THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

A Note from

Katie Severn, President & Chief Academic Officer

There is an energy that ripples throughout DC Prep. It’s vibrant, it’s passionate, and it’s constant. It’s the energy that comes from a team who is relentless in its pursuit of ensuring our kids receive an amazing education.

I joined DC Prep in 2007 for this simple reason: I knew that if you wanted to be part of a team that worked well together and actually got results for kids, this was the place to be. That was the reputation we had back then, and it’s what continues to resonate with those who join us today. We find the people who are committed to this same mission and end result, and in turn, we invest in helping them grow and flourish in their work here.

Being part of the DC Prep network means that we are committed to helping teachers and campus leaders do their best work in service of students. Teachers across the country are constantly asked to do a myriad of jobs, all of which are important and complementary, but the most important piece is to educate our children: to make sure that every one of our students leaves DC Prep with the analytical, critical thinking, and communication skills to thoughtfully approach, disentangle, and solve hard problems—and to be able to do so alongside others.

I’ve now been at DC Prep for over 15 years, which allows me to take a long view of how far we’ve come. And I’m convinced that central to our success is how we’ve built strong systems and structures that measure what matters and enable us to interrogate results that aren’t up to our standards of excellence. We study our data, formulate hypotheses about root causes, and iterate on new approaches to examine whether they deliver the results we’re aiming for. We are never content to rest on our laurels, because we know we can always do better.

And we incorporate every voice in our network into that pursuit of excellence. Our curriculum and assessments were developed in partnership with our teachers and campus leaders, who help us continue to refine our work every year. We take care in spotlighting great work and best practices across our six campuses. Our staff engage in task forces that guide our decision-making and design our program model for the future.

We set our kids up to be leaders. The more students that walk out DC Prep’s doors and go off into the world to make it a better place, the better. We aren’t—and shouldn’t be—the only people helping them become those leaders, but we have a very important role in their lives. And we take that role seriously. Our students have a voice, and that voice deserves to be heard—they have a right to be at the table to solve “the problem.” And our job is to prepare them to get to that table.

A Note from

Laura Maestas, Chief Executive Officer

In 2003, DC Prep opened its doors to a small group of students. Those early families were able to look past our unusual school location (the basement of the Old Soldiers Home!) to embrace a vision we still hold today: that we will prepare children to attend great high schools and colleges, which will in turn prepare them for lifelong success. As we reflect on the progress we’ve made over the last 20 years, our DC Prep team feels immense pride in how we have worked hard to honor the faith our families have placed in us to deliver great results for their children.

We have chosen to open schools slowly— deliberately. We’re now in our 20th year and we have six campuses (two each in Wards 5, 7, and 8). We know that the reason to open a school is because you have something of value to offer to a community that wants you. And that happens when your schools are strong, when you build trust and connection with the families you serve, and your students are thriving academically and as young people. This takes significant, intentional time and effort to get right. And now with nearly 1,000 graduates, we have evidence that this approach works: over 95% of our alumni go on to graduate from high school (versus 75% citywide). Even more impressively, our students are graduating from college at more than three times the rate of their peers, nationally.

I am often asked about DC Prep’s secret to success. It’s a difficult question—there are so many things that I believe contribute to our success and none of them are “secrets”!—but there are several factors that I believe are instrumental:

• A community that believes deeply in our mission. Families choose us because they want their children to go to college, and they choose us after seeing the positive impact DC Prep had on the lives of people they know and respect. Almost without exception, DC Prep families will talk about a relative or close friend who has a child that graduated from—or currently attends—DC Prep. Similarly, staff choose us because they want to work in a school community that cares about great results for students. This is an incredible source of strength: the vast majority of parents and staff members are aligned on where we are headed and believe that goal is worthy of time and effort.

• Systems for using data to evaluate our progress and plan how to improve. One of the hallmarks of DC Prep is our commitment to using data to evaluate ourselves against the goals we set. This helps us to get clear on what we are striving towards, enables us to hold ourselves accountable, and creates space for us to celebrate progress and plan how we’ll move forward.

• A willingness to revisit how we do our work in service of better outcomes. Together, our values provide direction on how we can fulfill our mission. They remind us to set lofty goals and build plans to achieve them (“We Aim High”). They encourage us to think about issues from multiple dimensions & consider what is possible (“We Ask Why”). And they push us to be willing to try new things, in service of better results (“We Are Brave”).

These strengths position us well as we look ahead to our next 20 years. In a world that is ever more complex, we know we must prepare students to be critical thinkers, flexible problem-solvers, collaborative team players, and emotionally intelligent leaders. Already, our curriculum has evolved to place even more emphasis on social-emotional learning and studentdriven thinking. In the coming years, we will continue this push as we embrace project-based assessment to build students’ capacity for creative problem-solving, teamwork and executive functioning skills, and interdisciplinary thinking.

Alongside the shifts we are exploring for students, we are also looking for opportunities to better meet the needs of our teachers and school leaders. Over the last few years, we’ve seen that teachers and leaders are as passionate as ever about our mission—and that many talented educators are looking for greater flexibility in their day-to-day work. While we don’t yet know what the teaching roles of tomorrow may look like, we are deeply invested in examining these questions. Because in seeking solutions, we will find new ways to attract and keep great educators. We have launched a staff task force to examine these questions and are excited to see the recommendations the task force puts forward. As always, we believe our best answers come from working together as a community to define our path forward.

We look forward to continuing to improve the day-to-day experience of our students and staff and see the way that their needs reflect the urgent demands of a complex and rapidly evolving world. We are excited to tackle these challenges together. Onward!