24 May 2000
W.A. Blair Elementary was announced at a meeting Tuesday night as the newest addition to the Edison Schools, bringing the total to seven schools to be served by the Edison Schools partnership in Dalls. Parents present during the announcement welcomed the addition of Edison to their school.
In making the announcement Blair PTA President The Reverend Cornelius Greer said, "The feedback I've gotten from teachers is that regardless of the outcome, teachers at Blair will go along with the Edison Project. The teachers," he said, "will look out for the welfare of the students." Greer was among a team of parents and teachers who traveled to San Diego to observe an Edison School. "I was impressed by what I saw," he said. "Edison encourages people [school staff and teachers] to work together. Their whole focus is for everyone at the school to work as a team."
Blair joins six other Edison schools which have already been announced--Margaret B. Henderson, Onesimo Hernandez, Maple Lawn, Esperanza "Hope" Medrano, John W. Runyon and Edward Titche. Blair is located at 7720 Gayglen Drive.
The partnership with the Dallas Independent School District represents Edison's largest partnership contract to date and will serve approximately 6,500 students in the 2000-2001 school year, and as many as 16,750 students over the next five years.
Edison currently manages 79 public schools throughout the nation with a total enrollment of approximately 38,000 students in 16 states and 36 cities. Through contracts with local school districts and public charter school boards, Edison assumes educational and operational responsibility for individual schools in return for per-pupil funding that is generally comparable to that spent on other public schools in the area. Over the course of three years of intensive research, Edison's team of leading educators and scholars developed an innovative curriculum and school design. Edison opened its first four schools in August 1995, and has grown rapidly in every subsequent year.
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