Dear CWC Applicants and Supporters:
We are very pleased to (finally!) announce some important news:

Queridos Aplicantes y partidarios de CWC (Citizens of the World Charter):
Estamos muy contentos de anunciar (finalmente) noticias importantes:

SCHOOL SITE: We received a remarkably perfect Prop 39 site from LAUSD! For 2010-11, we will be in our own, dedicated space on the Le Conte Middle School campus, located at 1316 N. Bronson Avenue, between Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset. We had our first site walk just yesterday with the Le Conte leadership -- who are awesome, by the way -- and were able to confirm a few very important details about this exciting arrangement on Le Conte's historic and quite lovely campus:

CWC's portion of the campus will be kept completely separated from the rest of the school, with our own classrooms, bathrooms, office and lunch areas totally partitioned off from the rest of the school. To further ensure physical separation we will have:

  • a separate and dedicated entrance exclusively for our use -- Le Conte Middle School's staff, students and visitors will not be able to use this entrance;
  • dedicated pick-up and drop-off areas where CWC students will be escorted by staff into/out-of our CWC space;
  • our own CWC teacher and visitor parking;
  • and more!!

La Conte Middle School was founded in 1922 and occupies a beautiful, historic building. The school has a wonderful, enormous campus with ample indoor and outdoor facilities, and CWC hopes to share many of those wonderful resources. All use of shared spaces will be designed to ensure no co-mingling of our elementary students with Le Conte's middle school students. Some of these resources include:

  • Community garden
  • Large auditorium
  • Performance center
  • Play space including large grassy fields and basketball courts

We also hope to create a separate elementary library space within the main library, including such things as cozy areas for reading and wonderful new age-appropriate books!

Many start-up charter schools in Los Angeles have little to no green space or enrichment facilities. We are so excited to have a strong working relationship with the District and Le Conte Middle School staff that enables us to provide these valuable resources to our community from Day One. The Principal of Le Conte is already very enthusiastic about our arrival on the Le Conte campus and is looking forward to collaborating with our leadership.

We know you will all have many questions about this. We've provided some more details in the Q&A below, and will be able to answer your questions in person at the Parent Info Session on May 24th (see below).

SITIO ESCOLAR: ¡Recibimos un sitio perfecto por parte del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Angeles! Para el año escolar 2010-11, estaremos en nuestro propio espacio, dedicado en Le Conte Middle School, localizado en el 1316 N. Bronson Avenue, entre Santa Monica y Sunset. El día de ayer recorrimos las instalaciones junto con los directivos de la escuela Le Conte - que por cierto son increíbles - y pudimos confirmar con ellos algunos detalles muy importantes en este emocionante contrato con esta escuela Le Conte:

El espacio designado para CWC estará completamente separado del resto de la escuela, con nuestros propios salones de clases, baños, oficina y área para el lunch. Para asegurar aún más la separación física entre CWC y Le Conte:

  • Tendremos una entrada separada de uso exclusivo para CWC; estudiantes, visitantes y personal de la escuela Le Conte no tendrán acceso por esta entrada.
  • Tendremos un espacio dedicado para dejar y recoger a estudiantes de CWC y seran acompañados por personal de CWC;
  • Tendremos nuestro propio estacionamiento para maestros y visitantes;
  • ¡Y más!

La escuela Le Conte fue fundada en 1922, está ubicada en un hermoso edificio histórico. Esta es una esculea con increíbles espacios al aire libre y esperamos que podamos hacer uso de estos increíbles recursos. Todos los espacios compartidos estarán designados de manera que no haya mezcla entre nuestros estudiantes de primaria y los estudiantes secundarios de Le Conte. Algunos de estos espacios comunitarios son:

  • Jardín comunal
  • Amplio auditorio
  • Centro de actuación
  • Área de juegos incluyendo un área de pasto y canchas de basketbol

De igual manera esperamos crear un espacio separado para nuestro uso dentro de la biblioteca incluyendo espacios para la lectura y nuevos libros apropiados para los grados de primaria.

Muchas escuelas nuevas charter en Los Angeles tienen muy poco acceso a espacios verdes o áreas de enriquecimiento cultural. Estamos muy emocionados de tener fuertes relaciones laborales con el distrito escolar así como con la directiva de la escuela Le Conte, que nos permiten utilizar estos recursos comunales desde el primer día de clases.

Sabemos de antemano que habran muchas preguntas acerca de esto. Estamos trabajando en la traducción de nuestra página de preguntas y respuestas frecuentes (Q&A). Y podremos contestar aún más preguntas en nuestra siguiente sesión informativa a llevarse a cabo el día 24 de Mayo del 2010.

