nothin Morrison Issues Plea For Charter Opening | New Haven Independent

Morrison Issues Plea For Charter Opening

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Rev. Eldren Morrison trekked to Hartford Wednesday to issue an urgent appeal to the state to let him open his new charter school next month — with a last-minute change in management.

Students are waiting for us to open the doors,” pleaded Morrison, speaking in the public comments section of a state Board of Education meeting Wednesday.

Morrison asked the board to convene a special meeting to consider a new proposal he has submitted to the state concerning a charter school, Booker T. Washington Academy (BTWA), which he plans to open in August with 225 students and $2.5 million in state money. The proposal calls for hiring a new partner to replace Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE), a charter management organization that was supposed to run the school — but which BTWA fired amid an unfolding scandal involving the undisclosed criminal record and false education credentials of FUSE’s CEO, Michael Sharpe.

When the news broke of Sharpe’s deceit and subsequent resignation, our board members did not have time to sulk or even to ask why,” Morrison said Wednesday in his appeal to the state. We went back to the drawing board.”

BTWA came up with a new plan to hire Yardstick Learning, a consulting firm, to help start up the school this August. The proposal needs approval from the state Board of Education, because charter schools are monitored and funded by the state.

Board members and education Commissioner Stefan Pryor have suggested delaying the start of the school. Morrison said he’d prefer not to. Over 160 students have already signed up, he said.

They believed in the vision. They believed in what Booker T. Washington Academy would offer their kids for the school,” he said. BTWA wants to deliver on that vision, he said.

He asked for a special board meeting, and for the state to give him the green light” to go ahead.

I’m here to ask you that you will consider this plan, that you look at it, and that you vet it out for us, so that we can start the school this year,” Morrison said.

A previous version of this story follows:

Melissa Bailey File Photo

Pastor Eldren Morrison has proposed to stick with plans to open his charter school in August with 225 kids — with a new partner to replace an original partner, which he fired in a cloud of deceit.

Morrison (pictured) made the proposal in a revised charter application to the state, released to the Independent Tuesday through a Freedom of Information request.

The plan calls for Morrison’s charter school, Booker T. Washington Academy (BTWA), to open in August with $2.5 million in state money. BTWA had hired Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE), which runs the Jumoke Academy charter schools in Hartford, to recruit students, hire staff, design the curriculum and run the day-to-day operations of the school. Then BTWA cut ties with FUSE in the wake of an unfolding scandal involving the undisclosed criminal background and false claim of education credentials of its CEO, Michael Sharpe.

BTWA has been scrambling to put together a backup plan that will allow it to open this fall without FUSE.

At a recent state Board of Education meeting, state education Commissioner Stefan Pryor suggested the school might have to open with fewer students, or delay its start, given the last-minute change of management. But he said he was open to hearing BTWA’s proposal before making a decision.

Update: State education department staff are beginning the internal review of this proposal,” said spokesperson Kelly Donnelly Tuesday evening. We look forward to discussing this preliminary submission with the Booker T. Washington Academy board. Among the areas for further discussion are the size of the initial student body and the plan’s overall viability.”

Under the proposal, BTWA proposes bringing in a management firm, Yardstick Learning, to recruit students and staff and help run the school.

Yardstick Learning is run by Ebbie Parsons III, who served as acting chief operating officer for the Hartford Public Schools while he was a Broad Resident in Urban Education. He has a doctorate in educational and organizational leadership from UPenn and an MBA from the University of Minnesota, according to the proposal.

Yardstick’s flagship product” is the Parsons Teacher Index, a tool that predicts and enhances teacher effectiveness.” The tool claims to quantitatively predict — with statistical significance — the likelihood of teacher effectiveness.”

Parsons.

Yardstick is experienced in intervening in troubled or turnaround circumstances” at charter schools. It typically helps recruit students, trains teacher, staff and board members, and provides interim CEOs and COOs for organizations that need them, according to the plan.

The organization won’t be the official charter management organization” running the school; it will provide support to the school administrators and governance board, which is headed up by Morrison, according to the plan.

The BTWA board considered hiring Yardstick in 2011 and is excited to return to the original management plan,” the proposal reads.

BTWA has already hired a school leader named John Taylor. Taylor founded Green Tech High School, an all-boys charter school in Albany. He holds a master’s in educational leadership from Duquesne University and a certificate in strategic design for charter schools” from Harvard, according to the plan. He has run charter schools for over 15 years, including as the regional vice president of operations in charge of school startup” for Mosaica Education, an educational management company where Parsons also worked.

The proposal sent to the state is a working draft that is subject to change.

At a recent state school board meeting, several board members raised concerns about BTWA starting up in the fall.

I am concerned about a charter school that plans to open in Fall 2014 that will come now in the summer with a plan. I’m concerned because opening a school is not something one does in a month,” said board member Estela Lopez.

I’m concerned that we would hurry to approve something that is not ready,” she said.

The proposal will likely be voted upon at a special state board meeting, at a date not yet determined.

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