HERRON HIGH SCHOOL TO BE LOCATED IN THE NEAR NORTHSIDE OF DOWNTOWN INDIANAPOLIS Charter School Application July 6, 2005 Presented to the Honorable Bart Peterson, Mayor of Indianapolis By the Board of Directors of Herron High School Indianapolis, Indiana 1 Herron High School Executive Summary 1. A mission statement that indicates, in one or two sentences, what the school intends to do, for whom, and to what degree. Herron High School will partner with families and the community to provide a classical liberal arts education that integrates knowledge, inspires discipline, and values community service. 2. An explanation of how the proposed school will meet the needs of the community. The City of Indianapolis recently completed its Regional Center Plan for the year 2020. In it, the City established its goal to become a "world-class city" and identified the steps necessary to accomplish that goal. A common theme throughout the plan is the need to double the regional center’s population to 40,000 and that retail, housing, and education are key elements to attracting this growth.1 Since the 2000 Census, the downtown community has had much to celebrate. The regional center showed increases in owner occupied housing, housing production, and the percentage of households earning at or above the median income.2 And, since the enactment of the Mayor’s Cultural Development Initiative in 2001, there is a general feeling that downtown is alive with creativity, artistry, and innovation. While these trends, both tangible and intangible, are encouraging, downtown residents still struggle with the issue of public education. New numbers, just in from 2004, tell us that 30% of students who enter our center city high schools as freshmen graduate in four years.3 In a city priming itself to become world class, this is not acceptable. "The City is betting on charter schools to solve the problem, says Maury Plambeck, Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development.”4 The charter school movement has brought hope and choice to Indianapolis. Charter schools currently offer widely varying academic models that appeal to different learning styles and populations. According to the Indiana Charter School Association, the movement is serving “significantly higher percentages of minority, disadvantaged, and underachieving students”.5 This was a surprise for most skeptics of the movement. However, to build the "diverse community needed to keep downtown vital long-term" the City also needs to keep and attract middle class families. "Currently, too many downtown families move to the suburbs when their kids reach school age, rather than settle for IPS or pay private school tuition."6 Charter schools in Indianapolis need to learn how to serve both populations. Herron High School believes that its presence is needed to attract more families to the center of the city, while also serving the existing underserved population. Herron seeks to be a part of a movement in Indianapolis which will build a culture of cooperation and understanding, where rich and poor, artistic and analytical, and people of all color can work together and build something more beautiful than any could achieve individually. Not only will our students be inclusively reflective of our world, they will be harbingers of positive change. We will truly be a world-class city. We will not need to import the creative class—the best and brightest innovators—into our city, for we will raise them up from among us. 1 The Indianapolis Regional Plan is available for view online at www.bsu/cap/regionalplan.org 2 Indianapolis Regional Plan 2020, 107 3 “Frequently Asked Questions.” Indiana Department of Education. Charter School Association of Indiana, Inc. May 9, 2005 <http://history.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/universe.ctm?corp_5385> 4 Joss, Liz. “Just Add People.” Indianapolis Monthly Magazine , April 2005: 136 5 Charter School Association of Indiana, Inc. “Who do Charter Schools Serve?” Charter School Progress Jan. 2005: p. 1 6 Joss, Liz. “Just Add People.” Indianapolis Monthly Magazine , April 2005: 141 2 Herron High School 3. A brief description of the educational foundation, including curricular approach. Herron High School’s founding team researched numerous education models to find one that would produce “educated” graduates, regardless of at-risk status. Based on research and then site visits to the most compelling examples, we chose a classical liberal arts model which roots and integrates subjects across an art history/humanities timeline as the educational foundation for Herron High School. Locally, this approach has been used successfully at The Oaks Academy, a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade private school with a diverse (55% people of color, 45% Caucasian, and greater than 50% low income) student body population. Because many of The Oaks Academy teachers have taught at the college level and its academic content is rigorous, we believe our model is well suited for a university partnership. We are actively pursuing creative partnerships so that our students will have a seamless connection to college coursework. Herron High School’s approach to teaching the liberal arts will integrate academic disciplines across a chronological timeline and emphasize classic art and literature of many cultures. The ninth grade will begin their high school career with the study of the earliest civilizations of ancient Asia and Africa. By the time they graduate, they will have journeyed through Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, American History, and modern world history. Our students will understand the roots of knowledge7 and discover a universal heritage, one which will inspire students to aspire to the common good and give voice to what they have learned through civic engagement. Not only will Herron’s approach fill a market niche of parents wanting a liberal arts education, but this focus will improve student achievement. Research has demonstrated that students in public schools with expanded arts, music, and humanities programs fared significantly better on their SAT scores than those in more traditional public schools.8 Research also demonstrates that students who have a strong liberal arts education are well prepared to be lifelong learners and to succeed in any professional field.9 They are steeped in the great thinking and profound beauty of many cultures of the ancient and modern world. They learn to analyze and evaluate ideas, cultures and expressions. They begin to think logically and express themselves with fluency and artistry. Herron High School will produce powerful, innovative leaders, who will also be gracious. A new downtown high school, carefully crafted to serve a growing creative class community and the existing underserved will give students, who now are so divided, the chance to build bridges and not walls, to achieve their highest academic potential, and to be mentored by great and creative thinkers in this city. A rich liberal arts education, unique to Herron High School, can prepare all students, even currently low-achieving students, to become world-class leaders. 4. A brief description of your plan for meeting the proposed school’s educational goals. Our educational goals focus upon 1) Academic Success: Students will graduate from Herron High School as well-rounded learners, prepared to go to college, and 2) Academic Inclusion: Students will benefit from an inclusive learning environment where wide ranging skill levels and strengths work together and all make positive academic progress. These goals will be met through our commitment to collect extensive amounts of data on individual student learning that will drive intellectual and curricular decision-making. We will continue to develop 7 Shulman, Lee S. “Aristotle Had it Right: On Knowledge and Pedagogy.” The Wisdom of Practice Ed. Suzanne M. Wilson. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004. 407. 8 2004 Fordham Foundation Study of Ohio Schools 9 Veith, Gene Edward and Andrew Kern. Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America. Capital Research Center, 2001. 3 Herron High School partnerships with local universities to provide much expertise in best practice teaching and learning research, staff development and curriculum development. A focus on differentiated instruction will allow all students to receive the necessary services for learning success. 5. A brief description of the business plan, including financial management capabilities, potential partners, and access to financial resources. Herron High School has been accepted into the Network of Effective Small Schools, managed by the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL)/University of Indianapolis. Through this relationship, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already awarded Herron High School $40,000 for its exploration phase and $100,000 for its start-up phase. Herron High School expects to receive an additional disbursement of Gates funds in the amount of $260,000 in 2006.10 We have also developed a significant relationship with the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research (SIPR) which enabled us to contract with an experienced CEO to lead the Herron High School project11. The Sagamore relationship is also providing administrative and research staff time for Herron High School’s start-up phase. The mutual intent is that this relationship will grow and strengthen over the years. Our discussions with founders and observers of the charter school movement has indicated that more charter schools fail due to financial mismanagement, than for academic reasons. Because of this, we have prepared a very conservative budget, with understated revenues and overstated expenditures. Even while understating potential sources of revenue for the school and aggressively overstating potential expenditures, our budget still forecasts a positive cash flow each year. This creates great flexibility for delivering the quality of education and educational facilities consistent with our mission of providing an outstanding classical liberal arts education for each Herron High School student. 6. A description of the founding team’s capacity to implement the educational plan and business plan.