Saint Louis Language Immersion Schools has been selected for the inaugural cohort for the Charter Network Accelerator, which is focused on helping experienced leaders, with an emphasis on leaders of color, in designing and scaling their networks of schools.
Rhonda Broussard, founder and president of St. Louis Language Immersion Schools, is African-American.
St. Louis Language Immersion Schools (SLLIS) is a network of public charter schools whose mission is “to position all children for success in local and global economies through holistic, intellectually inspiring language immersion programs.” SLLIS currently offers tuition-free immersion education in Spanish, French and Mandarin to 871 students.
Through the Charter Network Accelerator, charter management organizations achieving strong results with historically underserved populations will participate in bi-monthly learning sessions where leaders “receive training in the skills required for managing a rapidly growing organization, and explore options for teacher and leader pipelines, and core academic programs,” organizers said.
“Within this cohort, we all are clear that we educators make the difference for our students,” said Broussard. “This is a study in how we can improve our adult methods to support our students to reach their potential.”
The other participants are Algiers Charter School Association (New Orleans, La.), Charles A. Tindley Accelerated Schools (Indianapolis, Ind.), Collegiate Academies (New Orleans, La.), First Line Schools (New Orleans, La.), Harvest Preparatory School (Minneapolis, Minn.), FUSE (Hartford and Bridgeport, Conn.), LEAD Public Schools (Nashville, Tenn.), New Urban Learning (Detroit, Mich.), Public Prep (New York, N.Y.), ROADS Charter High Schools (New York, N.Y.) and Scholar Academies (Philadelphia, Penn.; Washington, D.C.; Trenton, N.J.).
The Accelerator is being offered by Achievement First, a network of 25 non-profit, college-preparatory, public charter schools in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island, in partnership with YES Prep and Aspire Public Schools.
“Through the Accelerator, a diverse group of public charter school networks will share promising practices for closing the achievement gap at scale,” said Achievement First Co-CEO and President Dacia Toll. “Together, we will provide far more students with an excellent education than we could ever reach as individual networks.”
