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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOMPASS COMMUNITY COLLABORATIVE CHARTER SCHOOL - SITE PLAN ADVISORY REVIEW - SPA180001 - SUBMITTAL DOCUMENTS - ROUND 1 - PLANNING OBJECTIVES1 March 5, 2018 Clay Frickey City Planner Development Review Center 281 North College Avenue Fort Collins, CO 80524 RE: Compass Community Collaborative Charter School- 2105 S. College Ave Site Plan Advisory Review (SPAR) Submittal Dear Mr. Frickey, The attached SPAR submittal package is for the lease of 2105 S. College Avenue to serve as the home for Compass Community Collaborative Charter School. Our lease includes most of the east building in a two-building property (15,025 sq.ft.) and is part of a community-focused redevelopment of this property being conducted by local, visionary developers, Stuka, LLC. Compass Community Collaborative School (CCCS) has a charter contract from Poudre School District and will be opening a 6-12th grade charter school in the August, 2018. We will employ entrepreneurial mindsets and use community-engaged venture projects that inspire deep learning of academic, social-emotional, and essential competencies. We are the first public secondary school in Fort Collins to offer a fully interdisciplinary, community-engaged curriculum with multi-age student project teams and a flexible school day schedule that promotes community collaboration inside and outside of our school building. Our 21st Century school is being designed by a diverse team of educators, students, parents, artists, and community leaders in an entrepreneurial business incubator where we are embedding secondary education into real-world problem solving and co-creation of a regenerative future for the City of Fort Collins. Community-Engaged Learning The city of Fort Collins was recently highlighted as a contemporary case study in the Smithsonian Museum of American History in the Places of Invention exhibit. "The exhibition examines what can happen when the right mix of inventive people, untapped resources, and inspiring surroundings come together". We want to extend the reach of our community's collaborative, creative, and forward-thinking culture into our secondary schools. We will function as an exemplar of place-based education, design thinking and action research in 2 secondary education. For example, we are working with Ascend at Colorado State University (CSU) on a digital badging system that allows students to demonstrate mastery in 21st Century skills that will make them effective in their post-secondary education and careers. Additionally, CSU is home to secondary teacher and principal licensing programs, strongly positioning us to train new teachers and school leaders in community-engaged, applied learning that will benefit our K-12 education system well into the future. We have developed collaborative arrangements with other colleges at CSU, including, for example, the College of Natural Sciences, who will provide a state of the art science lab for our students each afternoon. Local nonprofits, including the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, No Barriers, and Impact Dance, will collaborate on curriculum and resources (including mentors and teachers) with CCCS. Fort Collins has the capacity to showcase an innovative school; we have the collaborative spirit and human resources to put educational innovation on the national stage. The Getting Smart organization partnered with the eduInnovation & Teton Science Schools to study the benefits of place-based education to both the learners and the community. They define “Place-Based Education is anytime, anywhere learning that leverages the power of place, and not just the power of technology, to personalize learning”. Shifting learning out of the traditional setting and putting kids back into the community is the heart of Compass. Our philosophy aligns perfectly with Getting Smarts’ idea that “Through inquiry, projects and problems, entrepreneurship, community-centered design and service learning, place-based education offers relevance to students and teachers, infinite pathways to personalization and tools for students to experience agency and a sense of ownership for community sustainability and improvement”. Benefits of Place-Based Education Diagram source: What-is-Place-Based-Education-and-Why-Does-it- Matter-3.pdf written by Getting Smart and Teton Science School with support from EduInnovation 3 Future Ready: CCCS Supports Fort Collins’ Goals for Sustainable Development and Economic Health Technology will be used to support student learning, exploration, creativity, problem solving, connecting, and sharing. From our standards-based learning management software, our work- based learning experiences, digital badging and the design of digital portfolios to our college science lab and our annual coding camp deep dives, students will be masters of their digital universe and will have the skills to succeed in college and beyond. The ongoing technological and connectedness revolution is eliminating or replacing vast numbers of workers and even entire careers. The jobs needed in the 21st Century are vastly different than the jobs of the past and require a markedly different set of skills—and thus a different kind of education—than what has been offered in the past. The skills demanded by employers in 2020, as noted in the most recent Future of Jobs Report, demonstrate the versatile self-management skills and attitudes that employers need now (see Top 10 Skills graphic), as