Sara Asmussen 

​Dr. Asmussen is the Founding Executive Director of New Dawn Charter High School and will assume the role of Founding Executive Director for New Dawn Charter High School II, both transfer schools in NYC. She comes from the field of community mental health research with extensive experience in managing large-scale research projects, budgets, and grant work. She began her work in education at the Beginning with Children Foundation as the Director of Research, moving on to John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy Charter School, the first transfer charter school in NYS, working as the Director of Compliance and Accountability. Sara was also the original lead data engineer on the PICCS project at CEI, a federally-funded Teacher Incentive Grant, and worked with a number of other charter schools developing data models which incentivized teachers whose students showed academic growth throughout the year. Dr. Asmussen continued to consults with various education groups on new school development and charter application support.

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AAPF19 Session

Alternative Accountability Options for New York City Transfer Schools
​Measuring outcomes of transfer schools, that primarily serve students who are over-aged and under-credited, using traditional outcome measures paints an incomplete picture of the academic and developmental impact that these schools have on at-risk students. Traditional evaluative measures also pose difficulty for the schools and their authorizers. These schools receive negative ratings for the graduation rates and high school exit exam participation, resulting in them being labeled “failing schools.” To tell the whole story, this session will feature measures and potential ideas for alternative accountability frameworks that accurately describe the progress of a transfer school’s educational program.

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AAPF18 Sessions

Developing Alternative Accountability Measures in Response to ESSA Legislation

The implications for ESSA regulations are far-reaching, and without proper guidance from state and federal officials, alternative accountability measures may potentially hurt many schools that serve at-promise students across the country. The presenters of this session will discuss the work done at two New York City Transfer Charter Schools: John V. Lindsey Wildcat Charter School, and New Dawn Charter High School regarding alternative accountability measures, and the implications of the new ESSA regulations on New York City's at-promise students.

Participants will have the opportunity share best practices around these issues. Session goals include (1) Ideas around developing accountability measures that make sense for schools (2) Troubleshoot issues in accountability for at-promise students that are off-track and (3) Identify weaknesses in the current ESSA plan that can be addressed with state education leaders.

Past AAPF Sessions:

Implementing Mentoring Programs with At-Promise Teens ​

​Research shows that students who have strong personal connections at the school setting have a greater chance of achieving academic success. New Dawn leaders will outline how to develop a mentoring program that connects all adults in the school building with every student in the school, including sharing the results at New Dawn, a transfer high school in Brooklyn, NY.  Presenters will share how New Dawn outperforms in persistence and other areas on the NYC School Survey and Quality Snapshot by developing and implementing a mentoring program.  In this hands on session, participants will work in small groups according to their mentoring experience to explore one of three relevant questions:  How can a small scale mentoring program be adopted at your school?  What would be necessary to develop a successful proposal and implement it?  And, troubleshooting current practices: what is working and what isn’t?