Yalonda Gill Masundire is a community activist and grandmother who lives in southeast Seattle. She supports public charter schools because she wants all students to have access to an excellent public education.
Yalonda believes the flexibility that public charters schools are afforded is one of their biggest strengths.
“Public charter schools set their own schedules, offer a longer school day or school year, and can offer more customized learning experiences for students.”
Yalonda has seen high-quality public charter schools up close. Earlier this year she visited two schools — Baltimore International Baccalaureate (IB) and Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish immersion K-5 school and Patterson Public Charter, a PreK-8th school. Each inner-city school served urban and impoverished communities.
“To see first-hand how public charter schools are successfully educating diverse students was awe-inspiring,” says Yalonda.
This week, Yalonda is attending the National Charter School Conference in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Washington state delegation. She’s on a fact-finding mission, looking for best-practices to inform the creation of a break-the-mold public charter school with an emphasis on early learning and grades P-3 in her community.