Tools for Storytelling

Brand Architecture

The Green Dot brand, both its content and design, stems from four conceptual pillars: our mission, our vision, our values and attributes.

The details of these four concepts drive the way that we present ourself externally.

Brand Architecture
Our Mission

Our Mission

Mission

Our Vision
Our Values
Our Attributes

Common Language

There are many misconceptions about the charter school movement and many detractors looking for ways to criticize our work. It’s important that the words we use to describe charter schools, traditional schools, Green Dot, public education, and larger education reform issues, don’t reinforce stereotypes.

Essentially, we should aim to avoid language that supports the misconception that charter schools are for-profit companies with selective enrollment practices designed to erode public education. Whenever we discuss our work, we should be mindful of the opportunity to educate and clarify. 

"Conversations about the organization and our work should be genuine and communicated in your own words while using shared language"

In consulting dozens of school leaders and teachers, we found the following words and phrases were most effective in authentically describing our work.

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  • Green Dot Public Schools
  • Public schools
  • Free to attend
  • Open to all
  • Open enrollment
  • Publicly funded and free for ALL
  • High quality public school choice
    for parents
  • Everyone knows your name
  • Personalized
  • Teaching to our students’ needs
  • Get it right
  • College-preparatory
  • Data-driven
  • Agile
  • Accountable
  • Transparent
  • Reflective
  • Culture of learning
  • Safe schools
  • Small schools
  • Safe learning environments
  • Turnaround schools
  • Highly-effective teaching
  • Bold
  • Social mobility
  • Sharing best practices
  • Revitalization
  • Economic mobility
  • Reversing the trend
  • Preparing ALL students for college, leadership and life
  • Belief in ALL students’ potential
  • Students come first
  • It’s all about the students
  • Student-centered decision-making
  • Student growth
  • Addressing barriers to learning both inside and outside the classroom
  • Changing lives through education
  • Leveling the playing field
  • Changing the odds
  • Transforming public education
  • Leading with support
  • Strong leadership
  • Engaged parents and communities
  • Teacher collaboration
  • Respect for teacher voice
  • Always learning
  • A learning disposition
  • Growth-oriented
  • Growth mindset
  • A teaching and learning organization
  • Equity of access
  • Equity of opportunity
  • Personal responsibility
  • Research-based practice
  • Opportunity gap
  • Advocacy
  • Non-profit public school operator
  • Gateways out of poverty

Avoiding Misunderstanding

Language matters.

Choosing the words with which we describe our students, their parents, and their communities presents an opportunity to actively promote the Core Value of “Respecting All Stakeholders.” Specifically, try to avoid inadvertently defining stakeholders with negative descriptors. As a rule of thumb, consider how a student, parent, or community member would feel if they were to read your characterization of them. The following examples provide further guidance in what can often be a nuanced area of communications.

Talking About Our Work

Still searching for the right language?

Use any of these example blurbs to describe the work we do.

 

Green Dot Public Schools is a non-profit network of public charter schools, free and open to all, with a mission to help transform public education so that ALL students graduate prepared for college, leadership, and life. Purposefully locating its schools in historically underserved communities lacking in high-quality educational opportunities, Green Dot seeks to close pernicious discrepancies in access and opportunity between low-income students and their more affluent peers.

Green Dot Public Schools is a non-profit network of public charter schools transforming public education so that ALL students graduate prepared for college, leadership, and life. Green Dot schools are founded on a collaborative and replicable model of strong and empowered leadership, highly-effective teaching, a college-preparatory curriculum, meaningful community engagement, and the provision of comprehensive wraparound services to reduce non-academic barriers to learning. Purposefully locating its schools in historically underserved communities lacking in high-quality educational opportunities, Green Dot seeks to prove that it is possible to address pernicious discrepancies in access and opportunity between low-income students and their more affluent peers.

Green Dot Public Schools is a non-profit network of public charter schools transforming public education so that ALL students graduate prepared for college, leadership, and life. Green Dot schools are founded on a collaborative and replicable model of strong and empowered leadership, highly-effective teaching, a college-preparatory curriculum, meaningful community engagement, and the provision of comprehensive  wraparound services to reduce non-academic barriers to learning. Purposefully locating its schools in historically underserved communities lacking in high-quality educational opportunities, Green Dot seeks to prove that it is possible to address pernicious discrepancies in access and opportunity between low-income students and their more affluent peers. Despite entering our schools in the bottom 10% of academic proficiency, our students are almost three times more likely to graduate than those attending traditional schools, achieving a level of success greater than state averages. Green Dot’s programs are purposefully designed to succeed on public revenue and are developed in full collaboration with teachers, thereby encouraging adoption by other schools and districts.

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Describing the Green Dot Approach

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Effective Teaching

Green Dot works to ensure that those students who most need access to excellent teachers are consistently taught by the best in the profession. In Green Dot schools, where students typically enter in the lowest 10% of academic proficiency, advancing a student a single grade level per year isn’t enough to ensure timely graduation. Therefore, we define high-quality teaching as the ability to accelerate student learning and close the achievement gap between students in low-income communities and their more affluent peers. In placing high-quality instruction at the heart of our model, we are committed to recruiting, training, and supporting the very best teachers to professional excellence.

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Strong Leadership

Green Dot empowers experienced and highly trained leaders to respond to the needs of students, teachers, and parents in creating collaborative learning environments and driving long-term improvement. At Green Dot schools, principals and assistant principals are not managers or bureaucrats but instructional leaders tasked with identifying high-quality teaching and providing personalized coaching and professional support; subjects lacking in leadership preparation programs nor required of traditional school leaders.

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College Preparatory Curriculum

Green Dot promotes a rigorous, college-going culture; modeling high-expectations and instilling self-confidence and personal persistence while delivering a college-preparatory curriculum and a structured program of support to and through college.

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Comprehensive Supports

Green Dot actively works to remove barriers to learning. We create safe and welcoming campuses in which all students and their families are respected and appreciated. We provide a range of social and emotional supports and health and wellness services. We partner with community-based providers to address issues of gang intervention and provide a network of diverse and positive adult mentors. We enthusiastically seek opportunities to smooth the often challenging pathway to college and career success for our students.

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Community Engagement

Green Dot engages parents as vital partners in student success, providing adult education programming and self-advocacy training to empower community members to be agents of long-term, sustainable neighborhood revitalization.

Green Dot Public Schools National

1149 S. Hill St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015

(323) 565-1600