Continuing our investigation of charter schools, we talked to Justin Fuentes, Principal of Challenge Early College High School. As a teacher at Lamar High School for six years and intern principal at Waltrip High School for one year before becoming involved with Challenge, Fuentes is experienced with both comprehensive high schools and charter schools, as well as with both the teaching and administrative aspects of running a school. Challenge Early College High School is a high school associated with Houston Community College that allows students to earn college credits and take college classes while still in high school. Although Challenge’s charter may soon be removed (with no change to the school) because of the cost of charter accreditation, it played an integral part in creating HISD’s current dual credit policy and led the way for early college schools in Houston.
Challenge has an interesting atmosphere. Starting in tenth grade, every student takes at least one or two classes with Houston Community College students. Fuentes emphasizes the importance of preventing the classes from being “taken over by high school kids,” and explains that only a small part of the college class is made up of high schoolers. This avoids having the “high school-cultured class" infiltrate the environment of the dual credit program and really gives students a taste of college freedom and education. To further this aim, the juniors and seniors themselves are responsible for meshing their high school and college course responsibilities by creating their own schedule.
Challenge initially received its charter eight years ago to create this unique structure. Fuentes points out that at first working out the kinks in the school was like “building the plane as we were flying,” but he has developed a system that now runs smoothly and efficiently. The success of Challenge’s students has played a role in the creation of HISD’s dual credit policy, a policy that actually mirrors Challenge’s charter now (the reason for the potential removal of the charter). Challenge demonstrates the potential for charters to develop and experiment with new ideas, affecting change in a gradual and positive way.
Challenge, like KIPP, has maintained a per capita budget very similar to that of comprehensive high schools in the district. A majority of Challenge’s funding is received through conventional means, i.e. the tax base. The policies of Challenge therefore would be easy to adapt to other schools. The most fundamental difference between Challenge and most other schools is Challenge’s dean system, as opposed to the assistant principal system. In this system, two deans rotate through grades, following their respective classes through all four years. The dean, therefore, becomes much closer with the students of his or her grades and serves as a guiding counselor to all of those students. Furthermore, the class sizes hover around 120, and this relatively small number (compared to normal HISD class sizes) further emphasizes the personal relationship between deans and students.
Challenge also has developed a great system for involving students with the college process early in their high school careers (as the name implies). The College Guidance Class that all juniors take helps prepare them for the host of standardized tests students must take for applications and promotes consistent and steady work toward the goal of college acceptances. Students are also required to send in two or three applications to make sure they are applying to enough schools. Challenge also stresses the availability of resources the college counseling department provides for the students. At the comprehensive schools where Fuentes has worked previously, he noted that “it’s hard [for students] to get in to see [their] counselor,” so when he began working at Challenge, he made sure that students “see [their] counselor every week” and think about college by “eleventh grade at the latest.” This focus on college really separates Challenge from other schools in the district.
To address the needs of at-risk students, Challenge strives to make sure that every student has a confidant and authority figure such as one of their deans with whom they can “have that personal touch” and develop a “family feel that a lot of the students don’t have.” It’s important for every student “just to be recognized” as they walk down the hall. The close relationship that develops between student and advisor helps these at risk students cope with family issues and remain engaged with school.
The school that Mr. Fuentes has helped to shape has successfully addressed some of the difficult issues that comprehensive schools face. If these ideas of promoting bonds between teachers and students and engaging students in the college application process were applied to every school in the district, we would be well on our way to affecting the kind of mental change that Mike Feinberg states is so necessary. The association with HCC renders Challenge's structure less scalable, as there are not enough colleges to be paired with high schools. Challenge is not solely unique in this respect, as other high school-college tandems exist elsewhere, but it is by no means a relationship that can be implemented system-wide. However, Challenge still demonstrates the potential of charter schools to create gradual systematic change, but we must foster experimentation and analyze what works and what does not for progress to be made.
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