Seth Schoenfeld is the CEO of ROADS Charter Schools, a network dedicated to empowering disconnected youth toward academic, personal and professional success. Prior to ROADS, he was the Deputy Chief for the Office of Innovation at the New York City Department of Education, where he led the iZone, an incubation lab of 300 schools committed to designing and testing innovative models for teaching and learning. He was the founding principal of Olympus Academy, a transfer high school serving over-age and under-credited high school students, and New York State’s first asynchronous high school. He started his career through the New York City Teaching Fellows at a large comprehensive high school where he was also dean of students and baseball coach. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, his Masters in teaching from Pace University, and is a graduate of the New York City Leadership Academy.
Can an Alternative Accountability Framework be Customized, Rigorous, and Mutually Agreed Upon? Learn what’s possible when schools, districts, and charter authorizers are committed to rigorous, customized accountability, and state policy gives them the latitude to make it happen. Over the last few years Momentum has worked with a number of alternative schools and their district and/or charter authorizer to develop a framework of accountability that is arrived at with a culture of collaboration and consensus combined with the best available data to inform and support the parties’ objectives. This session will identify key steps in the process of developing trust and collaboration between alternative schools and the organizations that are responsible for holding them accountable, and will also show some of the outcomes from that work. This will be a panel discussion including leadership from both an alternative school and a charter school authorizer—each sharing their thoughts and experiences working through this process.