There are over 100 public charter schools in Dallas-Fort Worth, which educate about 8% of the region’s students. These schools are free to attend and have the same accountability as Independent School Districts, so what makes them different?
“Charter schools bring different missions and models into the public education system,” says Brian Whitley, VP of communications for Texas Public Charter School Association.
So, what are those various missions and models? From language immersion to music and theater, many of these schools offer a specialized curriculum or focus to meet the needs or interests of different students. Here’s a look at some.
Specific Educational Focuses
As their names suggest, Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts and Texas School of the Arts—located in Fort Worth and Edgecliff Village, respectively—are heavily arts-focused. Teachers in academic classes are encouraged to take a more artistic approach, says Monica Sheehan, marketing communications director of Texas Center for Arts + Academics, which operates the two schools. When it comes to arts instruction, elementary school students receive a well-rounded arts education, while the middle and high school grades focus on their intended art, be that music, dance or theater.
Then there’s the International Leadership of Texas, a trilingual language immersion school. In kindergarten through fifth grades, students alternate between learning in English one day and Spanish the next. They’re then immersed in Chinese during art, music, and fitness classes. As students progress into higher grades, they can take dedicated Spanish and Chinese classes.
STEM is another area of focus at local charter schools, including Harmony Public Schools, which has 15 schools across DFW. A rigorous STEM curriculum is taught in all grade levels—with foundations taught early on and built upon year after year.
In fact, because of the curriculum, most of the high school students have become certified in HTML, cybersecurity, computer science, and more, says Susan Campbell, district communications and marketing director for Harmony’s North Texas Secondary District.
Some charter schools even opt to follow the International Baccalaureate—like Uplift Education, which has 45 schools across 21 campuses in DFW, and Manara Leadership Academy in Irving. The IB is a rigorous program that educates the whole scholar by challenging students to think critically, ask questions, and think across disciplines.
Students who earn an IB diploma “are able to get up to 24 credit hours in college, so oftentimes, many of our students enter college with their first year of college already completed,” says Remy L. Washington, president of Uplift Education.
A Focus on Leadership
Several local charter schools have unique leadership programs. International Leadership of Texas, which has 13 locations across Dallas and Tarrant counties, aims to prepare students for leadership roles in the international community. In younger grades, students learn to be good followers to become good leaders. Then in high school, they take dedicated classes where they learn leadership traits and principles.
Village Tech Schools, located in Duncanville, follow the Leader in Me program from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This helps propel social-emotional learning and to teach about goal setting and decision making, says Elizabeth Podany, the school’s director of design in innovation.
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Community Service
There are charter schools that also make giving back to the community part of school life. International Leadership of Texas’s motto, “Others Before Self,” goes hand-in-hand with its service leadership model. Each grade on each campus selects a community service project to complete each year.
Village Tech students help solve problems in the community. They’re currently working on a dog park for Duncanville and recently completed projects for the Dallas Zoo and a food pantry.
And Manara Academy District is currently organizing a 5K walk/run in service to the global community—all money raised will go to support the needs of those impacted by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
Considering Charter School?
Charter schools give parents many options. The first thing to think about is what’s important to you and your children—an academic focus, community service, college prep, etc., Whitley advises. Then visit and tour the schools near you within those parameters and see what it’s like to be part of that school.
RELATED: How to Decide if Charter Schools are Right for Your Family
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