New principal hopes students continue to EXCEL

After spending nine years in Washington, D.C. charter schools, Cynthia Blackwell joined EXCEL Academy Public Charter School as principal this school year with the goal of increasing teacher involvement and establishing partnerships with businesses and universities.

To create accountability in some of her administrative areas, Blackwell established four committees and divided EXCEL's teachers among the groups. The committees include awards, PTA, hospitality and fundraising.

"It keeps everyone accountable," she said, adding that the committees take an additional burden off her. "I don't have a vice principal."

Blackwell said she hopes to also establish partnerships with the University of Maryland, in College Park – bringing education majors to the school to volunteer – and with companies such as Target and McDonald's to help provide academic and behavioral incentives for students.

"It's something that we did last year at [Barbara Jordan Public Charter School in Washington] and it was very successful," she said of an incentive program.

The charter school opened in 2006 and served students in kindergarten through fourth grade and has added grades each year with this being the first year the school has seventh graders.

"Students are chosen based on a lottery system. Parents can apply online between February and April when they are given a number and then students are selected in the lottery," Blackwell said. "Students only need to live in Prince George's County."

The charter school has about 285 students from throughout the county and work hard to keep its teacher-to-student ratio at one-to-fifteen in kindergarten, one-to-20 in grades one through three and one-to-25 for grades four through seven.

PTA president Selita Bennett-White's son has attended EXCEL since the school opened when he was in kindergarten. He's now in fourth grade.

Bennett-White said she chose to enroll her son in a charter school because her older child, who is now 23, had issues going through the traditional Prince George's County Public School system.

"The elementary school years were very good, but I wasn't pleased with the middle and high schools," she said. "But I've had a very good experience [at EXCEL]. I haven't had any problems."

Bennett-White said the school had a PTA the first year EXCEL was open, but was defunct for two years before she decided to reestablish the group last school year.

"As PTA president my goal is to keep parents informed of everything going on in the school and in the whole school system," she said. "I started it [back up] because I didn't feel informed about what was happening."

She added that since EXCEL is not a neighborhood school, it's hard for students to nurture relationships with their classmates once the school day is over.

"I want to do things that allow children to spend time together and keep their friendships going outside of EXCEL Academy," Bennett-White said.

EXCEL will host a back-to-school cookout Sept. 25 from noon to 4 p.m. at Brownings Grove Neighborhood Park in Riverdale. The next PTA meeting will be held 6:30 p.m. Nov. 16 in EXCEL's cafeteria.