Antioch School Board to review petition for public, non-profit Rocketship charter school, tonight

Community organizations and hundreds of families support new, high-quality charter school

Rocketship Education annou​nced today that the nonprofit public charter school network filed a petition with the Antioch Unified School District (AUSD) to open a public elementary charter school for grades TK through 5th for the 2018-2​019 school year.

​Rocketship Education is a non-profit network of public elementary charter schools serving over 6,000 students in Bay Area neighborhoods with limited access to excellent schools. Nearly nine out of ten Rocketship students in the Bay Area are socioeconomically disadvantaged, over half are English Learners and 83 percent are classified as ethnic minorities.

This proposed school is already seeing a groundswell of community support, with more than a dozen organizations and community leaders pledging to back the project. Furthermore, several hundred parents signed on to bring a Rocketship school to Antioch, demonstrating a strong demand for high-quality public school options in their city.

“The historic and prevalent impact of systematic oppression on school systems has produced racially disproportionate outcomes that are all too familiar. Education must continue to serve as a vehicle of social mobilization for at-risk communities. Under-served families must have access to high performing schools that are based on a model of equity, excellence and efficacy. Our community needs a school model that demonstrates coherent cultural responsiveness and authentic community engagement,” said Dr. Lamont A. Francies, Pastor Delta Bay Church of Christ.

Families in Antioch are helping to bring Rocketship to their city due to the lack of high-quality public schools in the area. For the 2015-16 school year, only 19% of all students in grades 3-5 in the AUSD met or exceeded state mathematics standards, leaving thousands of children behind grade level. Only 15% of both socioeconomically disadvantaged and Hispanic students met or exceeded these standards. In English Language Arts (ELA) just 30% of all AUSD students in grades 3-5 met or exceeded grade-level standards on the California state assessment, and less than one quarter of socioeconomically disadvantaged studentsmet or exceeded standards.

​Yet on this same 2015-16 California state assessment, Rocketship’s Bay Area network of 10 schools ranked in the top 10% in both math and ELA among all elementary school districts serving a similar student population across the state.

“As someone who has been working with and for children in and around Antioch for years, I’ve seen far too many who give up, and never go on to college. This is especially true for students of color,” said Angel Luevano, Executive Director of Todos Unidos. “Rocketship schools have a college-focused mindset beginning with the youngest students. Their goal to eliminate the achievement gap in our lifetime is not just rhetoric, but is real, and seen every day at Rocketship schools. They bring with them hope for success, and they know how to get the job done.”

“I’m very excited that Rocketship Education is coming to Antioch,” said John Crowder, Director of the Math Intensive program in the district. “​I’ve personally visited two of their ten schools in San Jose, and have seen first-hand the positive impact they’ve had on student achievement. This is great news for our students, our parents, and our community.”

About Rocketship Education

Rocketship Education is a nonprofit public charter network of 16 elementary schools serving low-income communities with limited access to excellent schools. Founded in 2007 in San Jose, California, Rocketship has since expanded to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; and Washington, D.C. By building a scalable and sustainable school model that propels student achievement in underserved communities, Rocketship is working to eliminate the achievement gap in our lifetime. Visit www.rsed.org to learn more.

The school board meeting is at 7:00 p.m. in the School Services Building at 510 G Street in downtown Antioch. To view the complete meeting agenda, click here.


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