opposed the strict content knowledge that used to be valued. Across Colorado there is a great need for both an educated workforce as well as increased equity for people of color and poverty. The Larimer County Economic and Workforce Health Report highlights that in our county, only 36.5% of the population has an associate degree or higher, and over 23% of the population has “some college, no degree”. This lack of college persistence is a real concern both in terms of career readiness and in terms of debt accrual among young adults. Debt and having qualifications only for low paying jobs are part of the reason why fewer than half of Larimer County Households could afford to buy a house without being cost burdened. Drilling down even further, the Talent 2.0 Regional Workforce Strategy, published in February, 2017, shows that the Fort Collins/Loveland Metro Statistical Area (MSA), is the most educated area of the county, with fully 44% of the population aged 25 and over have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In 2015, graduation statistics at Colorado State University included a 38.6% four-year diploma for full-time students, and up to 65.2% of students graduating after six years. While the high cost of college and university is a strong contributing factor to lack of persistence, likewise, lack of clarity of purpose and direction also contributes to this failure to complete. This is why at Compass Community Collaborative School our mission is to help students discover learning with purpose. All students at Compass will begin work on their Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP) as soon as they start at CCCS. Students will prepare for community college and/or university 4 entrance exams and will be strongly encouraged to take at least one concurrent enrollment and/or college course before graduation. Because we are one MAX line stop away from CSU campus, we will make daily use of CSU as a resource for learning and building confidence in our students as being college-ready. Combined with the rigorous academic program and high expectations (with high support), and individualization of our learning platform, this will assure that students have confidence in their ability to succeed in college courses. Additionally, students will have completed a minimum of one semester-long professional internship/work- based learning experience by the time they graduate. They will have a professional resume, a letter of reference for future employment, a professional digital portfolio with microcredentials in the form of digital badges in essential competencies, and the confidence to interview for positions on their career journey. To help us manage our internship program we will partner with the Larimer County Workforce Center to help us track student opportunities. The School Leader is an associate member of the Larimer County Workforce Board and we will have a dedicated staff member working with students and community partners to effectively team with community partners on developing work-based learning opportunities for youth across our city, not only at CCCS. As a community collaborative, we see ourselves as leaders in a “Youth Cluster”, much like our county and city has developed manufacturing, health care, and other career clusters. Our goals as leaders in the Fort Collins Youth Cluster align with many of Fort Collins citywide initiatives and goals, including the revitalization of mid-town, the creation of a Creative District, supporting the Economic Health Plan, and the Climate Action Plan. See Appendix A for a visual description of our connection to city goals. Community Developed and Supported: The planning team has held numerous community design meetings over the last 28 months. We have additional community involvement events planned through our opening date in August of 2018. • Design sessions with adolescents: o middle school/ high school design session o Interviews with postsecondary young adults • Design and input sessions with parents o Non-college educated parents and college educated parents attended design sessions to express their desires for their children’s futures and how school could help meet those needs. We also asked them to give us feedback on our ideas. • Open community meetings: o Film screenings, including Paper Tiger and Most Likely to Succeed, were used to attract community members to discuss what they want in secondary education • Meetings with Colorado State University administrators, Deans, and program directors have informed our design in terms of college readiness and college persistence/graduation. 5 • Meetings with business leaders and city government officials, including the city manager and mayor, the Larimer County Workforce Center, and the Chamber of Commerce have informed our essential skills and badging protocol, as well as our internship program design. • Prototyping a CCCS project experience in collaboration with CSU Writing Project this spring and summer. Our participants were ages 12-17 years, with a demographic profile including 38% minorities (PSD is 26% minority overall), and 31% FRL (PSD is 31% FRL overall). The voices informing the design of Compass have been ethnically, socio-economically, and socially diverse and our continuing community events have led to lively discussions with creative ideas being shared that have been incorporated into our school design. Some of the clear messages that came from middle and high school students were: • Make school more relevant to the “real world” • Include more