
  2. aggregated academic performance data,

All data is acquired from the California Department of Education web site at

  1. NCLB subgroups academic performance data,


a description of the academic assessments used,

Federal Accountability: Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires that California determine whether or not each public school and local educational agency (LEA) is making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). (An LEA is a school district or county office of education.)

Made AYP

This item indicates whether a school, an LEA, or the state made AYP for 2007. The possible values are "Yes" or "No." The report displays a "Yes" only if the school, LEA, or state met all of its AYP criteria for 2007, including requirements for numerically significant subgroups. "No" means results for at least one or more criteria were below the 2007 targets.

Met ___ of its ___ AYP Criteria

This item indicates how many of the AYP criteria were met. Depending on the number of numerically significant subgroups, a school, an LEA, or the state may be required to meet up to 46 AYP criteria (22 for participation rate, 22 for percent proficient, 1 for API, and 1 for graduation rate). An “N/A” or “--“ is not counted as one of the AYP criteria.

Met AYP Criteria

AYP criteria encompass four areas: participation rate, percent proficient (also referred to as Annual Measurable Objectives or AMOs), API as an additional indicator for AYP, and graduation rate. Each of these four areas has specific requirements. Participation rate and percent proficient criteria must be met in both English-language arts (ELA) and in mathematics.

“Yes” in a column means that all criteria for the area were met. “No” in a column means one or more criteria for the area were not met. “Yes by Appeal” in a column means the school or LEA met the criteria based on approval of its appeal. If Graduation Rate shows “N/A,” it means the school or LEA did not have students enrolled in grades nine through twelve.

Participation Rate

The Participation Rate is the rate at which students participated in the assessments used to determine the percentage of students at or above the proficient level in ELA and mathematics. The assessments used were the 2007 California Standards Tests (CSTs), grades two through eight; 2007 California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA), grades two through eight and ten; and the 2007 California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), grade ten. The participation rate target is 95 percent.

Percent Proficient

Schools, LEAs, the state, and numerically significant subgroups must meet percent proficient targets (or AMOs) in ELA and mathematics on the assessments used in AYP calculations. The assessments used were the 2007 California Standards Tests (CSTs), grades two through eight; 2007 California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA), grades two through eight and ten; and the 2007 California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), grade ten.

API - Additional Indicator for AYP

The API is used to meet part of the federal AYP requirements under NCLB. The federal API requirements differ from the state API requirements. A school, LEA, or the state must have a minimum API of 590 OR have at least one point growth in the API in addition to meeting the other federal AYP targets (participation rate, percent proficient, and graduation rate) in order to make AYP for 2007.

Graduation Rate

This Graduation Rate calculation corresponds to the NationalCenter for Educational Statistics (NCES) four-year completion rate. This rate includes information on high school graduates and high school dropouts aggregated over a four-year period. To meet the 2007 graduation rate criteria for AYP, a school or LEA must have a graduation rate of at least 82.9 percent, OR improvement in the graduation rate of at least 0.1 from the previous year, OR improvement in the graduation rate of at least 0.2 in the average two year rate. Graduation rates are calculated and displayed on the 2007 AYP Report with as few as one student in grades nine through twelve.

Groups

Under NCLB, not only schools, LEAs, and the state as a whole must meet AYP requirements but also numerically significant subgroups within those schools, LEAs, and the state.

A subgroup is defined as numerically significant for participation rate if it has 100 or more students enrolled OR 50 or more students enrolled who make up at least 15 percent of the total enrollment.

A subgroup is defined as numerically significant for percent proficient if it has 100 or more students with valid scores OR 50 or more students with valid scores who make up at least 15 percent of the total valid scores.

The subgroups for AYP include:

Ethnic/racial subgroups

Socioeconomically disadvantaged (SED) students These are students both of whose parents/guardians have not received a high school diploma or students who participate in the free or reduced-price lunch program.

English Learners These include student records marked as English learners as well as those marked as reclassified fluent-English-proficient who have not scored proficient or above on the California Standards Test in English-language arts for three years after being reclassified.

Students with Disabilities These are students who receive special education services and have a valid disability code.

A student who is a member of the socioeconomically disadvantaged, English learner, and/or disability subgroup is also a member of one of the racial ethnic subgroups. Therefore, it is possible that the total percentage of students in all numerically significant subgroups at a school may exceed 100.

Met 2007 AYP Criteria

For the participation rate or for percent proficient in a content area (ELA and mathematics), the possible values are:

Yes = Met the criterion No = Did not meet criterion -- = Not applicable

The criteria are applied schoolwide, LEA-wide, statewide, and to numerically significant subgroups. Because of concerns for student confidentiality, the number and percentage of students at or above proficient are not shown for a school, LEA, or subgroup if the number of valid scores is less than 11.

Similar Schools

The similar schools rank indicates the decile rank of a school's API compared with the APIs of 100 other schools with similar demographic characteristics. The similar schools ranks allow schools to look at their academic performance compared to other schools with some of the same opportunities and challenges.

  1. suspension and expulsion data,

Magnolia Science Academy
Suspension and Expulsion Data
Academic Year / Suspensions / Expulsions
2006-07 / 12 days / 0
2007-08 / 9 days / 0
Source: / MagnoXP School Information System
  1. dropout data,

2006-07 data

  1. credit recovery data,

Audit reports can be presented upon request.