The Financial Reality for DC Charter Schools
Half of DC students attend public charter schools and the District provides over $1 billion in funding for students at charters. What financial challenges do charters face? How do they navigate them and how are they different from the challenges of DCPS? Join this District Strong to hear from Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis of DC PCSB, Pat Brantley of Friendship Public Charter Schools and Derrick Mashore of Ingenuity Prep. We will learn more about the innovative work public charter schools are doing to guide the financial realities of leading schools in the District.
Learn more about our speakers:
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Dr. Michelle J. Walker-Davis joined the DC Public Charter School Board in August 2020 as the Executive Director - and brought with her over 20 years of deep expertise in school administration, education policy, nonprofit management, and community outreach.
Dr. Walker-Davis spent seven years early in her career working in DC on education. She was the senior advisor on education to former Mayor Anthony Williams, chief of strategic planning and policy for DCPS, and worked in the District’s Office of Budget and Planning.
Most recently, Dr. Walker-Davis was executive director of Generation Next, a coalition of civic, business, and education leaders from across Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN, dedicated to closing achievement and opportunity gaps. The organization uses rigorous data analysis and community engagement to identify what works and replicate the most promising practices.
Prior to Generation Next, Dr. Walker-Davis was for nine years with the St. Paul, MN Public Schools - a culturally diverse, urban school district of 39,000 students and 6,500 employees. She left there as its chief executive officer where she served as second-in-command to the superintendent and worked closely with the district’s elected Board of Education and local elected officials. Dr. Walker-Davis played a key role in the revolutionary redesign of the district as it addressed equitable education in the face of issues relating to race and poverty.
Dr. Walker-Davis has a Doctor of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has served as a volunteer board member for several education organizations, including an international Montessori training center, regional affordable housing organization, and a local educational reform initiative.
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Patricia A. Brantley, the CEO of Friendship Public Charter School, is an education reformer, charter school advocate and supporter of the right of all children to receive a high-quality education. Ms. Brantley served with the founding planners of the charter school nearly two decades ago, when she joined with others under the leadership of Donald L. Hense to create better opportunities for the children of the District of Columbia.
Ms. Brantley became Friendship’s chief operating officer in 2003, helping to grow the organization and deepen its impact. During her tenure as COO she engineered the acquisition and development of six public charter school campuses in Washington, D.C., four partner schools in Baltimore, Md., and a new charter school in Baton Rouge, La.
She oversees all operations at Friendship, has secured more $95 million in public and private funding, instituted management policies that ensure cohesion among the 12 campuses, and established the Friendship Teaching Institute as a model of professional development. She is noted for spearheading the takeover of the first multicampus charter management group in the District of Columbia, which stopped the displacement of hundreds of children and ensured they could remain in their school of choice.
Prior to joining Friendship, Ms. Brantley served in corporate and nonprofit leadership positions, including as founder of the Partnership for Academic Achievement; chief development officer and adviser to Dr. Dorothy Irene Height at the National Council of Negro Women; executive director of the Dance Institute of Washington; and national marketing manager for the Black Family Reunion Celebration. Ms. Brantley is a graduate of Princeton University and a board member of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools.
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Derrick Banks Mashore is a Senior Vice President for Advisory and Transactions Services and the Chair of Ingenuity Prep. Over the course of his 30-year career, Derrick has closed hundreds of transactions for nonprofit, institutional and Fortune 500 clients. His clients depend on his intelligence, innovation and expertise in complex real estate matters for mixed-use public/private, hotels, embassies, M&A, performing and distressed assets and office buildings.
Beginning his career as an attorney, Derrick focused on corporate law and represented international institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and municipalities (cities of Philadelphia and Houston). In 1998, Derrick transitioned to a practice leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Business Outsourcing (BPO) group.
In 2002, he founded Concordis Advisors, the largest national commercial real estate services company wholly owned and operated by minority professionals. For a decade, Derrick was an Executive Managing Director and member of the Board of Directors at Cushman & Wakefield; and then prior to CBRE, at JLL.