CONCORD (BCN) — Local educators, administrators and parents Thursday protested continuing efforts to open a charter elementary school in Concord.
A group of Mt. Diablo Unified School District staffers organized a rally Thursday morning in Sacramento to protest Redwood City-based Rocketship’s final bid for a location in the Monument Corridor neighborhood.
The non-profit network of charter schools had a plan that was originally rejected by Mt. Diablo Unified School District in August. The plan’s rejection was later upheld by the Contra Costa County Board of Education after Rocketship appealed the decision.
Mt. Diablo Education Association, which is affiliated with the California Teachers Association, is fighting another Rocketship appeal, which was being presented to the California State Board of Education.
The appeal is based on a petition signed by 1,100 residents, but Mt. Diablo Education Association’s president, Guy Moore, said the appeal was achieved through “manipulative tactics.”
“They (make it seem) as if there’s a groundswell of parental support for this school,” Moore said. “But the community does not want this.”
He said a charter school like Rocketship’s would siphon off resources that would otherwise go to the public school district.
Moore said he believes no parent would endorse Rocketship’s teaching methods, which he said includes excessive amounts of homework, lack of credentialed teacher oversight and a sole emphasis on math and English.
Moore said Rocketship’s model particularly isn’t right for the heavily bilingual students in the Monument Corridor area. He said Rocketship has no experience with anything outside English language instruction.
“They don’t value people’s culture,” he said.
Rocketship representatives argue that the school network has extensive experience teaching English language learners.
More than 50 percent of the network’s students in the state are English language learners, similar to the student demographic in the Monument Corridor, according to Rocketship.
The network primarily serves students from low-income backgrounds in neighborhoods where access to good schools is limited, according to Rocketship.
And Rocketship contends that the parental support expressed in their petition is authentic — offering a statement from Jennifer Perez, a parent in the Monument Corridor:
“Giving my children the opportunity to go to a better school means the world to me. I want my daughter to attend the new Rocketship school. That means she’ll get the boost she needs early in her education to be a confident learner. Rocketship schools are colorful, vibrant learning communities with a strong college-bound culture.”
Mt. Diablo Education Association themselves launched an online petition to provide an outlet for those who disagreed with the project. It has gained 300 supporters after being posted on Tuesday.
Moore said the fight to keep Rocketship out of Contra Costa County will continue.
“We’ve dogged them at every meeting; they’re not used to this opposition,” Moore said. “We don’t want them here, and we’re going to fight them.”