Leadership Public Schools: Smart Phones for Smart Kids

Background

Leadership Public Schools ("LPS") is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2002 by Mark Kushner to serve a diverse student body throughout the Bay Area. The LPS network of outstanding public charter high schools are located in Richmond, Oakland (College Park), Hayward, and San Jose and serve over 1,500 students.

LPS is led by Dr. Louise Bay Waters and supported by a board of directors and advisory board of experienced educators, business people, and community leaders. LPS schools serve ethnically and economically diverse student bodies and are located in or near low-income urban neighborhoods. LPS' vision is that all students - regardless of background, ethnicity, or neighborhood - receive an excellent education that prepares them to succeed in college and improve their community.

Mission

LPS' mission is to serve diverse and traditionally underserved students by building a network of outstanding small public high schools where they

• Prepare all of our graduating students to succeed in college and beyond;
• Develop effective student leaders; and
• Partner and share best practices with school districts to strengthen both ourselves and other public schools.

Campaign Mission

The Leadership Public Schools (LPS) Smart Phones for Smart Kids campaign is a new initiative designed to help low-income students gain mobile computing technology that can assist them with their education, inside and outside of the classroom.

Because of the additional features on smart phones, including the camera, WIFI connectivity and apps (on Droid and iPhone), smart phones can be used as a highly effective mini-computing device without a carrier data plan. By connecting to the LPS WIFI network, students can gain instant access to the web, work on multimedia projects and use LPS applications specifically designed for mobile-based education.

Full Circle Fund Role

This Full Circle project team was convened in 2011 to support the Smart Phones for Smart Kids project, an initiative of Leadership Public Schools (LPS). Smart phones, a ubiquitous tool for personal communication and information, have been scarcely used in an educational context. This project was developed to explore the potential of the smartphone as a tool for learning in high-functioning, high-poverty school settings.

Leadership Public Schools was one of Full Circle Fund's first grant recipients in the early 2000's. In this project, Full Circle aimed to augment the successful LPS approach of delivering differentiated learning experiences in the classrooms of their 4 public, urban high schools in the East Bay.

Full Circle found this project compelling because it leaned into a mega-trend: smart phones have become ubiquitous, even in lower-income settings. Rather than fighting it, could these tools serve an educational purpose? Full Circle Fund's Education Grant Review Committee was impressed with the record of success that these schools had achieved as well as the leadership team that Leadership Public Schools proposed to involve in the project.

Donate Your Mobile Device!

Your mobile phone can have a new life as a learning device for a student. It's easy! Take your device and box it up, including all the manuals, power cords, accessories you don't want. Send it to:

ExitTicket.org
Leadership Public Schools
344 Thomas L Berkley Way, Suite 340
Oakland, CA 94612

Visit the ExitTicket donation page for more information.

NAME: Leadership Public Schools
LOCATION: Bay Area
WEB: www.leadps.org
GRANT TERM: 2011-2012
PROJECT LEADS: Steve Bronstein and Greg Wolff