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REAUTHORiZED
reauthorized UPA approved for 5 more years with a 6-1 vote by the Santa Clara County Board of Education reauthorized
ARTICLE, ILLUSTRATIONS & DESIGN BY ALEXANDRA ROZMARIN • PHOTOS BY KRISTIAN CROWTHER
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As Executive Director David Porter walked through one of English teacher Andrea Aquino’s classes on Nov. 5—the day before UPA’s fnal reauthorization meeting—he was taken aback.
Despite the fact that he had walked into an English class, Porter saw students working through a math problem together on the board.
“And it was that moment that really crystallized everything that we’ve been working toward,” Porter refected.
For more than two months, the UPA administration, staff and faculty had been working on the school’s third reauthorization.
Being a county-wide public charter school, UPA must petition for reauthorization every fve years. During this reauthorization process, the Santa Clara County Offce of Education (SCCOE) analyzes UPA’s inner workings and determines whether or not the school should continue to exist.
Since being approved as a charter school on Aug. 28, 2006 by the SCCOE, UPA has Preparations & Introductions Preparations & Introductions
lived through two other reauthorizations in 2010 and 2015.
For the most recent reauthorization cycle, UPA submitted its petition on Sept. 9, 2019 for the reauthorization period of July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2025.
At the fnal reauthorization session on Nov. 6, SCCOE’s Director of Charter Schools Michelle Johnson opened the meeting by recommending UPA be renewed for another fve-year period.
The meeting continued with a 10-minute presentation by Porter in which he introduced various aspects of UPA’s academic and campus life, such as student and teacher demographics, math and ELA comparisons, reasons for student withdrawals and board improvements.
“As we look beyond our current successes, we are committed to building a more inclusive and responsive pedagogy in order to improve the learning outcomes for all students,” Porter said in his presentation remarks.
After a suggestion by Assistant to the Executive Director Emma King, each of the topics in his presentation were specif
ically crafted in response to SCCOE board members’ questions and concerns shared at the previous meeting on Oct. 2.
“I have found UPA to be exactly what charter schools were designed to be—an incubator for academic inquiry and innovation. Our successes and challenges are open for all to see, and we are more than willing to share,” Porter said as he concluded his presentation.
UPA staff and students proceeded to rally in support of the school during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Lisa Martin told her son’s story of fnding his place at UPA.
“In the time it took him to tour the school, he went from ‘They do this here’ to ‘I’ll do this here,’ and he has,” Martin said, choking up. “He’s delighted to have found a community of kids that don’t look down on being smart and instead mentor and encourage each other.”
Senior Carmen Canas also wanted to express her gratitude for the opportunities UPA has provided her over the past six years. She spoke about the school’s rigor and the compassion she has seen from teachers, mentioning she saw it as a “public school with a private school level of education.”
Trustee Anna Song (Area 5) took issue with Canas’s comparison of UPA to a private school, fnding the comment disrespectful toward public education.
While Song openly endorsed UPA’s mission, she urged UPA to reevaluate how it communicates that mission.
“Public education: we may be bottom in funding, but public school teachers are educating everyone that arrives to this state, no questions. No question of income, no question of eligibility, we educate everyone,” Song clarifed. “I myself have been an immigrant and my mom to this day doesn’t speak English, but I have been able to learn English, fnish college and be elected. I think our trustees share similar stories. That’s public education.” PUblic vs. private education PUblic VS. private education
In January 2020, Porter acknowledged Song’s point and noted that her personal experiences and the constituency she serves infuenced her interpretation of the comment.
He continued by emphasizing UPA’s commitment to teaching all students no matter their background and felt he should have made that point more clear during his presentation before the SCCOE board.
Although UPA does not handpick its students, it does share certain advantages with private schools, such as a smaller population of students. Therefore, UPA can respond to individual needs of students with more ease.
“That’s a societal issue, the fact that we don’t fully want to subscribe to supporting education as the No. 1 product that we do as a shared society,” Porter said. “If we’re truly dedicated to that, then every school would have many more employees and many more vehicles and systems for being able to respond to each individual need.” Director of Special Programs Jean Mastrogiacomo has been a part of UPA since its second year of operation, approximately a decade longer than Porter. She remembers the “private school at a public cost” slogan being more popular during UPA’s early years but believes it is now used less frequently.
Mastrogiacomo interpreted the comment similarly to Porter in that the motivation behind the phrase was not to belittle public schools but rather explain the advantages of UPA’s small population size.
“There was a point where I think I knew the name of all the kids at school and they knew who I was, and you don’t see that at a big public school,” Mastrogiacomo said. Song was not the only board member with concerns at the meeting. Trustee Claudia Rossi (Area 7) demonstrated her dedication to underprivileged students early. During the portion of clarifying questions, Rossi asked about special education students who have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Rossi communicated her worry that even though annual IEPs are legally mandated to have exactly one meeting a year and UPA allows for extra meetings based on parent requests, this frequency of meetings was insuffcient and does not allow students’ progress to be vigilantly tracked.
Porter explained that UPA partners with the Santa Clara County in order to have a manager that closely monitors IEPs on a regular basis and one full time special education teacher, ftting in with normal ratios. “As the IEP is functioning to meet the student’s needs, we’d like to have them in the least restrictive environment possible,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Matt Daugherty said. “And so we do IEPs as called upon by the law.”
Beyond IEPs, Rossi felt UPA’s graduation requirement of passing two Advanced Placement (AP) courses discriminated against students without stable housing or the ability to focus completely on school. In the end, Rossi was the only “no” vote of the night.
“My vote of ‘no’ is because I want to be that asterisk that speaks out and calls out to ask you to reconsider your model,” Rossi said. “If you’re not serving foster youth, if you’re not not serving English learners that have not been reclassifed, if you’re not serving that new arrival from Guatemala who is living with their aunt and uncle because of your requirements, then you’re not serving underrepresented students, and that was part of your initial introduction as one of your goals. I just want to explain to you why as a Latina, as an English learner and as a parent of a special ed student, I cannot vote ‘yes.’”
Rossi went on to explain that her intention behind the “no” vote was not to close the school. Very few charter schools in the Santa Clara County are shut down, According to the SCCOE’s 2019 Charter School Report, over the past 16 years, approximately only 18% of reauthorizations were denied, with nine of those 15 charters being permanently closed.
“I agree, fundamentally, that we have work to do,” Porter said retrospectively to Rossi’s point. “I could show you tons of data that we bring to the board every month saying that there are students who are struggling at UPA, and we want better results for them. I think it comes from a genuine, authentic and caring place.”
Porter did not, however, agree that requiring AP classes for graduation is discriminatory.
“It now creates space for adults to withhold energy and creativity in developing and dedicating resources to all students, and it allows students to opt out,” Porter said. “Failure becomes an option.” “Education is one of those things that everyone participates in so everyone knows it more deeply and knows it more emotionally than almost any other field. We’ve all been patients, but we’ve never been doctors.” —David Porter—David Porter Rossi’s “no” voteRossi’s “no” vote ANNA SONG
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The ethics of requiring AP classes for graduation is not a new debate; the board pondered the implications of such a requirement during the original petition of the school in 2006.
Song noted the motivation behind the requirement was to prove that students from all zip codes, even socioeconomically disadvantaged ones, could take and pass AP courses.
Song recalled that one SCCOE trustee, whose term has since expired, jokingly accused the school of being communist for that requirement.
At the November meeting, Song called on one of the only other people present for that original petitioning, founder Kurt Foreman, to comment on that debate.
“The high expectations at UPA and our staff really lift the kids’ expectations of what they can do for themselves, and I think that’s what’s made UPA such a wonderful success,” Foreman said.
Comments Song and Trustee Joseph Di Salvo (Area 4) made at the meeting reinforced their beliefs that UPA could do more to recruit socioeconomically disadvantaged students to their school, as most of those students do not necessarily see themselves as college bound or have the desire to take AP classes, and will thus not seek out schools with those requirements, echoing Rossi’s point.
“The recruitment of those children who need seventh grade in a uniquely different way from your sister traditional public school would show this board that you mean business,” Di Salvo said that November night.
Other board members voiced concerns about data showing test scores plateauing, vaping on campus and UPA’s board lacking transparency.