diverse perspectives and cultural lenses in history and English classes • Include more outdoor opportunities and field trips outside of the school building • Give kids more say in what they learn and where/how they learn it • Give school credit for work and internships - let us do them during the school day • School should start later • We live in a town with a university campus, so go to campus to get used to the idea of college • Help create a more positive and supportive school culture. Gay kids and brown kids feel different and often uncomfortable • Get rid of busy work in school and as homework Postsecondary interviews with 40 PSD graduates revealed that they think that in order to create the most opportunity for young adults, secondary schools need to: • Provide challenging academic courses and push all students to take college level classes. 6 • Provide the time and support for postsecondary planning as part of the regular school day, including: o College explorations that involve time on campuses o Focus-groups with college students on those campuses o Financial aid exploration and support o Internships and work experience o Personal interests and strengths exploration • Explicitly teach and give ample practice time for: o Teamwork and professional collaboration o Self-advocacy o College-level research skills and public/university library use o Personal financial management o Personal time management Some of the clear messages from parents that informed our school design included universal hopes for school to help them prepare their children to: • be good communicators • make it safely through the adolescent years • contribute to the wellbeing of the family and community • be successful and happy in college and/or work • grow up to be happy, self-sufficient adults Our design thinking approach will keep us listening to our community and refining our design into the future. Our community support has continued to grow and we will collaborate extensively with our supporters: local businesses, Colorado State University (CSU), Front Range Community College, civic organizations, federal research institutions, and nonprofit organizations. Our students will bring fresh perspectives and engagement to the entire city. Six examples of our developing partnerships stand out: • CSU Education and Outreach Center in the College of Natural Sciences: Dr. Andrew Warnock, Director of the EOC, has agreed to schedule his modern science lab on the third floor of the Natural Sciences Building on campus for use by CCC every school day 7 afternoon from 1:00 p.m-3:15p.m. for STEM venture projects led by Compass teachers. There is a Max Line station within a three-minute walk of the lab. • The CSU Writing Project partnered with Compass in creating a prototype summer program this spring and summer. The Writing Project contributed funding from their National Science Foundation grant, classroom space on campus, and use of two laptops and eight iPads for writing, researching, and movie making as well as curriculum support. The CSU Writing Project is part of the National Writing Project and excited to continue to develop multiple collaborative opportunities to work with CCCS staff and students. • Youth Innovation Lab and DesignCase: Youth Innovation Lab (YIL) is a locally -based, international organization that is sharing their entrepreneurship curriculum and expertise with Compass. The founder and owner of DesignCase, an international maker education consulting firm, is on our Board of Directors and is working with us currently to design effective integrations of maker tools into our venture project curriculums. Additionally, he has provided, pro bono, the tools, materials, and expertise for three different pop up makerspace events in Fort Collins. He will continue to support in this role and help us write grants to bring additional maker tools to the CSU EOC science lab. • Larimer County Workforce Center: Compass is in preliminary discussions with the staff at the Workforce center about how best to serve our students internship needs. We are, as a community collaborative, looking for new and interesting ways to tap into, and support, the resources that already exist in our community rather than reinventing them on our own. Additionally, our school leader is an Associate Member of the Workforce Development Board provide additional pathways to strengthen our ties to the business community. • No Barriers USA: No Barriers is an international nonprofit located in Fort Collins that works with veterans and youth on social emotional learning and character development through outdoor challenge and travel experiences, and service projects. No Barriers has generously donated an in-kind grant worth $550/student for use of their wilderness camp in Red Feather, Colorado, for one week of culture building for our students and staff at the beginning of each school year. We will also work together to broaden our social emotional learning curriculum for our Advisory classes. • Impact Dance Company: Impact Dance is a local, nationally recognized dance company that performs and teaches around the world. They are excited to collaborate with Compass to share space, teach students (dance and other forms of performance art, business, marketing, anatomy and physiology, etc.), and promote arts in our community. 