PCSD

PCSD is thrilled to announce our partnership with LA Promise Fund/The Intern Project. PCSD will host two high school students for six weeks onsite in the LA office this summer. We will be providing opportunities to see first-hand development of a project from site selection to completion. We look forward to providing more details as we get closer to the summer.

About LA Promise Fund (LAPF)

LA Promise Fund (LAPF) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prepare students for college, career, and life. LA Promise Fund creates vibrant community hubs and partnerships that foster motivated, engaged, and directed students poised for academic, professional, and personal success.

About The Intern Project

The Intern Project (TIP) provides public high school students across Los Angeles the opportunity to work in dynamic career areas through paid remote or onsite internships.

Read more about PCSD’s Internship Program

 

School heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems have moved from a behind-the-scenes role to a front-of-house focus now that students have returned to in-person learning. Accordingly, many school leaders and maintenance personnel have begun to wonder whether their HVAC systems are up to the challenge of keeping spaces clean, comfortable, and safe.

Inspections performed at the Education for Change Achieve Academy site (former Hawthorne Elementary School constructed in the 1930’s and expanded in the 1940’s) identified their system as antiquated. Radiators provided heat to all the classrooms and offices throughout the facility. Many of the radiators did not function well and the entire system showed severe signs of wear. The system did not provide for any air conditioning or current day air filtration and, in order to comply with Covid-19 air filtration requirements, the school introduced standalone portable air filtration units into each classroom and office space.

Without a doubt, having a new or significantly improved HVAC system carries plenty of advantages for schools and their occupants. Foremost is peace of mind in regard to the health and well-being of their students, teachers, administrators, staff, and visitors, as a good ventilation system is considered the first line of defense against airborne illness.

Equipment like air purifiers and filtration solutions that use HEPA filters don’t just scrub the air of viruses, germs, and allergens though. They can also remove fine pollutants like smoke and dust particles known to cause physical irritation in some children and adults.

Installing a new HVAC system into an 80+ year old facility over a summer break poses many challenges. As a result, some work was performed several months in advance of the main construction, including remediation of asbestos and lead in ceiling tiles and paint.

A construction of this magnitude required packing up most of the classrooms and administrative areas for the summer. Only a limited area in the classrooms was available for storage. Demolition of existing radiator units, some casework and sinks to accommodate the new equipment all required clearance area to meet OSHA requirements.

With an extensive amount of equipment located on the roof, a roof rehabilitation was also performed. The aged roof was able to be refurbished with an overlay that provided the school with a 30-year warrantied roof.

Staff and students have commented that they hadn’t realized how large of an impact that this HVAC project would have on their school. They are looking forward to the next phase.

WCSD has been working closely with Why Not You Academy (WNYA), a single-site charter high school located in Des Moines, WA, from their founding in 2021 when we delivered phase I of their current charter school facility.

One of the highlights of our partnership has been to connect with their high school students through WNYA’s Leaving to Learn Program. The program focuses on providing access to experiences, resources, relationships, and opportunity through informational interviews, job shadowing, internships, and more. My colleagues and I at WCSD and PCSD have participated in many informational interviews over the last year. Students have spoken with regional directors, project managers/directors, finance directors, our general counsel, and our fundraising director all in an effort to learn more about various job types and gain experience in scheduling, interviewing, and networking. Most recently, the WCSD team had the opportunity to provide a job shadow day for one of their students, Amaar H., a 10^th grader.

Amaar joined us on a site visit to Impact Public Schools Black River Elementary School (Impact | BRE) in Renton, WA. This is the fourth school for this charter school network which stretches from Seattle to Tacoma. Construction began on the TK-5 facility in mid-October. The school is set to open in August 2023 starting with 253 TK-1 graders and will grow to 594 at full capacity.

Amaar toured the facility and met with our general contractors, Marpac Construction.

You can learn more about WNYA’s Leaving to Learn program or join their network of partners.

PCSD is thrilled to announce that Lighthouse Community Public Schools was able to purchase the property for Lodestar from us a year earlier than anticipated due to support from the Rogers Family Foundation and the securing of a bond. Lighthouse now fully owns their “forever home”.

With Lighthouse’s repayment of the $6.38 million in philanthropic funding for the two facility projects for Lodestar, PCSD has now been able to recycle our fifth project from our Bay Area Revolving Charter School Facilities Fund.

PCSD works closely with our charter school partners to find the most affordable long-term facility solution. Sometimes this means that we purchase the property, develop the facility and lease the building to our charter school partner for several years until they are in a position to secure financing to purchase it from us.

PCSD began working with Lighthouse Lodestar in 2017 to develop a former seminary site in Oakland, CA. This site, located in the Sobrante Park neighborhood, serves as the permanent home for Lighthouse’s second school, Lodestar. Phase I of this project was completed in 2018 with 575 student seats for grades K-8.

For Phase II, PCSD expanded the campus to add a high school facility with 300 student seats. The facility was completed in fall 2020 and, due to the pandemic, finally open to students in fall 2021. The school now has a total capacity of 850 student seats, encompassing grades TK-12.

Most of us at PCSD haven’t been in an active classroom on a regular basis since attending school ourselves.  For me, I may have taught English, but volunteering for a program for homeless youth in Honduras is much different than the American classroom setting—and that was nearly 20 years ago.  That said, we are all about partnering with our charter schools and I’ve been working with Green Dot Public Schools, a charter management organization headquartered in Los Angeles, for around 15 years in one way or another.

It seemed only natural then for PCSD to start mentoring for Green Dot’s National Mentorship Program during its inaugural year in FY2021-2022 and we’ve continued mentoring again during the second year of the program as well.  Of the six mentors from PCSD who participate in the program, many of them work with students at Ánimo City of Champions High School in Los Angeles.  My two sophomore mentees attend Hilcrest High School in Memphis, Tennessee, though I’m located in PCSD’s Northern California office in Oakland.

During the pandemic, Zoom school was not a favorite of many students.  Given the mentorship program was on Zoom, it took a while for students to warm up to their mentors—many were reluctant to put video on or come off mute, for example.  Towards the end of the year though, the students were more active in using chat or answering questions in Kahoot quizzes.  This year we have experienced even more interaction with our mentees where we are connected to two mentees for every one mentor.  During our most recent mentoring session, we worked through a purpose statement with our mentees based on a template from nXu Education.  Going through the exercise was challenging even as adults, but looking at our completed statements felt like a significant accomplishment and a good reflection of ourselves.  And, what’s more, it was so inspiring to hear the purpose statements of the students!  Here is a purpose statement from one of my mentees developed with some minimal guidance:

“As a person of hope, my purpose in life is to combine my strengths in kindness, calmness, perseverance, and humbleness, with my love for people, to help people and explore the world (as a traveling nurse).”

We’ve gotten off to a great start this school year.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the year and beyond goes with my Green Dot mentees!