Sojourner Truth Montessori Public Charter School

Happy Pride Month and D.C. Pride Weekend!! Over the last week we have been celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and honoring those who have worked towards justice and equal opportunity for le***an, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning people around the world, and we had a blast at this weekend’s parade. Thank you to all who work to make Truth diverse and inclusive, and a special shout-out to our Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) for the love and advocacy you show year-round!

This afternoon we welcomed back our amazing eighth graders, who spent the week backpacking and hiking the Appalachian Trail. They carried their food, lodging, clothing, and supplies with them as they trekked from camp to camp each day, experiencing adventures like rock-climbing along the way. They were pushed to take ownership of their experience, doing things like cooking their own meals and using maps to navigate their own way through the trails.

Our students and teacher chaperones camped at a different site each day, with the students learning to set up camp and purify water from nearby springs. We’re grateful for our amazing partners at who created this memorable experience that fully supported our school mission of fostering independence and collaboration. Special thanks to our teachers who supported the students all week, and of course to our eighth grade adventurers!

Congratulations to the Truth students that were part of the inaugural class of .atc! Last year OSSE kicked off its first-ever cohort of the Advanced Technical Center (ATC), of which Truth was one of the founding partners. For the last two years, our high school ATC students have left campus each day at 2pm to take courses in General Nursing and Cybersecurity at Trinity University.

Last Thursday, our students were awarded at the District’s ATC Inaugural Completion Ceremony. We are so incredibly proud of their work and the industry-recognized credentials they’ve earned (as 10th graders!!). Congratulations to each of our students, and we look forward to even more participants and completers next year as our partnership with ATC continues to grow!

This past Friday was Truth’s inaugural middle school Mathletes Competition!

For the entire year, middle schoolers have been working towards building and strengthening operational fluency skills. What better way to end the school year by putting all their hard work to the test? We are extremely proud of all of our student mathematicians!

Thank you to all the hardworking participants, for staff and students who cheered them on, and amazing middle school STEM teachers who made this all possible!

It is with great excitement and pride that we share that Coaches Jenna Pel and Sonija Parson Díaz are the recipients of the 2024 Coaching Excellence Award! There are over 70 schools across the District with DC Scores soccer teams, and so winning distinction is an incredible honor.

It is also some very well-deserved recognition. Coaches Parson and Pel train over 30 middle school students every Tuesday through Friday, and they regularly put in extra hours in the evenings and even at lunch and recess. And their coaching isn’t limited to the soccer pitch - their poetry lessons resulted in a 2nd-place finish in the 2023 DC Scores Poetry Slam, and they are currently leading our poet-athletes through a community service initiative to beautify Ward 5’s very own Dwight Mosley Park.

They are helping to shape some brilliant soccer players, and more importantly some even more impressive humans. Thank you and CONGRATULATIONS to Coaches Pel and Parson Díaz!

Happy Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week!! We have SO much to appreciate about our teachers at Truth. Their dedication and commitment to a truly unique and special approach to middle and high school is inspiring, and the energy and joy they bring to our students each day is infectious.

Our Middle School Student Government Association kicked our week of celebration off to a great start by serving a hot breakfast to teachers and staff. Thank you SGA, and most of all thank you to our amazing teachers and staff!

It’s Principal Appreciation Day, and no amount of celebration or appreciation would do justice to Founding Principal Denise Edwards. Since Truth’s inception, Denise has been more than just our our instructional leader - she has been our uncompromising and fierce champion. She has kept our team’s focus on what matters most: coaching and developing independent, thoughtful, and kind students to have the skills to transform the world. Whether on the stage or behind the scenes, on an early morning phone call with a colleague or at an evening basketball game to support our students, Principal Edwards leads with unparalleled grace and empathy.

Principal Edwards, we are incredibly lucky to have you! Happy Principal Appreciation Day!

It’s National Assistant Principals Week, and Sojourner Truth is lucky to celebrate the absolute greatest A.P. in the District: Dr. Rodger Perkins!

As one of our founding staff members, Dr. P has been integral in shaping both Truth’s culture and its academic design. He has championed our Montessori model, and has spearheaded initiatives in tutoring, co-teaching, student choice, restorative justice, and feedback on student work. When he’s not in a classroom he’s supporting students on the playground, a colleague in the hallway, or a parent via a phone call. And did we mention he spends his time after school tutoring some of our middle schoolers in math? Whether it’s with academic support, out-of-the-box thinking, or a well-timed story or joke, Dr. P has been there for each of us when we’ve needed him.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Dr. P holds an AMS Adolescent Montessori Diploma, he was the 2023 Gilder-Lehrman D.C. History Teacher of the Year, he has a PhD in Criminal Justice, and he recently published a book titled “The Master’s Tools: Tackling Racism and Inequality in Education and Beyond. (We also assume that he probably spends his nights crusading the streets as a superhero, but we don’t technically have evidence.)

