Principal Zoe Duskin unlocked the front door just after 6 a.m. Monday. The seven classrooms at the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School, a new public charter school in Northeast Washington, were in perfect order. But she lingered over the last details, policing bits of dust from the floors with tissue paper and making sure each room had a doorstop.
“I am so excited,” said Duskin, 28, opening her first school as a principal. It was also a big moment for the city’s 53 publicly funded, independently operated schools — which educate nearly 40 percent of its 75,000 public school students — making it the most robust charter sector of any big city outside New Orleans. And it was a moment that Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) went out of his way to recognize.
In his first round of school openings as the city’s chief executive, Gray said during a visit to Inspired Teaching that it would not bother him if charter schools surpass traditional public schools in enrollment.
“I’m comfortable with our kids getting an education in the best possible place,” Gray said after visiting a prekindergarten class where he read a book called (what else?) “Hurray for Pre-K!”
This is no small thing for a mayor who was elected with heavy support from unionized teachers — the kind who don’t work in the District’s charter schools. But Gray said he was looking for charters to have “a catalyzing effect” on the city’s 123 traditional public schools, whose 45,000 students returned to class Monday.
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
