Aspire Public Schools is a K-12 school system focused on improving public education by preparing underserved students for college, training highly effective teachers and sharing innovative best practices.
In response to Governor Newsom’s 2023-2024 California State Budget proposal, Aspire Public Schools CEO Mala Batra issued the following statement:
Oakland, Calif. — We applaud Governor Newsom’s continued commitment to addressing the workforce shortage in our state’s public schools. Governor Newsom’s support for teacher training programs, resources for staff development, and incentives for educators who commit to working in priority schools throughout our state will help ensure our state’s students have well-trained, diverse teachers. While we acknowledge the uncertainty of this year’s budget, we also need policymakers to respond to the significant mental health needs of our students.
The COVID-19 pandemic took a devastating toll on children’s mental health, and it exacerbated economic and psychological trauma that already existed in communities of color and under-resourced communities. The increase in student mental health concerns creates a barrier to learning in schools, and is spreading teachers too thin as they address these issues in the absence of enough mental health support in schools to meet students’ unprecedented needs. When schools have the resources they need to properly address students’ mental health needs, students will learn more, be more connected to their school community, and feel safer and more supported. And teachers’ jobs will become more manageable, leading to higher teacher satisfaction and retention, and decreased teacher burnout. We look forward to working with the Governor and Legislature to identify and reallocate resources so that schools can meet the evolving needs of all our state’s students.
About Aspire Public Schools Aspire Public Schools operates 36 community-based public charter schools educating over 15,200 students in underserved communities across California. Founded in 1998, Aspire is one of the nation’s first and largest open-enrollment public charter school systems serving predominantly students of color from low-income communities. Delivering a rigorous education to students in grades TK-12, College for Certain is the focus for every age group. Teachers and families partner closely to ensure scholars are prepared to succeed in college, career and life. Learn more about Aspire Public Schools at aspirepublicschools.org.
By Hannah Workman | October 3, 2022 Original article here.
Stockton native and veteran educator Anthony Solina has been tapped to lead Aspire Public Schools’ 16 Central Valley schools, including its 10 Stockton schools, as the organization’s new Central Valley executive director.
Solina will be responsible for the overall performance of all schools in the Central Valley region. Aspire is the largest public charter school organization in California, with over 30 schools in the Central Valley, the Bay Area and the Los Angeles regions.
“Aspire is ‘College for Certain,'” Solina said, referencing the K-12 school system’s motto. “That doesn’t mean we’re taking college ready kids to start, but it’s about creating a belief in the students early that they can go and then by high school it becomes real.”
Solina has been with Aspire for 20 years, first starting as an elementary school teacher in 2002. He was a founding teacher at two Aspire schools in Stockton: Aspire River Oaks Charter School and Aspire Langston Hughes Academy. He then segued into administration and became the founding principal of Aspire Port City Academy in 2007.
Solina said his primary goal will be the same one he has had since he first stepped foot in a classroom — to make sure every student is college and career ready by graduation.
Solina said at Aspire, students can begin taking college classes when they’re in high school as part of its early college high school program. The program gives students the opportunity to earn a minimum of 30 units or graduate with an associate’s degree.
Aspire is also looking to bring a career pathways program to its Stockton schools, Solina said.
“In Modesto, we have a health careers academy that’s partnered with Modesto Junior College and the students are on a health careers pathway,” Solina said. “They can take courses in radiology, nursing, anatomy, physiology … so we’re piloting that in Modesto and that’s been a great experience so far, but we’re thinking about in Stockton, potentially partnering with [San Joaquin] Delta College and University of the Pacific on an engineering pathway.”
According to Solina, Aspire also is considering is a teacher career pathway. He said it is his hope that this pathway would not only help students find fulfilling careers, but also address the on-going staffing and teacher shortages in San Joaquin County.
“We’re just finding it a huge problem in the pipeline,” Solina said.
A survey recently conducted by EdSource found that the Stockton Unified School District is among the districts with the most significant staffing and teacher shortages in California.
While there is not an exact launch date for the teacher career pathway program yet, Solina said there are plans to pilot the program next summer. Meanwhile, he is looking to provide more opportunities for students to gain hands-on work experience.
“The more we can get connections with local businesses and get students into places of work to learn both the work skills and the life skills, as well as the academic needs for those careers, is where we’re hoping to head to first,” he said.
Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
As schools nationwide scramble to hire special education teachers after a pandemic-exacerbated shortage, a California charter network is turning to existing staff to fill classroom slots by paying for costly credential programs, boosting salaries, and providing mentors.
