A Learning Organization

In the summer of 2008, Green Dot had an opportunity to advance the national education labor management discussion by opening a charter school in the Bronx in New York City. Green Dot New York was opened in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers (the NYC affiliate of the national umbrella organization, the American Federation of Teachers – AFT). The school was and remains very successful, but governance and management proved to be challenging.

The Green Dot Home Office was 2,500 miles away in Los Angeles and could not adequately provide the intensive supports the school needed and deserved without a regional office in New York. The timing was not right for national expansion: Green Dot was simultaneously engaged in the initial phases of turnaround work in Los Angeles at Locke High School, Henry Clay Middle School, and Jordan High School, which required the full focus of the Home Office education leadership teams in Los Angeles. With Green Dot’s encouragement, the New York school transitioned to an independent charter school known as University Prep Charter High School. Green Dot re-focused its efforts on establishing a clear foundational academic and operational model that could be replicated with fidelity anywhere in the country where the need was greatest. Several years later, Green Dot would expand nationally by establishing regional offices early and ensuring that all stakeholders were well aligned with the core Green Dot school model.

In 2008, When Green Dot began leading Locke High School, it almost doubled the number of students served by the network. The process introduced Green Dot to the myriad challenges of turning around a culture of low-performance at an existing school. Change was swift and positive within the context of a steep learning curve for everyone involved in the process. As the turnaround model evolved, Green Dot adapted constantly to ensure that student safety and success remained at the center of school policy and decision-making. Locke taught us that phasing out higher grade levels to seed new cultures one grade at a time did not work for either side of that equation. The restart of a school must address the entire culture from day one by reseeding the culture at all levels, not just at the 6th or 9th grades.

This requires honoring the legacy of schools, engaging alumni early in the process and at every stage thereafter. We learned to be purposeful in community organizing, focusing far beyond charter authorization and re-authorization, to help our communities develop authentic voice and mobilize for broad community needs.

Locke introduced us to an even broader definition of serving ALL students at scale. We embraced full spectrums of students requiring special education and we learned to address student behavioral issues more deeply as part of our model, to support students and their families more holistically on and off campus.

At Locke, we refined a piloting process to ensure that new initiatives help us continue to learn and remain innovative without disrupting the growth of a school or weighing too heavily on its resources. We seek to be discerning in our approach; to study and learn from data so we are not experimenting in ways that could prove inadvertently harmful. The turnaround model is constantly evolving.

Green Dot’s mission involves transforming public education for all children attending public schools. We have always envisioned serving some students directly through schools we operate and others indirectly through the free sharing of best practices with school districts. Charter laws vary from state to state, but frequently charters must be approved by districts who view them as competitors for scarce resources. Unfortunately, this can incentivize a combative stance between district leadership and charter operators. Green Dot sides unequivocally with students and families when it comes to priorities and we have not shied from confronting district bureaucracy in order to locate schools in communities where the need for good schools has been highest and the demand loudest.

Early on, this led to frequently acrimonious relations between Green Dot and the district as Green Dot helped give voice to community desires for good public school options. But by the end of its first decade of operations, while growing to serve 8,000 students in more than a dozen schools, Green Dot had earned significant respect from LAUSD for taking on the toughest education challenges in Los Angeles with a collective bargaining agreement and strong fiscal management. After Locke made a transition to a safe and good school, and because of overtures from both sides, relations between Green Dot and the district began to shift and become more collaborative. This has been positive.

However, the relationship continues to be buffeted by pressures from political, economic, and legal considerations. Green Dot continues to agitate on behalf of students and families who are not being well served in the current system, and this is not always popular with a district that can be slow to respond. We are determined to advance with urgency the transformation of public education towards equity of opportunity and outcomes, and we believe that this work is best served by a stance that is collaborative, with free sharing of best practices and frequent dialogue with others seeking to do the same.