Perspectives students flexed their communications skills at their first debate competition of the year on October 1 at Frederick Douglass Academy.  Eight two-person teams from Perspectives Rodney D. Joslin and Perspectives High School of Technology participated in the competition, and the results were outstanding.  Our overall record was 22-10, and the team of James Smith and Avin Williams finished in second place overall.  

Perspectives co-founder and president Diana Shulla-Cose also showed the power of effective communication in a feature-length article in the Huffington Post about A Disciplined Life.  In the article, she explained the impact of the Department of Education grant:

"It means that we can deepen and continue to refine our work around social and emotional learning practices, and that we can begin to deeper evaluate how our work with students links to student achievement. It also means that we're in a position right now to partner with some other charters and improve in ways that we haven't had the time or resources to do so. And then it's about being able to disseminate [our program], being able to impact more than [our] five schools, to share this with other schools in our district and beyond."

Perspectives was also featured in an article on the Catalyst Chicago website, focusing on how the federal grant will help Perspectives "make good on an oft-forgotten selling point of charter schools: to innovate and share what they've learned."