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Challenges Await “Turnaround” School
by Melissa Bailey | Jun 10, 2010 11:03 am
(17) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Schools, School Reform
When a four-foot-tall tough guy turned in his homework, teacher Zanneice Smith called for a round of applause.
The student—let’s call him Mike—is a sixth-grader at Urban Youth Center, a small middle school at 580 Dixwell Ave. for kids who’ve gotten in trouble.
He turned in his assignment after a long weekend, during which he visited his brother in jail and got caught in a fight in a public park.
The homework and the warm congratulations in class marked a small accomplishment for a student who has been known to scare his peers, and who’s absent from school 40 percent of the time.
Mike’s story reflects the challenges at Urban Youth—challenges that will be faced by Domus, a Stamford-based charter group that’s taking over the school in the fall.
Urban Youth serves 30 kids in grades six to eight. The school, which was founded in the mid-1980s, serves two populations: special education kids who are considered “emotionally disturbed,” and kids with behavioral problems.
The school was one of two in the city that got a failing mark when the district graded its schools this year as part of its fledgling reform effort. Citing low test scores and attendance, the district announced it would close Urban Youth at the end of this academic year and reopen it under new management in the fall. The school board hired Domus to run the school, which will take the name Domus Middle.
Domus plans to transform the environment with new teachers, uniforms, social service supports, and a longer school day. Click here and here for related stories.
The current principal and teachers will relocate to other schools, and this year’s eighth-graders will move on to high school. Only the students in the sixth and seventh grades will stay through to experience the changes.
A peek into Zanneice Smith’s classroom showed the range of obstacles, many sprung from poverty, that students and teachers at Urban Youth confront.
The student body is 65 percent “emotionally disturbed” students and 35 percent with behavioral problems. They typically go to Urban Youth after they get into trouble at other schools.
Mike is one of nine students—all boys—in Smith’s homeroom, the only class of sixth-graders at Urban Youth. Seven students showed up on the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend and sat down at their desks, spread out under a gray, cement ceiling with large fluorescent lights. They shared what they had done over the weekend.
One student reported that he went to a cookout in New York City where people were throwing fireworks at cars. They stayed up until 2 a.m., he said.
Another boy went to Granby and saw a Lamborghini.
“I went to see my brother in prison,” reported Mike. He hadn’t seen his brother in 10 years. His brother cried, he said. Mike said he didn’t know where the prison was—somewhere out of state.
Smith took the chance to give him some advice.
“You’ve got to get your act together, because that’s where you’re going to end up if you don’t act right,” she said.
At age 13, Mike has already been arrested. He’s currently on probation. Smith chided him for skipping school two days out of every week.
Some students at Urban Youth have wound up in jail for truancy, because staying in school is a condition of probation, said Principal Sabrina Breland (pictured). She said of the 30 students in her school, at least eight have served stints in juvenile detention. Sentences don’t last more than a couple weeks, she said. They miss class while they’re locked up, then come back to school.
School attendance sits at 82 percent, compared to 92 percent for the district. Tardiness has been a bigger problem than absenteeism, Breland said.
Breland took over as principal last fall. She said kids’ behavior has improved, but the school has fallen short of meeting its academic goals.
“The building has calmed a lot since September,” she said. “The problem I’m finding is academically, some students don’t see themselves going any further than eighth grade.” She outlined some challenges the staff and students have faced.
The principal hinted at one problem in an announcement over the intercom Tuesday morning.
“As the year ends, please do not bring in any weapons ... any fake weapons, any drugs or paraphernalia,” Breland warned. “All rules remain in effect.”
Breland has been issuing that reminder every morning for the last week, ever since a student was caught bringing a weapon to school. The student faces an expulsion hearing, she said.
Kids are searched with a metal-detecting wand when they enter the school, but the wand can’t screen for all forbidden items, such as drugs stuffed into pants pockets. Several students have been caught over the course of the year for bringing in “contraband,” Breland said.
Most of the sixth graders have stayed out of trouble.
Smith said of her 11 years at Urban Youth, this is by far her best-behaved class.
