Message from Mark Reford Thank you for considering City Collegiate as a school for your child. Please call me personally at (202) 537- 8165 or email me at mreford@citycollegiatepcs.org to discuss the education that we promise to offer our students next year. First, let me tell you a little about myself. After nearly twenty years as an educator, both as a teacher and an administrator, I am very excited to lead City Collegiate. My last job has been Academic Dean at Sidwell Friends School where I am responsible for overseeing the school's curriculum, and I have also taught at other Washington and New York area private schools. My devotion to education came after I finished both a doctorate and undergraduate degree in English from Oxford University. To begin I want to let you know about three very important and dynamic changes at City Collegiate next year. New Location: the school will move to a wonderful site the corner of 20th St. and S. St., NW in Dupont Circle (2001 S. St. NW). New Grades: In order to better serve the needs of Washington's students we will grow next year 2008 - 09 to offer 6th, 7th and 8th grades. In the academic year 2009 - 10 we will create a 9th grade and add a grade a year thereafter until we reach our goal of being a 6th through 12th grade school. New Academic Program: Perhaps most exciting of all for both our future teachers and students, we have made the commitment to pursue authorization for the Middle Years International Baccalaureate Program. City Collegiate will be the only public charter school in the District to offer this highly acclaimed program. Our mission is to foster a classroom experience that teaches our students every day that learning is about meeting responsibilities, and finding delight in their power to explore the world and develop the resources of their own minds to better understand it. We believe that children thrive in a small-school environment, and thus we are committed to sustaining a warm, intimate, and above all respectful learning culture, in which all students are known and recognized by the adults in the school family. Based at our new site in Dupont Circle, we will take full advantage of the resources of the city through an experiential learning program, The City Classroom, which will get our students out into the city for some hands-on learning, but also bring the intellectual, educational resources of Washington into the classrooms themselves. A school's facilities are crucial to supporting a respectful culture in which motivated students can flourish. In July this year we will move into a new space at 20th and S. St. in Dupont Circle (2001 S. St. NW), specially renovated by the non-profit foundation Building Hope at a cost of $600,000. Each of our 6 new classrooms is 700 square feet and flooded with sunlight from the large number of floor-to-ceiling windows. The second-floor facility is totally secure and beautifully configured to meet the requirements of a small and intimate middle school. City Collegiate regards our parents as partners in our mission. To help parents keep track of their child's learning and to meet our educational technology needs we use PCR Powerschool. PCR Powerschool (awarded to the school by the Walton Foundation as part of a $187,500 grant) is a great tool for students and parents to keep up on-line with assignments, notes from teachers and on-going class averages. WHY INTRODUCE THE IB PROGRAM? The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program will provide the structure, rigor, and intellectual quality that are at the heart of our educational mission. The program is taught in many of the finest schools in the United States, Europe and around the world, and is considered by many educators and college admissions offices to be one of the most outstanding curriculums now available. The IB program has proven to help students think critically across disciplinary boundaries, and to grow into informed and compassionate citizens with a world perspective on their classroom subjects. As an urban public charter school in the heart of the nation's capital, City Collegiate will be perfectly positioned to exploit the rich and varied resources available to us to fully engage our students in their learning. The IB program is justly held in very high regard by colleges and universities. Their admission experience has shown them that schools which have committed to the IB program are sending them students who have been thoroughly prepared to meet the demands of the world's most selective universities. In Newsweek's May '07 survey of the top 100 public High Schools in America, 42 of them offer the International Baccalaureate program. City Collegiate will be attractive not only to Washington's international community, but to any family that wishes their children to learn through their Middle and High school years to be confidant global citizens. Mark Reford, Head of School City Collegiate Public Charter School Please contact me at: (202) 537-8165 mreford@citycollegiatepcs.org