National leaders to hear of CVCHS success

Linzey, McChesney speak in Washington
of high school’s conversion to charter

By now, most people around the Clayton Valley area are aware of the success of Clayton Valley Charter High School. Now, some others are taking notice:

The U.S. House of Representatives.

This week, CVCHS Executive Director David Linzey and administrator Neil McChesney are in Washington D.C., speaking to members of Congress on “Raising the Bar: How Charter Schools are Impacting Public Education.”

“We’re very excited” Linzey said last week of the invitation, made on behalf of Congressman George Miller, an early supporter of the CVCHS charter. They are two of just five charter school leaders from across the country invited to the House of Representatives Congressional Hearing on Education and the Workforce on March 12.

“They want us to tell the CVCHS story,” Lindsay said. “They want to hear about the great success and the dramatic change in our school’s culture once we became a charter school.”

Since becoming a charter school in 2012, the school’s academics have skyrocketed, and the improvement in last year’s API scores made CVCHS one of the top academic high school in the state.

Linzey and McChesney both credit the change to becoming a charter school, yet they both say that traditional schools can do the same things, with the will, leadership and teacher support.

“Becoming a charter school is like being a speed boat rather than the Titanic,” Linzey says.

McChesney said that one of the major reasons the charter succeeded, and why the school is flourishing, is because of the widespread community support. “When I’m out and about, I hear words like ‘our’ high school rather than ‘the’ high school,” he says. “People take a lot of pride and ownership in the school, and that’s what helps its success.”

Linzey, who has overseen many other traditional and charter schools, says that while every school has its “own DNA,” there is one common thread to success. “Every successful school integrates as many ‘Best Practices’ as possible. There has to be a call for change, then a demand for change, and then accountability.

“Our kids have to develop a culture of success, not failure, and it’s up to the staff to make that happen,” he says.

Linzey cites several reasons CVCHS has been successful since transitioning to a charter school:

1) Intervention: “We identify students early who may be having a problem in a class, and we don’t wait for them to fail.” For instance, the school takes data from incoming ninth graders and “even before they set foot on campus, we are helping the ones who need it.” He also says that after-school tutoring and Saturday Schools have helped keep failure rates down.

2) Credit Recovery: Students who are “off-track” to graduate will be given every opportunity to improve in subjects they’ve failed, and to recover lost credits.

3) The Three-R’s: Linzey has made a mantra of this new twist on an old cliché. At CVCHS, the “Three-Rs” stand for rigor, relevance and relationships in the curriculum that is being taught. “We help students understand why what they are learning is important,” he says.

4) Quarterly Benchmark Exams: Rather than waiting for finals, the quarterly assessments measure students’ progress in a subject, and teachers can immediately help students where it’s needed. “This way we’re not waiting for the end of the year to fix something,” Linzey says.

5) A Failure-free School: CVCHS does its best to keep students from failing, requiring after-school tutoring, Saturday Schools, and individual counseling. “The staff has to ‘own’ our students’ success,” Linzey says. In two years, the school’s failure rate has been cut in half.

“Charter schools are no longer an experiment,” McChesney said. “There are more than 500,000 students enrolled in charter schools in California.”

“I wish every school could do what we’re doing,” Linzey says. “It’s important for let Congress know that it should be easier to make schools charter schools.”