Thank you for all that you do, Dr. Perkins, and Happy Assistant Principals Week!

Our week-long M-Term exploration continued today with some incredible experiences both on and off-campus!

One group of students visited and spoke with representatives at the Anacostia Business District to learn about how murals are commissioned, and then met and spoke with Jay Coleman, an amazing artist who took them on a walking tour and showed off some of his own work. Another group of students went to the DC History Center to learn about change makers who fought for equality right here in DC, and then they toured historic spots on you U St NW. We had another group that met a graffiti artist from Words Beats Life and got a workshop on how to stylize their writing. At the same time, Crazy Legs from Beat Ya Feet was visiting Truth’s campus to give a different group a workshop in dance.

These are just a FEW examples of today’s M-Term experiences as we immerse ourselves in specific topics related to DC culture this week!

It’s M-Term at Truth!

M-Term is a unique, Montessori-aligned week of learning where students select into specific topics and then spend time both on campus and out in the real world exploring their subject. This week’s M-Term will be full of various workshops, field trips, interviews, and observations, and it will culminate next Monday with presentations.

More pics to come later this week, but in the meantime check out one of our groups of high schoolers as they visit the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. This particular group will be sharpening their focus to Go-Go music over the next few days, and we’re excited to see where else their exploration takes them!

This week at Truth we had our inaugural middle school Spelling Bee and high school Vocab Bee!

Both events were wonderfully s-i-n-g-u-l-a-r (adjective meaning “extraordinary; remarkable; exceptional”), and we are incredibly proud of each of our contestants for the enthusiasm and e-q-u-a-n-i-m-i-t-y (noun meaning “stability or composure, especially under tension or strain”) that they brought to the stage throughout the competitions. :)

Thank you to all of our contestants, for those who cheered them on, and for the amazing staff that made the Bees possible!

It is International Women’s Day and our school would not exist without the legacy of incredible women. Sojourner Truth and her life’s work guide us through the core values she inspired: honoring self-development, pursuing justice everywhere, designing for positive impact, and challenging the mind, body, and spirit. Maria Montessori provides us additional guidance through her work, specifically in creating the child-centered model that allows us to meet the needs of each learner in a holistic way. And of course, the incredible women who lead, empower, and inspire our entire community and our families in every way, every day. We thank you, we honor you, and we celebrate you.

This evening at Truth we culminated our celebration of Black History Month with a showcase of talent ranging from poetry to dance and music. Selections paid tribute to the monumental achievements of African American visionaries throughout history while also shining a light on our NEXT generation of Black leaders and creators. Thank you as always to our incredible students for sharing their talents, our staff for their love and commitment, and our families for their support!

Today our Girls JV Basketball Team capped off their UNDEFEATED season to become the 2023-2024 CHAMPIONS of the DC Public Charter School Athletic Association’s first-ever JV Girls playoffs! Congratulations to our incredible student athletes and to Coach Taé and Coach Rick for an amazing and history-making season.

It was a beautiful day to hit the slopes! Today our high schoolers went to Liberty Ski Resort in Pennsylvania for a day of lessons and fun in the snow. We had a blast, and we’re excited for our middle schoolers to get their turn next week.

In the meantime, we hope our high schoolers are getting some rest after a big day full of activity. They’ll need it - we have our High School Career Fair coming up on Friday and our Winter Formal dance next week!

Staff Spotlight: Nacho Nwana

What our students say: “Mr. Nwana is an amazing STEM teacher with a lot of passion. He is extremely smart and motivated. We can tell that he really cares about teaching and supporting us however he can. We appreciate what he gives every day, and he makes a difference just by showing up for us.”

As the Ecosystem 5 STEM teacher, Mr. Nwana brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the classroom. As a recent graduate of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Mr. Nwanan balances curriculum development and teaching with his passion for Artificial Intelligence research and development. Recently he presented his work at a conference to over 100 world-renowned academics in the field.

