Tiger Woods Learning Center to Open at Chavez Campuses
After a three-year search for a location, Tiger Woods’s charitable foundation will announce Tuesday that it plans to open campuses for the Tiger Woods Learning Center this fall at a pair of District charter schools, following through on a pledge to make Washington the East Coast base for Woods’s philanthropic efforts.
The campuses will be located at two branches of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy, one at the Capitol Hill Campus in Ward 6, the other just off the Anacostia Freeway at the Parkside Campus in Ward 7 in Northeast, and are due to have construction completed in mid-August, with openings in October.
“I’m excited we are moving forward on this initiative in the Washington, D.C. community,” Woods said in a statement released through his Tiger Woods Foundation. “The two campuses will bring the best of our curriculum to some very deserving kids. A lot of people have helped to make this happen, and I’m very grateful for their support.”
Woods has one learning center open in Anaheim, Calif., where underprivileged children in grade 5 through high school concentrate not on golf, but take classes ranging from forensic science to graphic design. Officials from Woods’s foundation intended to open a similar center in Washington — and still may do so — but struggled to find an appropriate, affordable piece of property to rent, renovate or buy.
“What we’ve decided to do was to commit to the campus model right now,” Greg McLaughlin, CEO of the Tiger Woods Foundation, said by phone. “And then I think we’re going to evaluate from there and see exactly how well it’s working out. But we absolutely have not ruled out doing a bigger facility, by any means.”
Woods’s foundation will hire between five and eight staff members for the two campuses, which will be housed in renovated space within the two schools, and foundation officials said they hope to serve more than 2,000 children over the course of the 2010-11 school year. The curriculum will focus on career exploration in science, technology, engineering, math and communications.
The Chavez schools, opened in 1998, have four campuses in the District that serve more than 1,400 students in grades 6-12. Some programs will be open to other District students, but Chavez students will have the first opportunities.
“We envision it being something that our students will benefit from a great deal,” said Jeff Cooper, the managing director and chief operating officer of the Chavez schools. “It’ll bring great technological resources, and they’ve got a reputation of having a lot of success out in California. We’re really excited about what these programs can bring our students.”
Article excerpt taken from Washington Post Article on June 8, 2010.