Friendship Public Charter School launches new podcast, The Tenacious Teacher

Friendship Public Charter School, one of the District of Columbia’s largest and highest-performing public charter school networks, is launching a new podcast series, titled The Tenacious Teacher,” featuring honest, no-holds-barred conversations with educators and other transformative education leaders.

Host Candice Tolliver Burns sits down with the most tenacious people inside and out of our nation’s classrooms. How do the best of the best “do it for the culture,” while inspiring dreamers and critical thinkers in classrooms educating nearly 70 million public school students? The show will explore the Why, How and Who that inspires them to transform what great education looks like in America.

The first episode, released today, features Dominique Johnson, the ELA chair and a middle school teacher at the Friendship Blow Pierce Elementary and Middle School campus in Washington, D.C., where over 80 percent of the student population represents groups most severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The show is available for free on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. If you would like to nominate a teacher to be a guest on a future episode, reach out here.

About Friendship Public Charter School

Friendship Public Charter Schools is one of the District of Columbia’s largest and highest-performing public charter school networks, with 15 schools serving over 4,800 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. Friendship provides a world-class education that prepares students for college success and a career of their choice. Friendship empowers students to achieve high academic standards, enjoy learning, and develop as ethical and well-rounded citizens who contribute actively to their communities. According to recently released 2022-2023 data from PARCC (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), Friendship is outperforming the rest of Washington D.C.’s charter sector in math and English language arts (ELA) growth among economically disadvantaged and Black students, who make up the vast majority of Friendship’s student population.