Not only is Mr. Nwana a powerhouse in the classroom, but he also dedicates time to coaching the Truth’s Middle School Boys Basketball team and the Drama Club (and he even takes time on the weekends to coach our developmental Middle School Boys team in the DPR rec league!) We are so incredibly grateful for Mr. Nwana and everything he brings to Truth each and every day!

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

On Friday, January 19 our building will be closed because of the inclement weather. However, we will have community meetings for all students hosted by mentor teachers. Information about these community meetings will be shared on ParentSquare. Stay tuned for forthcoming information.

We’re closing out 2023 on a high note at Truth PCS! The District recently published its School Report Card Data (link in comments), which lets families look at and compare data from every single public school across Washington, DC, and Truth has a score among the very highest in the city!

We’re also grateful for the work that EmpowerK12 has done to highlight each school’s progress with respect to particular metrics (ELA vs. math, growth vs. achievement, and much more) and by specific subgroups. We’re excited and very proud to share that Truth is among the top schools in many of the categories - both for all students and also subgroups like those classified as “at-risk” by the state superintendent’s office (OSSE). We encourage you to look for yourself (link in comments). Check out the graphs in the pics, which give just a couple of examples of our positions with respect to the almost 200 public schools across the District.

Happy Holiday season to all, and thank you to everyone who has helped to make 2023 a great one at Sojourner Truth PCS!

’Tis the season for holiday celebrations, and today’s Winter Bazaar was a blast! We made gingerbread houses, created ornaments, played games, caught the Truth Majorettes’ first ever performance, listened to music, and most importantly socialized as a community! It was wonderful seeing so many students, families, neighbors, and board members, and we’re incredibly grateful to the Family Association for all of the planning, prepping, and volunteering that went into making the event a success. THANK YOU! And thanks also to , -customs, and each of our other vendors for sharing your talents with us. Happy holidays to all!

Our Family Association has an exciting event planned for Saturday, December 16! There will be vendors, karaoke, Truth swag on sale, baked goods, a holiday grief counselor, and more. We will also be collecting enthused winter coats and food for Truth’s annual food & coat drive. We hope to see you there!

Staff Spotlight: Chris Edmonds

What our students say: “Mr. Edmonds brings positive energy to the entire high school every single day. He is one of the first people we see each morning, and he gets us hyped for class and school (which says a lot because of how tired we are sometimes!). He’s given me all kinds of ideas about colleges and other things that I want to do after high school. I had never thought much about plans after high school before talking with him, and now I do almost every day.”

As Truth’s College and Career Counselor, one of Mr. Edmonds’ many roles is to assist our high schoolers (and sometimes our middle schoolers too) in the creation of individual academic, career, and personal goals and plans. He does this at the group level with classroom workshops and also on an individual basis with each student. He also coordinates our various dual enrollment programs where our high schoolers take classes and earn credits at local universities, he is building out our vision for the professional internships in which each of our 11th and 12th graders will engage, he’s fostering relationships with universities to promote access for Truth kids in the future, and more. He is incredible at what he does, and our community is better because of him!

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

Thanks to all the amazing prospective middle school students and families we got to meet today at hosted by our friends at ! We will see you next Saturday at the EdFest for high school!!

The best way for future families to get to know us is to attend a school tour or an Open House!

School tours take place at 9:30 am, and you get to learn about our model and see it in action! The experience will include visiting classrooms allowing you to see the Montessori approach we utilize to help meet your student’s needs in a holistic way. You can schedule this online on the “Prospective Families” page on our website.

We also have monthly, in-person Open Houses from 5:30-7:00pm where you will hear a presentation from our leadership team and then visit some classrooms to hear directly from teachers about our academic experience for your student. Our next Open House is Wednesday, December 13.

We can’t wait to see you in-person over the next few weeks!

This Giving Tuesday, make an immediate impact that will last a lifetime: Give a Truth student the tutor they need to thrive in math! We need $20,700 more to make sure that our students needing extra support in math get one-on-one or small group tutoring multiple times a week for the rest of the school year.

Over the last 18 months, we've seen incredible gains in math for our students that have access to consistent tutoring. While math scores plummeted nationwide as a result of the pandemic, we have seen firsthand that regular tutoring can reverse the effects and help make up mutiple years of growth in a single school year. Over 85% of Truth students that received tutoring last year made more than their expected annual growth, and over 50% actually made two or more years of growth in a single school year!

If we can meet our fundraising goal, it will ensure the capacity to give consistent one-on-one or small-group tutoring to 54 of our students. We know from our data over the last two years that this will mean incredible gains for our kids who need help the most. Giving is easy - see the link in the comments - and no donation is too small!