A common trend among the questions was the topic of student withdrawals, specifcally regarding the 9.1% of student withdrawals due to grades in 2019.
Both Trustee Peter Ortiz (Area 6) and Trustee Rosemary Kamei (Area 3) wanted to confrm that the decision to withdraw because of grades was being made by the families themselves.
“We commit to working with students no matter what their struggles are, but there have been times when students have decided that our program is too diffcult and they opt to go somewhere else,” Daughtery replied.
Kamei specifcally requested constant communication between the board and UPA in order to better keep track of student withdrawal data.
Di Salvo requested that UPA share its best practices with surrounding school districts in order to better their systems.
“The charter school law that was created in 1992 was to use public dollars to leverage the fact that you don’t have the same regulations traditional public has to follow, and then to innovate and spread your best practices so everybody could learn,” Di Salvo explained.
Di Salvo will not be part of the board the next time UPA is reauthorized, but expressed his hope to hear news of correspondence between UPA and a comprehensive public school when he watches the next reauthorization’s live stream.
Not all comments from board members were negative. In fact, Di Salvo prefaced his point by revealing his “yes” vote. Ortiz also spoke openly about his “yes” vote during the question section of the meeting. “Full transparency: I do support your school, the work that you’re doing,” Ortiz said. “I ask these questions because I think we can always constantly improve and Trustee Rosemary Kamei (middle) speaks directly to UPA administrators while SCCOE Superintendent Mary Ann Dewan (left) and Anna Song listen. Define DescriminationDefine Descrimination
According to DataQuest, the state of California’s offcial database for publically reported information about schools, the major ethnicity of UPA’s population is Asian whereas Santa Clara County’s (SCC) is Hispanic or Latino. The SCCOE continues to implore UPA to bring its proportionality up to that of the wider SCC demographics. 2018-19 Enrollment by Ethnicity2018-19 Enrollment by Ethnicity The Final MinutesThe Final Minutes 19 | IN-DEPTH
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move toward a goal that’s best for our kids and the entire county.”
Porter appreciated the outspoken support and felt a partnership between UPA and the SCCOE board in those moments. For him, those were the most rewarding parts of the reauthorization.
“Some charters act as if they are separate from the educational fabric when, for me, the reality is that we’re all living in the same community,” Porter said. “We’re all going to the same malls, and we’re going to the same stores, and we’re driving on the same streets; we have a responsibility to be part of the community.”
By the end of the meeting, the SCCOE board reauthorized UPA with a vote of six to one.
Looking ahead, UPA will experience both systematic reforms and ones that dive deeper into how teaching is structured.
Beyond HR improvements like updated retirement plans and the expansion of the board, Porter hopes to continue to refne the teaching and learning at UPA to be even more inclusive by supporting teachers in fostering culturally responsive teaching across campus.
This includes making student learning goals more explicit in order to allow diverse students the opportunity to adapt to their educational environment.
If a student grew up in a loud, collaborative family, the implied expectation of being silent when others are speaking may not be ingrained.
Students who grew up learning these unspoken rules of educational culture end The FUTURE OF UPAThe FUTURE OF UPA
up setting expectations that culturally diverse students were never given the tools to achieve in the frst place.
“That’s not fair for those students who want a piece of opportunity but don’t know how to attain it because they don’t know the secret rules,” Porter said.
In a fnal analysis, all the debates about the ethics of education and best practices in schools have one underlying cause: a dedication to providing students with the best education in order to allow them to take control of their lives.
Depending on experiences, personal values and philosophies, the path to this goal might look different for each person, but the goal of fostering a climate conducive to learning for all students never changes. “You have to have an environment that allows for people to grow,” Porter said, emphasizing that this can even mean working on a math problem during English class or playing the oboe during world history.
For him, the most important aspect of a school is letting students know that it is OK to be passionate about learning.
“As someone who liked learning, I didn’t want to show that I like learning. Now, I know what I missed in high school,” Porter said as he lamented about having to hide his passion for politics and debate in high school.
He is in awe of the passionate exploration he witnesses every time he walks into a classroom at UPA.
“That’s what the reauthorization is really about,” Porter said, “that are we creating an environment for students to be who they are.”
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