NEW LOTTERY DATE: Our lottery will be held -- absolutely, positively -- on Thursday, May 13th at 6:30 p.m. at Siren Studios, 6063 W. Sunset Blvd. (Thank you once again to Siren Studios for donating space!) You do NOT need to be present at the lottery and your attendance will not affect your chances in any way, but if you would like to attend, you are welcome to do so. Child care and translation will be provided.

Nuestra lotería será llevada a cabo -- absolutamente, positivamente -- el jueves 13 de mayo a las 6:30 P.M. en los Siren Studios, 6063 W. Sunset Blvd. (¡Gracias de nuevo a Siren Studios por donar el espacio!). Usted no necesita estar presente en la lotería y su asistencia no afectará su oportunidad de ninguna manera. Si desea asistir le invitamos a hacerlo. Vamos a tener el cuidado de niños y traducción.

ENROLLMENT STATUS: After the lottery, we will mail letters with the results for each child by Monday, May 17th. If you do not receive mail from us by the end of the week (May 21st), please call us at 323.454.2220 or email info@citizensoftheworld.org.

Después de la lotería, enviaremos letras con los resultados para cada niño antes del lunes 17 de mayo. Si usted no recibe el correo de nosotros antes de fin de semana (el 21 de mayo), llámenos por favor en 323.454.2220 o envíe por correo electrónico info@citizensoftheworld.org. Le pedirán que regrese una forma que confirma su deseo de quedar en la Lista de Espera (Wait List) o que quitemos su nombre. Esta forma se debe volver no más tarde que el martes 1 de junio.

PARENT INFO SESSION: On Monday, May 24th in the evening, we will host another Parent Info Session. We will announce the exact location shortly. We will provide child care and translation (Spanish and Korean) and will be available to answer any questions you may have.

El lunes 24 de mayo por la tarde, vamos a dar otra sesión de información para los padres (Parent Information Session). Anunciaremos la localización exacta muy pronto. Vamos a tener el cuidado de niños y traducción en español y coreano para contestar cualquier pregunta que usted pueda tener.

The following Questions and Answers will help provide more information, and we will discuss more details at the May 24th meeting. We are ALSO attaching the notes from our last Parent Info Session to help answer more questions you might have.

Thank you so much for your patience as we worked out these exciting details for our school. -- Tara Kelly, Executive Director

Las preguntas y las respuestas siguientes ayudarán a darle más información, y discutiremos más detalles en la reunión del 24 de mayo. También estamos incluyendo las notas de nuestra sesión de pariente pasada (Parent Information Session) para ayudar a contestar otras preguntas que usted puede tener.

Muchísimas gracias por su paciencia mientras resolvimos los detalles de nuestra escuela.

Question and Answer About the Site:

WHAT IS PROP 39? California voters passed Prop 39 in 2000. The law requires school districts to provide charter school students with "reasonably equivalent" facilities to those they provide traditional public school students. Most requests within LAUSD cannot be accommodated. This year, 81 charter schools requested a Prop 39 facility for more than 21,000 students. (In comparison, LAUSD operates 891 schools with more than 600,000 students.) Approximately 44 charter schools were given offers for 13,000 seats and in many cases, charter schools have been offered only enough classrooms for some of their students, not all, or in a location far from their intended area, so they are not using the Prop 39 offers. We are VERY lucky.

HOW COME IT TOOK SO LONG TO FIGURE THIS OUT? LAUSD was overwhelmed with 81 Prop 39 requests this year and we didn't get an offer until very late in the process, but it was worth the wait!

HOW COME WE AREN'T GETTING A PRIVATE FACILITY? As many of you know, we have been diligently pursuing every possible option for months now. Securing a facility for a new school is clearly the greatest challenge new charter schools face. We were in the midst of some negotiations when we received the District's Prop 39 offer and our Board immediately knew that this was the best possible option for us by far.

HOW LONG WILL WE STAY AT LE CONTE? For now, we have a one year agreement with LAUSD to occupy the allotted space at Le Conte. It is possible we will stay longer if more space becomes available to accommodate our growth, but at this time, we just don't know. We will continue to explore private facility options and can assure everyone that CWC will always have suitable facilities for our students!

MANY details of this facility arrangement are still being worked out, and we hope to have a lot more information by the May 24th parent meeting, including things like school hours, our starting day of school in the fall, and much more. CWC will have its own hot lunch program, its own garden program, its own after-school program and more, all separate from Le Conte's Middle School program, but on our portion of the campus. Now that we know the facility we are starting to work out these details. If you could please hold your questions until our parent meeting we will do our best to answer as much as we can then!

The attached notes from our last Parent Info Session will also help answer many questions.

Thank you,

- Tara Kelly, Executive Director
Citizens of the World Charter Hollywood: A Public School
citizensoftheworld.org
323.454.2220