“They’re still kid kids,” she said. Her students play with Transformers. That’s a rarity at the school, she said: “All the other kids are into sex and running the streets.”
Mike is an exception in Smith’s class. Though he’s less than four feet tall, he has street cred and a toughness that scares the other kids, Smith said. He’s older. When she bought her students Transformer action toys for Christmas, she gave Mike a watch and a chain instead.
“There were so many fights in the park” over Memorial Day, Mike reported to the class Tuesday. “I got stuck in the middle of one.”
“You’d better be careful,” Smith advised, “because you know bullets don’t have names.”
Smith said other kids were afraid of Mike at first. He arrived as a “bully” who bothered other kids and wouldn’t sit still in class. While many kids needed a lot of attention, he was the most difficult student in the bunch, she said.
“He’s real street-smart, and he hates school,” she said.
Smith said she runs as many hands-on activities as possible, to try to interest and motivate students like Mike. At one point, the kids all wrote letters to family and friends.
One kid wrote to his grandma. Mike wrote to his nephew, who’s in jail.
Tuesday, Smith made a special point to commend Mike for completing his work.
“Give [him] some applause—he brought his homework back,” she said. His classmates clapped their hands.
They sat down to consider the week’s writing prompt: A (fictional) mayor has proposed imposing a $100 fine “if you’re caught with your pants hanging below your butt.” Do you agree or disagree?
The kids set to writing.
“Get out of here before I call the police,” read one student’s sentence, as Smith corrected classwork in the middle of the room. After a discussion, she helped the student figure out that he needed an exclamation point at the end.
Smith said this class is by far the brightest, and most advanced, that she’s seen at Urban Youth. For the most part, they do work on grade level. She said she’s focusing on punctuation, such as when to put capital letters inside quotations and where to put quotation marks, that past sixth grade classes could not attempt.
She lures her students with rewards: If they all bring in their homework, she cooks them a hot breakfast, serving up sausage, eggs, pancakes, bacon, grits. At Christmas, she bought them each a dictionary and a thesaurus.
Smith acknowledged that despite all her best efforts, kids like Mike fail because of so many missed school days.
With 11 years on the job, Smith is one of a handful of veteran teachers at Urban Youth. She sent her own son through the school. As school ends in late June, Smith will be saying goodbye to her star class, and her school. She said some of the changes Domus is planning—a new curriculum, a overnight camping trip before school starts—don’t appeal to her, and she’s ready to move try high school.
One challenge Domus will face is luring parents to take on a bigger role in the school.
Parent turnout at report card night was 25 percent (eight out of 32). Breland said when she invited sixth- and seventh-grade parents to talk to Domus about the changes afoot at their school, only three out of 18 came to see the presentation. They were all in the Ms. Smith’s sixth-grade class.
When classes start next year, the district will be poised with newly minted metrics for measuring every part of the school, from teachers, to student growth, to the school “climate.” The goals of the school reform drive are to eliminate the achievement gap for every student, and cut the dropout rate within five years.
Domus has its work cut out for it.
Urban Youth scored at the bottom of the district on the Connecticut Mastery Tests last school year: 33 percent scored at least proficient in math, compared to 66 percent for the district and 85 percent for the state. (Click here for more stats in the school’s interim progress report issued in March.)
Breland said with this year’s CMTs, she aimed for 60 percent proficiency. She expects to fall far short of that bar. One problem was that many eighth-graders lacked the computer skills to take the writing tests, which were done on computers this year, she said.
Breland said as the students close out the school year, she’s been prepping them for the changes—uniforms, new rules, more hours in school.
Breland and Smith agreed the kids would be better served by having more resources—such as the “family advocates” in Domus’s model —to help with the complex socio-emotional problems they face.
“I’m anxious to have [Domus] come in,” said Breland. “We need something for them.”
Tags: Domus, school reform
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Comments
posted by: cross teacher on June 10, 2010 12:30pm
I can’t help thinking, where does a child go once expelled from urban youth?
posted by: Get real on June 10, 2010 1:55pm
Did anybody, anybody at all, ever stop to realize that perhaps the reason schools like Urban Youth are “failing” is because the proper social service supports were not in place to begin with?
