Mr. Paul Delivers The Pants

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by Melissa Bailey | Jun 1, 2010 7:24 am

(12) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Schools, School Reform

Steve Paul was passing between classrooms when he got a text message from a teacher: “Chantel has a hole in her pants and we’re not sure what to do.”

Paul was a step ahead—he had already bought a pair of khakis in the eighth-grader’s size to complete her school uniform. He got them earlier in the school year in preparation for that very moment.

Paul works as a “family advocate” at Stamford’s Trailblazers Academy, a charter middle school run by a non-profit social services group called Domus. Paul’s job is part mediator, truancy officer, and social worker, and full-time problem-solver.

As Domus prepares to replicate its model in a New Haven public school this fall, family advocates like Paul will play an important role in how the new school runs—and in how New Haven’s ambitious school reform drive unfolds.

New Haven has hired Domus to take over management of Urban Youth, a transitional middle school on Dixwell Avenue that was given a “failing” grade as part of the nascent school reform drive. Urban Youth will be closed at the end of this school year and reopened as Domus Middle School, a public school with new work rules.

Trailblazers offers a glimpse of how the new Urban Youth will be run. Both schools serve students in grades six to eight who have struggled in traditional school settings because of behavioral or socio-emotional problems.

Domus is hiring 14 new staffers to work at the new school this fall. Top leadership will come from Domus’s ranks. Trailblazers’ principal, Mike McGuire, has been selected to head up the new New Haven school. Teachers will all be new to the school: Current teachers at Urban Youth had to reapply to keep their jobs, and none were re-hired, according to Craig Baker, Domus’s chief education officer. He said Domus plans to offer four of the eight teaching jobs to brand new Teach for America participants.

Domus plans to hire two family advocates to staff the new school. They’re as essential as teachers are to Domus’s model for getting kids on track, Domus officials said.

Family advocates’ job is to remove obstacles, big and small, that get in the way of student learning.

On Wednesday morning, that meant persuading a reluctant eighth-grader to change her pants.

Domus has a strict dress code: All students wear khaki pants or shorts, polo T-shirts embroidered with the school logo, and brown or black dress shoes. Pants must be held up with a belt, shirts must be tucked in, and sneakers are not permitted.

About a half hour before lunch, Chantel’s teacher noticed a hole in the eighth-grader’s uniform. The teacher quietly sent a text message to Paul, who was making his rounds in the hallway.

Paul, a 26-year-old Stamford native, has been working as a family advocate for four years. Wednesday, he walked the halls with his long hair in braids, wearing a sharp blue tie and dress shirt—he’s got a dress code, too. By now, he’s got the family advocate job down to a system. It involves a lot of walking through the spacious, three-story school, and a lot of messages buzzing on his red T-mobile phone.

He got the text from Chantel’s teacher around 11:30 a.m. He stopped by her classroom and asked to see her. He sat down with her in his office, a room with a couch, a desk and a table, just a few doors down. He reminded her she’d had trouble keeping up with the school dress code earlier in the year, when she had been drawing on her pants. Now, he told her, there was something different wrong with her uniform.

“There’s nothing wrong with my pants!” Chantel insisted.

“You do have a hole in your pants, and it’s located somewhere inappropriate,” said Paul. “I just had an eyewitness account.”

The hole was near the crotch of the pants. She couldn’t circulate around school like that, he told her.

“I’m going to ask you to please change your pants,” Paul said.

Paul announced Chantel was in luck: “I’m going to give you a brand new pair of pants in the size that you told me you were.” He pulled out a pair of khakis from Old Navy: “Pretty stylish, if you ask me.”

He held them up in front of her and flashed a salesman’s smile.

Chantel’s defiance melted into a grin.

“You always make me laugh,” she told Paul, “even when I’m in trouble on the littlest thing.”

Paul left the room to allow her to change. He explained his secret behind the instant solution—he’d bought the pants earlier in the year, just for her, when she was having trouble following the school uniform. He’d been expecting this day.

“We try to stay two steps ahead of the kids,” he said.