8 • CSU School of Interior Design: Dr. Laura Malinin, Program Coordinator of Design and Merchandising in the College of Health and Human Sciences, created a capstone project for her senior design students to help us design our “CCCS dream home”. She looks forward to continuing opportunities to work with CCCS staff and students. • Other local businesses and nonprofits are developing opportunities for collaboration with Compass Students and staff. We presented over 30 letters of support in our charter application to PSD. Supporters include: o Students who have been active in our school development o Parents who have signed our Intent to Enroll Form o The City of Fort Collins Mayor and City of Fort Collins Manager o The Fort Collins Museum of Discovery o Local small businesses and nonprofits 2105 S. College Avenue is the Right Home for Compass Community Collaborative School Housing Compass at 2105 S. College fits the needs of our innovative school model and the needs of the community for thoughtful redevelopment of this site. As part of the SPAR review, the city has interest in the location, character, and extent of the development. Location: • Mid-town and at a MAX line stop means that our families can use the MAX to get their students to school, and the school can use the MAX to move around to the rest of our campus, the City of Fort Collins and the CSU campus. • Supports our values of low-environmental impact by using an existing building on the major public transportation route in the city. • Positions us to make quick and easy use of our partnerships with colleges and departments at CSU and nonprofits, parks, art venues, and scientific organizations downtown. • Adjacent to the Spring Creek bike trail to provide natural areas for exercise and academic research and supports biking to school and to community partners. • Adjacent to Gardens on Spring Creek to provide opportunities for students to participate in community food production. 9 • The City of Fort Collins has approved secondary schools in commercially zoned areas before (Pioneer charter school started in strip mall at Drake and Shields), and other cities have multiple examples of elementary and secondary schools in redeveloping commercial districts (Greeley, Thornton, Commerce City, Denver) Character: • The open, flexible floor plan we need for our 21st Century learning space is well served by this building. Originally designed as a bowling alley, the open expanses serve our design well. • • PSD facilities manager, Pete Hall, and Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Todd Lambert, have toured the site with us and have expressed their enthusiasm for the location as well- suited for our school model and the 10-year lease with two, five-year options for renewal as important for providing location stability for the long-term success of our school. • We are not a typical school that will offer CHAASA sports programs or students with class periods “off” during the day. All students will be engaged in supervised learning at our building and out in our extended, community campus all day. We will enforce a “closed campus” for our common, supervised, lunch break. • Our innovative school model is place-based and community-engaged, making it essential that we be in a location served by high quality public transportation and within a few minutes arrival of many, diverse community partnership opportunities. • Redeveloping an existing building that has been underutilized and largely neglected for many years serves the interests and values of both the City of Fort Collins and CCCS. 10 Extent: • We are being permitted by the State of Colorado, but we are working with City of Fort Collins departments to comply with building and zoning codes to every extent reasonably possible. • We are not the owners of the building, so will not take the lead on improving the full extent of the campus, but we will work with our landlord, City of Fort Collins departments, and neighbors to improve the appearance, functionality, and longevity of the property. • We are working with our landlord, Stuka LLC., to reach out to neighboring businesses to be more than just good neighbors, but instead to be partners, collaborators, and supporters. We have been met with enthusiasm and creative ideas for win-win partnerships. • Our traffic study indicates that our small size, staggered start and end times, and extensive use of the bike path and MAX line will minimize any impact to traffic patterns in the area. Additionally, our school will not be open after 5 p.m., on weekends, during holidays, or over 10 weeks of the summer, so we will have NO impact during the local business’ busiest hours and days of the week/year. Any other use of this building would likely have more traffic impact during these busy times than will we. • Our traffic study indicates this site offers us a circulation pattern and drop-off cueing pattern that will not impact our neighboring businesses. We have ample staff and guest parking, as well as handicap parking and bicycle parking. • Our traffic study indicates that we can easily and safely get students and staff to and from the MAX bus stop without impeding traffic, disturbing neighbors, or putting students at unreasonable risk. • Access to our building, and all facilities in our building will be ADA compliant. We are thrilled to have such a perfectly located and designed space in which to put the home of Fort Collins newest, innovative, entrepreneurial, community-engaged learning school. We look forward to sharing our research, learning, and community service with the City of Fort Collins. Yours, Jan Harrison School Leader On behalf of the entire Compass Community Collaborative School Team, families, and students 11 APPENDIX A: 12