Donald Hense is Founder and Chairman of the Board of Friendship Public Charter Schools in Washington, DC. Friendship is the largest chartered public school in the nation serving more than 4,500 students on 16 campuses, including online. Additionally, Friendship manages one DC Public School (DCPS) and four schools in Baltimore, Maryland, as well as charters in Baton Rouge, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff, AK.
Hense received his B.A. degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and attended graduate school at Stanford University in California. He was a Rockefeller intern in economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, a Merrill Scholar at the University of Ghana, a Ford Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.
Mr. Hense has served as Vice President of the National Urban League, Director of the Development of Children’s Defense Fund, and Director of Governmental Relations at Howard University, Boston University and Dartmouth College. He also serves on the Board of the Center for Education Reform and the D.C. Arts and Humanities Collaborative and is the treasurer of the, D.C. Association of Charter Schools. On June 22, 2011 Hense was honored by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) as an inductee into the National Charter Schools Hall of Fame during the General Session of the National Charter Schools Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.