The Alain LeRoy Locke Family of High Schools opened on September 8, marking the major start in Green Dot's Locke Transformation Project. Six new schools opened this month to serve the students from the Locke High area. These new schools will transform Locke from a single 2,600-student traditional high school into a cluster of high-performing, small, public Green Dot schools. In total, eight schools are part of the transformation project. Ánimo Watts II and Ánimo Locke Tech opened in 2007 and now serve ninth- and tenth-grade students. Locke was one of L.A.'s most troubled and chronically under-performing public high schools, having sent only 5% of its entering ninth graders to four-year colleges and universities. Green Dot hopes to create a ten-fold improvment in this outcome by 2012. The hope for a better academic future for the students was met with widespread community support before the first day of school as several hundred parents, students, teachers, church and community leaders, politicians, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined hands to bless the school upon its transformation. Green Dot is implementing several programs to make sure this happens, including using off-site facilities to incubate the new schools and creating an integrated alternative education program. "We want to make sure these kids have the support they need to improve their writing, math--all parts of their academic experience," said Kelly Hurley, Green Dot's cluster director for the new Locke schools. Each of the schools in the Locke family are autonomous and all of the teachers are members of the Asociación de Maestros Unidos, a CTA/NEA affiliate and the collective bargaining unit of Green Dot teachers. "What Green Dot is doing at Locke will be the model for any school district looking to turnaround underperforming schools. The Locke transformation will prove beyond any doubt that Green Dot's practices and those of other successful small school operators can be replicated by school districts on a large scale," said Ted Mitchell, President of New Schools Venture Fund and President of the California State Board of Education. With the opening of the new high schools Green Dot now operates 19 charter schools, including one in New York's South Bronx.
The hope for a better academic future for the students was met with widespread community support before the first day of school as several hundred parents, students, teachers, church and community leaders, politicians, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined hands to bless the school upon its transformation.