The bottom line is Domus is being called to clean up the mess Mayo and his staff has created.
The public needs to know that many “failing” schools in New Haven are under staffed, lack supplies and do not follow student IEPs as mandated by state law.
In other words, many special needs students do not receive the proper number of 1:1/small group instruction from the SPED teacher asw designated in their IEP; many schools get around this by noting the classroom teacher is a “partner fully capable of covering the IEP hours.”
Think about that.
You’re asking a classroom teacher, in charge of at least 20 students, to cover the IEP hours of their SPED students, many of whom are intellectually disabled. How can that teacher give that SPED student the individualized attention he/she deserves, and effectively teach the others at the same time?
(My school, for example, has 1 SPED teacher servicing 58 SPED students in grades K-3. I have two autistic students who don’t come close to receiving the hours mandated in their IEPs; when I advocate for these students, I’m told we’re short-staffed and that I should cover the hours—great, how can I sit with these two four 1 full hour per day and TRULY EDUCATE my other 22 students?!)
That’s not fair to anybody, especially not the students.
Mayo, however, is spinning it so he comes off a hero with his look-at-our-ambitious-new-reform plan.
Puh-leeeeeze.
What Mayo and his cronies know full well is that “failing” schools do NOT need new teachers. They need more teachers, as well as the ability to TRULY hold parents and students accountable for absences, tardiness and poor behavior.
Mayo’s simply chosen the easy route—replace teaching staffs. But what he never stopped to think about is that by calling in an outside agency, he’s admitted HE’S failed and needs somebody to clean up his mess.
As for Urban Youth’s teachers, and all those educators working in some of New Haven’s toughest schools, God bless you all for your efforts.
posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on June 10, 2010 3:45pm
I’m not sure what more can be asked of from these teachers. They can’t be baby sitters and parents to these kids and still ensure that they are up to the standards of main stream schools.
These kids are still going home to fights in their neighborhood parks, to parents who don’t care enough (or are unable) to show up at conferences, to the underground drug market, to the visually depressing conditions of post-industrial neighborhoods, etc. What good is it to have access to great teachers and mentors for a few hours a day, if overwhelming problems still persist outside of school for these kids everyday?
The best way to address this seems to be to uplift these kids parents through meaningful employment that provides goods that people need and want. Newhallville, where this school is currently located, was developed almost entirely as workforce housing for the Winchester factories; the only way to make Newhallville a thriving neighborhood again is to attract work for low-skill, undereducated populations that exist in the neighborhood. It takes roughly 3 generations of steady employment to stabilize a family to the point of self-reliance and upward mobility. That can be observed in New Haven’s previous immigrant communities. Many Italians, for example, came at the tail end of the immigration period and only had 2 generations of stable employment at factories, so many families were “trapped” in this decaying city for several generations past 3, until the 80s when most were able to leave.
Yuppies, high-tech industry, luxury apartments, night clubs, etc only get a city like New Haven so far, but it will never recover and become a viable place until we either 1) use the city for its intended purpose and for how it was designed or 2) nuke it and start from scratch.
New Haven is a small port city with ideal connections for cargo and transportation rail. Its neighborhoods are either extremely old with a mixture of contemporary buildings that developed over long periods of time slowly, are workforce housing for manufacturing or rail-related jobs, are early trolley line suburbs, or are late trolley line suburbs. Those are the things that worked and continue to work to this day, the other stuff contributes to decay, underuse, monocultures, income segregation, and general ruinous urbanism.
We don’t necessarily have to make rifles anymore, but we do need to hire Americans instead of Indians or the Chinese, which, at the very least, would end some of the industrial slavery that’s happening in those countries and allow agriculture to re-establish itself in the east. We can’t just keep allowing the medical field to grow because all that means is that we are successfully making our population extremely sick through terrible policies in food manufacturing, living arrangement design and under-regulated pharmaceutical production.
