Meeting Demand for Charter Schools

Charter schools have increasingly become a viable alternative to traditional public district schools. Yet many charter schools, which often start in church basements or above storefronts, lack adequate facilities and have to turn away hundreds of students. TRF has provided over $120 million in facility financing to charter schools across the region in the last 10 years. With TRF’s broad range of financing options, many of these schools, including the two in Washington, DC featured below, are building and expanding facilities that support their educational priorities and plans for growth.

Building Facilities that Support Success

In fall 2007, 96 eager four-year olds began pre-K classes at KIPP DC LEAP Academy’s temporary home in a southeast DC church basement. Come September 2008, they will move into the school’s new TRF-financed facility with spacious, bright classrooms and many other developmentally appropriate features. Principal Laura Bowen’s excitement is infectious as she describes the new facility, “The new school will have a full gym for the students as well as secure outside play space. It will also accommodate music, dance, and art rooms that currently do not exist. Our students deserve the best we can provide and the new building will represent that belief to the entire community.”

LEAP Academy is part of the renowned Knowledge is Power Program and is the District’s first and nation’s third KIPP elementary school. The new school will build off the success of KIPP DC’s KEY Academy, which has been DC’s top performing middle school, district or charter, for three consecutive years.

Across town in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, another charter school will also be moving into its new TRF-financed facility. E.L. Haynes Public Charter School currently serves Pre-K through 4th graders in classrooms atop a local CVS. Named for Dr. Euphemia Lofton Haynes, the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics and a teacher in the DC school system for 47 years, the three-year-old school was the first public school in DC to use a year-round calendar with high-quality academic enrichment programs. The school’s dedication is evident in the “Exemplary” score it received from the DC Public Charter School Board’s annual review last year. In addition to new classrooms, E.L Haynes’ facility will include a gym and a cafetorium, enabling the school to expand to its full charter complement of Pre-K through Grade 8.