Paul has a caseload of about 50 kids in grades six to eight. As a family advocate, he’s required to not only help kids out at school, but to pay a visit to their homes at least four times per year. He said he visits Chantel’s home once a week. He talks to her mom a lot. She calls him when her daughter acts out at home. He offers her strategies to calm down.

On average, students entering Trailblazers Academy have been suspended twice at their traditional elementary schools, according to CEO Baker. Some walk in the door on the first day of school without basic social skills, like sitting down and listening to instructions. Others have continuing behavioral problems. Teachers spend about half of their time teaching life skills, Baker said. Domus hires family advocates like Paul to tackle a lot of factors, often born from poverty, that get in the way of learning. Their focus is less to talk about problems than it is to solve them. It’s an action-oriented job.

Family advocates show up every day for eight hours in school, and are on call on nights and weekends for extra-curricular emergencies. Paul said this year, one family called him in desperation on a Sunday because there was no food on the shelf. Another called because of a domestic violence incident.

“Mr. Paul, I just got into an argument with my mom and she beat me down,” the student told him. He said he rushed to the home to defuse the situation. Family advocates are all trained in crisis intervention and mediation. They run group sessions on topics like sex and bullying. And they take an 80-hour course that prepares them for the sensitive duty of visiting families at home.

Comments

posted by: Threefifths on June 1, 2010 9:59am

My question is when did the bid go out to find a company to replace Urban Youth? We are now bring in the Corporate Vampires Thief for American know for replacing experienced teachers and puting in Replacement so call teachers who most of the time will only stay for two years.In fact in the education circles
they are call Teach for Awhile or Teach for a Resume. I call them Union buster.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-07-29-teach-for-america_N.htm?csp=34

posted by: Proud parent on June 1, 2010 10:01am

I love this story. God bless Mr. Paul and the work he’s doing!

posted by: Educator Ed on June 1, 2010 11:13am

Teach for America…just a way for schools to get around hiring, paying (and keeping)people who made a choice to go get a degree in education as a career choice. Instead, hired young guns are brought in for two years to fill the positions (with less cost, less training and more naivety).

posted by: Morris Cove Mom on June 1, 2010 11:17am

Wow! God bless this man. He is great. Instead of most modern day teachers and adults, who would find fault with the girl and her parents and NOT help, his goal is to help them at all times.

We need more school staff like this young man, especially in New Haven.

posted by: Kudos on June 1, 2010 3:01pm

This man is a gem, well done to the city for hiring him - I think that it’s great that the city is starting with younger kids to get them to, in a sense, “change”. It’s high school kids that are trouble, and raising them properly in school from middle school really is the way to go.

Mr. Paul is awesome.

posted by: TFA alum on June 2, 2010 12:13am

Threefifths and Educator Ed, have you ever actually met a Teach for America teacher? It is comments like yours that make it hard for TFA teachers to feel welcome in this community and that lead many to leave for jobs in places like NY and DC where there isn’t as huge a stigma against or people who come into teaching through alternate routes. Yes, people who join TFA are asked to make a 2 year commitment to the classroom and many people from TFA do leave the classroom after those two years. That is part of the organization’s long-term mission, and sadly, TFA’s retention rates are actually higher than the general new teacher retention rates in most of the districts where TFA places teachers. But the organization has been around now for twenty years, and two-thirds of its alumni are still working in education, including a third still teaching. As someone who taught for seven years in Houston through TFA and who moved here last year, I have been really surprised by how much misinformation I’ve heard in New Haven just in that time about TFA and about the people in it. Why don’t you try meeting some of the TFA teachers in New Haven and ask them why they joined the program. They won’t bite, and their answers might actually surprise you.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ngt/new_papers/MLD_TFA_Paper1.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16fri4.html?_r=1

posted by: John Tulin on June 2, 2010 9:23am

I am sure Mr Paul is a great guy who wants the best for the kids and is working hard…but can teachers really be expected to “on call on nights and weekends for extra-curricular emergencies”. Most of us have families, part time jobs, and a life to attend to when not raking in the big bucks at school. Mr Paul, keep it up - but don’t burn out. People like Paul and TFA teachers (in my ten years experience) usually leave the schools within a few years of starting.