These parents deserve better lives in their neighborhoods, and these school teachers deserve real classwork and not babysitting jobs.
posted by: Concerned Citizen on June 10, 2010 3:58pm
As a parent and responsible citizen I am deeply saddened by this story; I also hope that many people (especially parents and the hundreds of pastors in Greater NH) will read it
and get the full implications. A large part of the 9% tax increase Mayor DeStefano proposed will be going towards the cost of maintaining what is to become Domus Middle. You can learn more about Domus here: http://www.domuskids.org/StaffListBios.html
Sabrina Breland and Zanneice Smith are to be commended for trying to make a level of success out of Urban Youth, but realistically, has the NHPS system ever seen Urban Youth as a viable or even a real middle school in the past few years? Or has it been a holding place for those who we have collectively given up on?
Urban Youth has been nothing short of a place to play out time. Parents, teachers, administrators and society have all given up on these troubled youngsters. Was UY ever meant to be a place for these youngsters to become rehabilitated? In fact, children sent to UY due to problems in their elementary or other middle schools, after a year, often end up behaving worst and getting into more trouble than they did before going to UY. The very name connotes trouble. Factually, if some of these parents who gave birth to these children have given up, what can be asked of others? We are and will all pay the price.
UY was never given the necessary resources (including the skilled staff) to deal with the problems and challenges it had to deal with to achieve any significant level of success. Interestingly, now Domus will get all of those resources; the price tag will be staggering.
In a April 15, 2010 NHI article titled - “Turnaround” Work Begins At Urban Youth we see that:
In its vote Monday, the BOE gave the district permission to pay Domus up to $40,000 for an initial startup phase until Aug. 31, then another $807,200 to run the school for the first year. In addition to that budget, the district would pay for a number of services, including school uniforms, custodians, teachers, special education services, food and transportation. (Click here to view Domus’ proposed budget, which gives more details.)
Why are children with emotional disturbance problems in a school with those who have serious behavioral and legal problems? Isn’t that setting up an environment that breeds trouble? Supt. Mayo does not like criticism even when contructive. I am glad that finally good sense has prevailed (at a staggering cost to tax payers), but let us see if Domus can bring about the long needed change at this school. I certainly hope their advocacy program will work. Adopt the policy practiced in some other countries - sentence the parents.
posted by: Threefifths on June 10, 2010 4:05pm
posted by: Get real on June 10, 2010 1:55pm
Did anybody, anybody at all, ever stop to realize that perhaps the reason schools like Urban
People better realize that the real deal on the so call schools reform is this.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-and-charter-school-sugar-daddies
posted by: Get Real#2 on June 10, 2010 4:25pm
I applaud this “get real” commentator; he or she has hit the nail on the head in so many ways. UY has been a wasteland for years. Dr. Mayo has NOTHING to be proud about in handing over UY to Domus. If he had put the necessary resources in Urban Youth 10 years ago, it could have become a viable “school” and would not have been the dumping ground it is today. This has been dollar wise and millions foolish.
The best thing Dr. Mayo could do for the NHPS system is to retire this year
posted by: Teacher Who Cares on June 10, 2010 4:54pm
I am very disappointed in the article. What ever that student was saying to his teacher was in confidence. The writter should’ve never repeated anything that was stated in that classroom. Now you’ve made it harder for the student to trust his teacher. Not only did you repeat something that was personal you placed a picture that showed a student. You have no right to repeat what a student has said to his teacher. I don’t even think that half of the things written were true. Next time remember to give only your opinion and not what was stated by a child.
posted by: Just Askin' on June 10, 2010 8:14pm
Where are all those teachers who are out of jobs at the turnaround schools going to go?
The district is asking each school to identify people (not positions…people) whom they can let go at the end of this year. This is done by juniority, and some of the district’s best teachers are its junior teachers.
This move is being spun as a response to the aldermanic budget cut. Is it?
Prepare for a massive shuffle as teachers come out of the turnaround schools and get shunted to all the other schools, including some of the district’s best, bumping some of the district’s best teachers out of jobs.
