Blog

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!

PCSD is presenting at the CSDC 2022 Charter Schools Leadership Update Conference in Sacramento alongside our partners HJ Sims and LISC.

Education Session:

School Daze: Navigating the Facility Financing Maze
November 15, 2022 | 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm

For many charter school leaders and their boards throughout the country, navigating the need for a high-quality facility remains one of their most significant organizational challenges. Add the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and plotting a course through current and future facility needs has become an even more challenging exercise. Is your school planning a facilities expansion or renovation? Join us to learn the key to planning a successful facilities project and understand the potential cost of that project. During our session, a panel of charter school experts will introduce school leaders to the critical elements of project planning and creditworthiness. We will begin our session with a brief icebreaker to gauge who is in the room and their level of facility financing knowledge. Our four experts will then introduce the critical elements of facility project planning and credit worthiness. Following the panel, attendees will be guided through an exercise that estimates key facility project costs. To conclude the session, panelists will work with attendees in small groups to answer their facility financing questions. Attendees will walk away from our session with the tools to solve their facilities challenges.

Presenters:

• Kahlmus Eatman, Chief Operating Officer, Pacific Charter School Development
• Kaiti Wang, Vice President, HJ Sims
• Crystal Langdon, Director of Lending, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
• Kelly Theofanis, Loan Officer, Charter School Financing, Local Initiatives Support Corporation

I’ve always tried to make the world a better place–leave it better than you found it. From the US Marine Corps to the Houston Land Bank, I’ve been driven by the idea of service and defense of those in need—that we accomplish more by working together than we do apart. That’s why I’m excited to be joining the PCSD team, as the founding Project Director for Texas Charter School Development. 

Like many relationships these days, PCSD and I met online. When I came across the job posting, it felt like a full-circle moment. As a kid in the Gulfgate area of Houston, I was lucky that my parents had the option of enrolling me in HISD’s vanguard & magnet schools. As a transfer student, I got used to the idea of attending a school that offered programs and experiences my neighborhood schools didn’t. But because there were limited transfer seats, my friends didn’t have the same opportunities I did. That showed me how important it is for parents and kids to have options.

After high school and the Marine Corps, I studied economics and sociology at Rice University. I became fascinated by the sociology and economics of a city: how market forces can drive the need to revitalize communities like the one I grew up in. That was the beginning of my path into real estate development, which accelerated when I became a member of one of the founding classes of the graduate real estate MBA program at the University of Houston.

After grad school, I worked for one of Houston’s most prominent real estate developers at the Welcome Group, building and renovating spaces to meet the needs of office and industrial clients. Still driven by a desire to ‘make a difference’ to the world around me, my focus turned to the Houston Land Bank–working to develop affordable housing by acquiring and reactivating vacant and/or underutilized properties.

As a sociology major, I know that improving educational outcomes leads to other improved ‘life’ outcomes throughout a community. From working on build-to-suit industrial projects, I know what is needed to tailor new or existing spaces to fit needs—from land acquisition to design & construction to property management. And from my work in affordable housing, I know how to take folks who have limited experience and understanding of real estate development and walk them through the many moving parts. With TCSD, I’m excited to bring together all these skills and lessons and unite them with my personal experience and education.

This is PCSD’s first time expanding to a new region since 2017. And Houston feels like a natural fit. We’re an entrepreneurial city, where people face tough challenges head on, and hustle up, to bring their vision to life. We are the birthplace of some of the country’s biggest charter school networks, like KIPP, YES Prep, and Harmony.

But there is also a community of emerging and single-site charter schools—many of them led by educators of color—who don’t have the capacity to handle facilities needs in-house. TCSD will be a one-stop facilities shop for these smaller & under-resourced charter schools. We are the only charter school facility development nonprofit in Texas offering strategic planning, project management, and access to capital all in one place.

A beautiful school building is more than just a nice building. It’s a landmark for the community. When I worked with Houston Land Bank and community meetings were held in neighborhood schools, folks would tell me about how they, their kids, and their grandkids all went to that school. By building attractive, functional educational facilities that last 30, 40, 50 years or more, I’m excited to give people something they can point to and be proud of as part of their neighborhood and life shaping experiences for generations to come.

Congratulations to Fenton Academies in Sun Valley on completing their new Annex building and elevator project!

The Sun Valley site was originally developed into a facility for two Fenton elementary schools in 2015. This project provides Fenton Academies with an additional 20,000 sf of educational space to house their middle school students, and a new three-story elevator to provide ADA access to the existing parking garage.

You can read more about the project here.

Congratulations to Yu Ming Charter School on opening their Carolyn campus in San Leandro!

Yu Ming will offer their K-3 Mandarin Immersion program at this campus. Formerly occupied by Key Academy, the campus is reusing the existing portable units at the site and is excited to serve more families at this location.

PCSD was happy to partner with them on their continued use application with the Alameda County Planning Department in order to secure the use of this site. Yu Ming started this process with the county late 2021 and received approval in January 2022. Then, they solidified the location approvals with Alameda County Office of Education in order to start operating there for the 22-23 school year.

Yu Ming is a non-profit, tuition-free K-8 public charter school and was founded in 2011 by a group of diverse families. Yu Ming’s mission is to nurture an inclusive and diverse community to become empowered, engaged, and outstanding global citizens. Yu Ming is a 2019 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, a 2020 California Distinguished School and the first Mandarin immersion public charter school in the state.