“I’ve seen this across systems, not just Aspire, where we have these great educators in our schools, who just need support in accessing credential programs,” said Aspire Charter Schools senior special education director Lisa Freccero. “They’re invested in our schools; they want to work with our kids; they want to work in special education.”
Facing similar vacancies, Aspire is acting fast to scale up their small grow-your-own program. So far, seven educators across their network of 36 California sites have participated.
Now in its third year, Aspire’s Education Specialist Intern Sponsorship program creates a pipeline of school volunteers and classroom aides “already in the door,” Freccero said, providing a pathway for uncredentialed staff, predominantly Black and Latino adults — who also reflect the network’s 15,000 students — to stay with the school community.
Aspire staff are hired on as first year teachers at a salary of $56-59,000. Through one-on-one coaching with administrators — including feedback from senior teachers on recorded lessons — specialist interns learn by doing, applying strategies with students in real time, with daily guidance from their senior mentor.
Even before the pandemic, Aspire’s Bay Area and Central Valley schools had persistent staff vacancies in special education. The last year saw specialist vacancies grow in their Los Angeles schools, where the Sponsorship program is now being expanded.
One East Oakland site is operating with three full-time special education aides, about half of their usual team of five to six. Their Bay Area schools have the highest shortages, currently filled by contractors or substitutes, though all regions have vacancies in every special education role — from speech pathologists and specialists/teachers to school psychologists.
Lisa Freccero
“It’s a high turnover profession… We were trying to solve for that,” Freccero added. “When we talk to them, for the vast majority, [the] barrier was having to either stop their current job or simultaneously figure out a way to pay to go back to school and do a credential program.”
Michelle Ciraulo, a teacher in one of Aspire’s 36 schools in East Oakland, was planning to do just that: save up at least $10,000, while working full-time, to enroll in a credential program. If certified, she’d have a better chance of staying with her caseload of 10th- and 11th-graders and earn higher wages.
Entrance art at Aspire’s Golden State Prep, where Michelle Ciraulo teaches, in Oakland, California.
“The cost was a hindrance. I wanted to become an ed specialist next year, but I would have probably ended up having to do that with an emergency certification, which you can only do for one year,” she said. “[This] definitely sped up the process.”
Ciraulo said she is also more in tune with general education teachers who she partners with in an inclusion class. Students with IEPs are assisted in general education classrooms.
The connection between teachers is necessary, she said, to make stronger lesson plans and better support students. The program enabled her to form deeper connections with students, too.
“It was really a big incentive for me to just become a specialist but also to stay at this school site and continue to work with my kids and get to know them really well — and their families,” Ciraulo said.
Michelle Ciraulo
Colleagues say that the model can also help prevent burnout many career educators experience around their fifth year. After juggling student caseloads, paperwork and learning to teach — often with little feedback or support networks — many feel overwhelmed from year one. Aspire’s model cuts down on learning curves via multiple mentors and gradually-increasing caseloads.
“Where do you think we should go next … What data do you want? What data do you need? What assessment should you use? … It takes a while to get that knowledge,” senior special education teacher Suzanne Williams said. “When you already have somebody right there next to you who has that knowledge, it’s beautiful, and it benefits the students the most.”
A parent of students with disabilities who started out as a volunteer in her childrens’ schools, Williams added that the first three years are typically the hardest for new teachers she’s witnessed in Modesto, a small city southeast of San Francisco. Williams said her mentee Stephanie’s first years were a success because of the Aspire model.
“She didn’t have to guess — she had somebody right there to ask. When she was writing her lesson plan, she was actually writing lesson plans that she was using each and every day […] She was all in 100% from the get go. We gave her a light caseload and then she worked her way up,” Williams said.
Suzanne Williams with one of her students.
Stephanie would record general education teachers’ classes and her own instruction, and the three educators would pour over them in detail, providing and adapting to feedback. And in built-in “dry runs,” Williams roleplayed students as Stephanie practiced lessons.
The mentorship took out the guesswork that typically comes with being the only, or one few, special education specialists at a site. By the end of the one-year program, Williams said it felt like her mentee had gained three years of experience.
“She’s not focusing on all the things she needs to learn and needs to be. She already has that mentor right there, working hand in hand […] The person is going into that situation prepared or feeling confident,” Williams told The 74. “A confident teacher brings confidence to the students.”
