Salut o Hola: Week of Dec. 1st

Wednesday, December 3, 7am-9am, Nestle Purina Child Development Center

Thursday and Friday, December 4-5th: School site visits in Kansas City

Académie Lafayette

University Academy

SLLIS awarded $60,000 grant

This afternoon we received the excellent news that the Walton Family Foundation has awarded us a Phase III planning grant in the amount of $60,000.  Last week Vince, Steven and Joel from our Board and I met with the Walton grant committee to present our full grant proposal.  We felt positive about the interview and are elated that the foundation has already committed the Phase III funding.  SLLIS was awarded $60,000 in Phase I and II in 0708.  The final installment of this planning and implementation grant will be awarded once the state has authorized our charter.

The next two grants on our list: AmeriCorps*State and Federal Foreign Language Assistance Program.

Go SLLIS!

Salut o Hola: Week of Nov. 17th

Things are so busy this week that I forgot to post our school visits!

Tuesday, November 18th 5-6pm Urban League HeadStart (911 N. Spring)

Wednesday, November 19th 3-4:30pm  House of Montessori 6116 Michigan Avenue

Thursday, November 20th, 5-6pm Urban League HeadStart  (Jennings)

Thanks to the Urban League for recognizing the promise of our schools and scheduling us to speak at each of their Parent Meetings for the month of November.

Show-Me SLLIS

One of the cool things about the blog for our grassroots marketing/community outreach is that we can see which websites led readers to us, which of our links readers clicked followed and which key word searches brought up our blog. So I’m scrolling through the stats after I posted the facilities update (bad idea #1) and noticed a link from Show-Me Daily the blog of the Show-Me Institute on Missouri Public Policy. Who knew the Show-Me Institute had a blog?! Reading their blog then led me to Schoolhouse Rock,(bad idea #2) not the classic info-cartoons, but an education blog from Slate magazine. It’s 3am– I don’t need to be reading new-to-me, interesting education blogs. Even if they do appear judicious to my blurry eyes and sleep-deprived brain. Our two month old has been asleep since 9pm and I’m likely losing the second longest continuous sleep of his short, blessed life.

Where are you located? Part III

Manny Silva, Board Director & facilities coach extraordinaire, and I walked through a new potential space Friday afternoon. It’s adjacent to the Central Library on Olive and 14th and has all of the growth potential that we need, a lease price that we can afford and a timeline that, if we confirm before New Years, will have the space ready for August. How cool would it be for our schools to open next door to the Central Library? Remember the fairytale exhibit a couple of years ago? The possibilities of uber-rich partnerships are endless.

But like every other Downtown/Mid-Town location it has clear challenges for green space/outdoor play space.

For those of you wondering why we don’t move into _____ School that SLPS closed in your neighborhood, the answer lies in the 99 year deed restriction on former SLPS property. Once St. Louis Public School buildings, that were paid for with tax dollars and designed to be schools, are closed and up for sale, they cannot be used for any educational purpose (or adult store or gaming facility). But I digress.

I called our faithful realtors and requested new specs for another round of walk-throughs. Our incubator space is out there, we just have to find it. When Webster declined to sponsor our charter in July, we were all quite disappointed and concerned about the plausability of an 09 opening. A wise, dear friend and City Garden Montessori parent shared these words of wisdom with me:

“What you are doing is so rich, so powerful, and so needed that the universe will make a way out of no way…the powers that be (and I’m not talking about universities) will open the perfect door for your project…and ONLY the most perfect door. That door is not Webster, but there is a door. And when it opens for you, you will see how perfect it is and how it is the ONLY door for you.”

Every day I am seeing how right she was and that the best sponsor for our schools will indeed sponsor our charter (more on that later). We have all– Board Directors, School Project Groups, Potential Founding Families, Community Advocates — called that into being. Now let’s focus our collective energies on space.

More on the federal grants

The official press release from the state association:

Federal Grants Totaling $2,000,000 to New Charter School Programs

The Missouri Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) would like to announce that four new charter public school groups in Kansas City and St. Louis have been awarded Charter Schools Program (CSP) grants by the US Department of Education. Hope Academy, KIPP St. Louis, St. Louis Language Immersion Schools and Confluence Academy of the Arts have received grants totaling over $2 million for the planning, program design and initial implementation of their schools. These grants will be administered over a three-year period. CSP grants are competitive grants awarded to state education agencies and charter school developers.

Hope Academy is a dropout recovery school in Kansas City that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. The first of its kind in Missouri, Hope Academy will serve students ages 16-21 in grades 9-12. Hope Academy will be receiving $558,046 over three years.

KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) St. Louis will be a charter public school modeled after the KIPP Academies that are currently operating in 65 locations in the nation which features an extended school day and year. KIPP will open in July 2009 with approximately 85 fifth-graders, and will add a new fifth grade class each year until reaching maturation with approximately 320 students in the fifth through eighth grades. KIPP St. Louis will receive a total of $662,620.

St. Louis Language Immersion Schools (SLLIS) will open in the fall of 2009 and will focus on total language immersion and the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. The school will begin by serving kindergarten and first grade and grow its enrollment one grade per year, eventually serving grades K-5. SLLIS will open with both a French and Spanish track for students to follow. $781,200 will be administered to SLLIS in federal CSP grants.

Confluence Academy of the Arts (CAA), St. Louis, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009 and will serve grades 6-12. CAA will have a strong focus on arts education while meeting the core-learning needs of its students. CAA is the newest addition to Confluence’s multi-campus network in St. Louis. CAA will receive $472, 750 over the three-year period. ###

About MCPSA

The Missouri Charter Public School Association is a non-profit organization that supports Missouri’s public charter schools. Charter schools are schools that are free and open to the public, operating with an independent school board and are accountable to a sponsoring entity for specific results. Missouri currently has 28 public charter schools, operating on 35 campuses. Public charter schools in Missouri are located within the Kansas City and St. Louis public school districts.

SLLIS makes The Grade

St. Louis Post-Dispatch blog The Grade posted an article about our recent federal grant. Love it!

Thanks again to Amanda at KDHX for having us on the show Monday evening.

This morning’s French Career Day at SLU was an amazing event and I had the opportunity to speak with high school and university students who are interested in ways to use their language skills locally and internationally. What a great way to start my day!

Salut o Hola: Week of Nov. 10

Thursday, November 14th, 5pm-6pm Urban League HeadStart, Martin Luther King branch

Note: SLU Modern and Classical Languages meeting re-scheduled