OSI-funded Bard School welcomes its first students

Baltimore Sun education reporter Erica Green has a great story today about Bard High School Early College, a new Baltimore City public school that welcomes its first students this year. The school, which was established with the help of an OSI-Baltimore grant to the Fund for Educational Excellence, allows Baltimore City students to graduate in four years with both a high school diploma and a 2-year associate degree. In its first year, the school will have 165 9^th and 11^th grade students, and will ultimately expand to 500 students overall. The admissions includes a writing sample and an interview but not test or attendance records. “As a result,” Green writes, “Bard is drawing low-performing students who would often end up at the worst high schools, as well as those who would otherwise attend flagships such as Polytechnic Institute and City College. The school is also attracting private school students.” Francesca Gamber, the Baltimore native and Harvard grad who heads the schools adds, “What we’re offering students is a chance to be exactly who they are. We’re offering a chance to be in a school that encourages them to express themselves, that is confident in their abilities.” The school is part of OSI’s ongoing mission to “create new, innovative schools–especially for students who are likely to leave without graduating” and “to develop and fund school models that will ‘accelerate’ both on-track and off-track students’ progress through high school.”