When did teachers become parents, social workers, clothing suppliers, etc? What other professionals would have this lumped onto their job descriptions with no limitations, guidelines, training, or compensation? What happens if Paul can’t do another parent’s job some weekend because he has started a family of his own? Fired? Is he no longer a good teacher?

posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS on June 2, 2010 11:37am

Mr. Tulin,

Teachers like Paul and many others who don’t punch the clock, run home at 3:00, and work 2/3 of the year, thankfully are much more common nowadays. They are the norm in high-performing charter schools, parochial schools, and can even be found in increasing numbers within the traditional district.

As a quid pro quo for raised expectations of teachers, they are now receiving more professional development, training, and yes, compensation. And when results are better they will receive far more respect from the public.

As a bizarre side note, did you know that the CEA is fighting tooth and nail against awarding teachers more $$ for successfully teaching AP courses to high school students? They call that representation?

So, Mr. Tulin, what profession does NOT require time and effort today?

posted by: Threefifths on June 2, 2010 1:09pm

posted by: TFA alum on June 2, 2010 12:13am

And it is school profiteers who have huge a stigma make it hard for public schoolt teachers who are doing there job. It is school profiteers who believe that private is always better than public run schools. market systems are always superior to public systems, unions are always the problem and students at private and charter schools outperform their public school counterparts. I have met some Teach for America teachers and I found some them to be there just to build a Resume.And some told me it was nothing more they a teacher sweat shop opreration. I will not say all of them because I have not met all of them. But I did do the research on Teach for America and from what I found it get’s funding
from some of the biggest corporatist vampires on this planet. Take a look at some of these corporatist vampires that CEO Wendy Kopp get’s her money from.Read the List and look for Goldman Sachs

http://www.teachforamerica.org/about/our_donors.htm

http://www.vutorch.com/?p=197

Let me ask you a question.Do you feel that all public school teacers are to be blame for the break down of the public school system. Do you think that teachers should not have union protect and have a elected school board.

FIX THE SCHOOLS on June 2, 2010 11:37am
Mr. Tulin,

Mr. Tulin,

Did you know fix that when those teachers as you say punch the clock, run home at 3:00, and work 2/3 of the year there school day picks up at home. They have to mark school papers and do lession plans,Call student parents on there telephone which they get no extra pay. so give me a break teachers do a lot of school work at home and still have to take care of there familys and aslo check there Childrens school work and go to PTA meetings.

Hey fix me and you always talk about how with out a education that minority children will stay in poverty. Well I hope you saw nightline last night,Beacause in the surbubs there is a new thing call Free Range Children and these children do’nt look poor to me froa a lack of education. Enjoy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aFgVgRvmSeM

posted by: Uncle Egg on June 4, 2010 11:59am

Nice story. I noticed though that the young woman identified as a teacher, Ms. Tanno, appears to be wearing jeans even though her students are required to wear uniforms. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on her ability as a teacher, but I would think it would be easier to command respect if you’re dressed at least as well as the people you’re teaching.
</soapbox>

posted by: A Proud Parent of a TBA Student on June 7, 2010 9:39pm

TBA and the Domus Foundation has really hit the nail on the head with this program. I have a child who goes to TBA for the reason of small class sizes. My son would have gotten lost at a traditional middle school as he already was at a traditional elementary school. The teachers and Family advocates at TBA are some of the most dedicated around. They encourage every child, which they know by name, and don’t hesitate to greet a parent at monthly family nights. I have 3 children and have yet to find a teacher who will go above and beyond the 9-4 schedule unless they are being paid to be there, with the exception of TBA. The children at TBA and other schools like this deserve to be helped and the teachers and family advocates, like Mr. Paul, are the ones who are doing it. I have been nothing but impressed with TBA and my son has grown by leaps and bounds! Thank you TBA and Domus for a job well done!!

posted by: Tom Burns on June 11, 2010 1:11am

...
Kudos to Mr. Paul but there are hundreds of Mr. Pauls in the New Haven Public Schools—-we do this every day—-he deserves the attention as do all ofmy heroes(the teachers in New Haven)——ask them when they go home—-ask them the extras they put in——ya see we don’t have to prove anything to the public as do the charters (money makers)(elitists)for our kids know who really cares about them, and that is all we need—-Tom

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