BASE Charter Renewed by Unanimous Vote!
February 14, 2006

Approved BASE Charter

BASE School Design

Alameda board of education renews youth
initiated public school following student lead effort.

Article about Charter Renewal in the Alameda Journal

Youth Letter to the Editor in the Alameda Sun

In the spring of 2001, a daring group of 10 youth worked with adult experts from Alternatives in Action to write and advocate for the first youth-initiated charter school in the country. At the time, the youth had powerful questions. How can we have a substantial voice in our education? How can our learning come from real and dramatic experience? How can we connect our school with the larger community? When the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Education approved the charter by a five to zero vote, they gave the youth the opportunity to test those questions.

On Tuesday, February 14, 2006, the Alameda Board of Education unanimously voted to renew the BASE charter for another 5 years.

“I cannot tell you how much your vote means to me,” Estelle Austin, a BASE senior, told the Board following the vote, “when I started high school, I never imagined that it would be like this.”

On Tuesday, January 31, 2006, a group of youth leaders from BASE presented and defended their charter petition, which they co-wrote with the adult staff of BASE, to the trustees. The youth team had worked over the last several years, and intensively for the last four months, on gathering input, redesigning, and rewriting the schools charter to ensure that the founders principles were being implemented.

“This level of youth ownership and leadership is a dramatic departure from business as usual in schools. For youth to work so hard over for so many months on behalf of their school and their own education is truly amazing. Social action like this is a big part of the reason BASE has had so much success over our first charter term. ” - Page Tompkins, BASE Director

BASE serves youth primarily from Alameda and Oakland who are motivated to transform their lives and their communities. It employs a model described as “enterprise learning” that integrates college-preparatory academic subjects, real world social action projects, and youth ownership and leadership. Over the course of the last five years, BASE students have completed over 25 social action projects, including founding a 1.5 acre community garden, hosting a community forum highlighting veteran’s rights and the impact of war, and organizing a statewide youth forum for students in charter schools. BASE currently serves 92 youth from Alameda and Oakland, more than ½ of whom are considered by the state to be educationally disadvantaged. At the same time, scores on the state mandated standardized tests rose by 22%.

“It is great to follow in the footsteps of the youth who wrote the original charter,” said Josh Pasqualini, a BASE senior. “Knowing that the work done this year will shape BASE’s future makes it even more engaging and fulfilling. When I came to BASE, I was socially awkward, now I feel like a young world leader. The work we have done on the BASE charter ensures that future youth will get the same growth opportunities I had.”

Charter schools are unique public schools that operate on special contracts, or “charters,” from an authorizing school district. Charter schools enjoy more autonomy over curriculum and school design in exchange for increased accountability for results. Charter Schools report their results annually to their district and every 5 years they petition their school district for an additional term based on those results.

BASE is a program of Alternatives in Action, Inc., a non-profit corporation dedicated to creating innovative experiences and environments for diverse populations of children, youth, and adults that challenge them to become effective citizens who will have a meaningful and powerful impact on the world. AIA also operates HOME Project, a community-oriented after-school program serving youth in Alameda and Oakland public schools, and HOME Sweet HOME Preschool, an intergenerational model of care for young children that engages high school youth as interns and role models.