Staff Spotlight: Ms. Papion

What her students say: “I’ve had a hard time with math in the past, but Ms. P has never once given up on me. I love how she explains things, and she’s always willing to make extra time to sit and help me.”

Ms. Papion is a superstar, and we are so lucky to have her on our team! She is not only a veteran math and STEM teacher with us here at Truth, but she also brings extensive leadership experience in education and the business world. And on top of that, she is also a dynamite vocalist that has performed for audiences around the world (and right here in D.C. at the White House)! Ms. P can do it all, and her commitment is inspiring - she even makes herself available to her kids for online Algebra workshops on the weekends!

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

It’s the season for giving thanks, and we have a LOT to be grateful for at Truth! We appreciate our incredible staff, our amazing students, and the families and partners that make up our beautiful community.

Maria Montessori wrote: “We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.” Thank you for being part of the journey for our students as they move closer each day to realizing our mission and transforming the world!

After a wonderful season on the field, our middle school soccer team had an equally incredible night on the stage! We were so proud to see their confidence and poise as they showed the same level of skill with figurative language and meter that they do with passing and dribbling on the soccer pitch.

Their original poetry focused on the many challenges of adolescence, their feelings around complex gender dynamics and societal expectations, and the escape they find on the soccer field. Oh yeah, and did we mention they took home the second place trophy overall?!!! We’re so proud of this amazing group of kids, grateful for the expert and tireless guidance of Coaches Parson and Pel, and appreciative of all of the families that supported them over the last two months.

Special thanks also to DC SCORES for another amazing Poetry Slam, and congrats to KIPP DC WILL Academy for taking home the 1st place trophy!

Staff Spotlight: Ms. Acea

What her students say: “Ms. Acea has an amazing personality! Class is never dull. She makes learning fun, and I actually remember what we learn because of all the different activities she comes up with. Plus, her style is… unique, lol. A couple of weeks ago I saw her wear a Renaissance gown at school.”

No one brings history alive the way that Ms. Acea does! Her World History students had the chance to drink suutei tsai tea (with or without horse’s blood!) during her unit on Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, dabble in aspects of Mayan magic as they studied mesoamerican civilizations, experience aspects of World War I warfare during a simulation, sample candy made from durian fruit during a study of trade routes through Asia, and much more. She brings so much thoughtfulness, love, and learning to her students each day, and we couldn’t be happier to shout her out with this week’s spotlight!

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

Staff Spotlight: Nia Cloyd

What her students say: “Ms. Cloyd is the most patient and understanding teacher I’ve ever had. No matter what kind of day us kids are having, she’s always supportive and pushes us to do our best.”

Ms. Cloyd is a non-stop force to be reckoned with! She’s in the classroom as a teacher all day and then spends most evenings back in the classroom extending her own learning with night school. She brings an inspirational level of joy, commitment, and love to her students and colleagues each and every day, and we’re thrilled to honor her with this week’s spotlight!

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

Cycle 1 is in the books! Thank you to staff, students, and families for a great closeout to our first term.

This cycle, our middle schoolers focused on the interdisciplinary theme of “Power.” Last week they explored magnetic fields and used magnets to create a flow of electrical power (electricity), and today they presented culminating projects of personal interest exploring the evolution of power structures throughout aspects of society and history. We learned about the dynamics of power in topics ranging from woman’s suffrage to disco music to abortion rights to English Premier League soccer and much, much more.

Today our High School Student Council also launched its “First Fridays” initiative with a party after school, and we know it’s just the first of many more student-designed celebrations to come.

We can’t wait to see what’s in store for Cycle 2!

Staff Spotlight: Ms. Daejah

What her students say: “Ms. Daejah is an amazing teacher. She takes her time to explain things and make sure we understand before moving on. She has a lot of patience and we can tell that she cares!”

Ms. Daejah hails from Philadelphia, PA, and is a graduate of Lincoln and Johns Hopkins University. She serves as our Eco 1 STEM teacher and STEM Department Chair. Additionally, she is an alum of and is in the process of earning her Adolescent Diploma through the Cincinnati Montessori Secondary Teachers Education Program . Her passion for science and technology makes STEM lessons engaging for her students, fueling their curiosity as they explore the wonders of the universe. Her support and encouragement have shaped students into fearless problem solvers, not just by being their guide but also as a mentor.

If there’s someone on our incredible staff that you would like to see featured in our Staff Spotlight, go to the link in our bio and then click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen.