It's not every day a coding school puts out a press release to launch in a new city, finds a space to call their own and then quietly abandons ship.
But that's the story over at Boston-based Launch Academy, which in July announced they would be bringing an all-women coding boot camp program to the District at cove's new Dupont Circle location that ended up never opening its doors.
According to a former Launch Academy employee, the new program just didn't garner enough interest to merit starting it. The all-women coding program, called Prism Shift, was going to be a first-of-its-kind offering for Launch, with an eight-week online program starting in October and in-class instruction starting Dec. 4.
Launch Academy still fully operates its programming in Boston and Philadelphia. Dan Pickett, co-founder of Launch Academy, said the company decided to hold off on the D.C. expansion in August — a month after the plans were announced.
"While there were a few contributing factors, we remain very interested in its wonderful community and tech ecosystem, and we’ll continue to explore growth opportunities there," Pickett said in an email to DC Inno.
At the time of the program's announcement, Launch Academy said offering a niche program like this would help it stand out in the crowded D.C. boot camp market. Their expansion plans came shortly after The Iron Yard announced they would be closing all of their locations, including D.C., and after Dev Bootcamp closed their doors in all of their cities.
"When we were thinking about a place to fit this mission, D.C. came up as an obvious place for this," said Tamara Monroe, Launch Academy's marketing manager, told DC Inno in July. "D.C. leads the nation (for women in tech). We needed a city that would be really receptive and passionate about this idea."
While the company did not state what factors exactly played into this, it's fair to say the decision to halt the D.C. location was not lighthearted. In July, Launch Academy had plans to have four instructors and mentors and a career services placement manager on staff in Washington. Staff members from Launch's Boston and Philadelphia locations would have also made appearances throughout the cohort.
Launch Academy's move to stop the expansion comes in a turbulent year of D.C.'s coding academy and education programming landscape. The Iron Yard shut down in October. 1776 merged with Philadelphia-based Benjamin's Desk that same month, raising questions about what education programming and resources will be staying put. Silver Spring, Md.-based co-working group I/O Spaces also recently launched a series of education programs to rival local coding schools. WeWork's Flatiron School is opening its second campus in D.C. in March.
In the same interview in July, Launch Academy said they prided themselves on their slow-and-steady growth model and that would differentiate themselves from the local competition.
"The major differentiator for us is the women-only program," Monroe said. "We want to see how it goes with D.C. first, we want to make sure it's a success. Who knows moving forward."
