BRIGHT SPOT: PATTERSON PARK PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL, Maryland
The mission of Patterson Park Public Charter School is to empower the school community — through a whole-child educational approach — to be stewards of an equitable future. According to Jane Lindenfelser, Executive Director of the school, “the mission drives everything. Now, we just have to do a lot of different things.”
Founded in 2005 as a community school, “which means we are a place and set of partnerships,” Lindenfelser explains, Patterson Park Public Charter School already has long-standing relationships within its Southeast Baltimore community, including with Baltimore City Public Schools, the City of Baltimore, Friends of Patterson Park, Creative Alliance, Southeast Youth Collaborative, Southeast Community Development Corporation, YouthWorks, the Audubon Center, and Banner Neighborhoods. Since the vision and mission of the school is helping the whole child, “we have to go way beyond classroom door” and build partnerships across the city that will have an impact on kids, says Dr. Charles Kramer, principal of the school. The pandemic has meant that Patterson Park Public Charter School is navigating these relationships to meet the needs of its students and families in new and old ways.
In response to the current pandemic, the school shifted almost all of its teaching, scheduling, and parental communications to online platforms at the start of the summer. The internal operations team became an outreach team, contacting each and every one of its families to check in on them. The school set up virtual classrooms within a week and were able to update their website links immediately for classroom access. The rapid shift to online schooling required youth and families to already have access to technological devices and the internet. This access continues to be a challenge.
Initially, the school had 300 devices on-hand for families and used grant monies to purchase about 100 internet hotspots, as well as additional devices (which have not yet arrived as of late-September). Even still, they had a shortfall of about 50 Chromebooks. Over the summer, about 40 Chromebooks were stolen from the school site, leaving an overall shortage of about 90 devices. The school contacted the local Neighborhood Association to alert them of the break-in and remind people to lock their doors. Turns out, one of the neighbors knows the burglar.
So, what is the school to do? How should the school proceed in a way that is true to their vision of community and partnerships? And, how do they get their devices back? These questions are not easy to answer.
In the short term, a local business owner has stepped in, raising funds from community members for 40 new devices, which as Lindenfelser remarked “is amazing.” Now, each family has at least one device in its home for schooling, though not every student does. Lindenfelser shared that during its first two weeks of the 2020–2021 school year, teachers and staff have “fielded over 200 tech support calls to make sure kids could get into their classrooms and stay engaged.” The school is currently sourcing and negotiating discount rates for refurbished and used desktop computers.
In the long term, Patterson Park Public Charter School remains committed to its mission. The school is dedicated to “having a team of people to build longer relationships” since, as noted by Kramer, “real growth in communities takes several years to come together.” In emphasizing partnerships, the school is trying to “build trust to serve the broader cause” of empowering the school community.
Patterson Park Public Charter School is one of many examples highlighted in the new Bright Spots Collection, funded by the SD Bechtel Jr. Foundation. The collection will be live in a few weeks, and complements and extends the work of the Readiness Projects by offering examples of the ideas and strategies promoted by social sector partnerships. In the meantime, we’ll feature Bright Spots in a special series on this blog. If you have one you want us to check out, leave a response below or email us at brightspots@collaborativecommunications.com.