Why isn’t this being reported on?
posted by: tell it brother on June 10, 2010 9:09pm
Get real very good post Mayo and his team have failed the kids.And will walk away from that school and put the blame on the teachers snd the parents of the kids.Of course he and his over paid cronies wont take a hit.I see his next move is to privatize the custodians as well.Hey why blame his over paid staff or his over paid management companies.Instead of holding them accountable he would rather put the poor custodians out of work…
posted by: Yes We Can! on June 10, 2010 9:37pm
Get Real your negativity is astounding.
This article demonstrates some of the many challenges that exist for Urban educators. Socioeconomics, crime, special education issues, behavior issues etc. are what is the reality. New Haven has chosen to lay the issues on the table, identify them and confront them in a manner that is a national model. Not some of the kids, not just the top but all.
The question to you Get Real is are you willing to be part of the solution? Or do you want to fall prey to the sniping bull that is far to pervasive on this site.
The solution is hard work and yes, funding for education.
New Haven has built a tremendous framework that has received national attention and Dr. Mayo is the leader of that charge. He deserves our support both fiscally and physically. He dared to think big and become a national model in Little Old New Haven. Why don’t you stop tearing down Get Real and start helping to build up.
We can change the world of Urban Education!
Yes We Can!
posted by: Tom Burns on June 11, 2010 12:54am
Kudos to two champions Dr. Reggie Mayo and Sabrina Breland—-we are very lucky to have you in New Haven. Without a doubt—the courage, tenacity and longevity of Dr. Mayo is the reason we are the best urban district in Ct and have improved immensely over the past three years. I am proud to say I teach in New Haven because of winners like Doc and Sabrina——no one does it better—Tom
posted by: Oh, please, "Yes We Can" on June 11, 2010 10:40am
...
First, I am part of the solution. I am in the trenches day after day, trying to make a better life for my students. I pour my blood, sweat and tears into every day. ...
Second, why are added “social service supports” being ADDED now, after a school’s been deemed failing? Why weren’t these supports integrated already?
...
Sorry, but NHPS does NOT deserve credit for “laying out the issues.” These issues have been prevelant for decades. And if the public, including Obama, truly knew what went on behind closed doors of many of New Haven’s schools, the press exposure certainly wouldn’t be so positive.
Don’t worry, though. You’ll get all the specifics in the book I’m writing.
...
Tell me, specifically, how you would get my SPED students the help to which they are entitled ... I’m all ears!
posted by: Get real = right on on June 11, 2010 10:51am
To Yes, We Can!: I think Get Real is telling it like it is, not being negative. ...
posted by: Threefifths on June 11, 2010 10:54am
posted by: Just Askin’ on June 10, 2010 8:14pm
Where are all those teachers who are out of jobs at the turnaround schools going to go?
The district is asking each school to identify people (not positions…people) whom they can let go at the end of this year. This is done by juniority, and some of the district’s best teachers are its junior teachers.
This move is being spun as a response to the aldermanic budget cut. Is it?
Prepare for a massive shuffle as teachers come out of the turnaround schools and get shunted to all the other schools, including some of the district’s best, bumping some of the district’s best teachers out of jobs.
Why isn’t this being reported on?
All you have to do is ask some of them. I did and they told me that since there schools have been reconstituted they are still waiting to be replaced.And some have told me that they may not know until the begining of the school year. But as I said before look for the rubber room to come here to the new haven schools system.
posted by: anon on June 11, 2010 3:29pm
This behavior and the conditions that lead to it start before age 3.
We should be investing our resources there, not into the schools.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice a generation to get the whole society back on track.
posted by: wrongtimeslogan on June 12, 2010 7:50pm
Get real told it like it is. “Yes we can” sounds uncannily like Mayo when he tries to talk Obama’s talk. .... Where has the change been? Why is it only now happening? The timing of your inspiration couldn’t be worse with the recession and budget cuts. Why weren’t you implementing these programs during the 90s when the economy was doing well, or at least not as badly.
I think Mayo has a lot to answer for, and I can’t see him having any good ones. The best solution for change would be to find a new superintendent (maybe you should have hired that head-hunter firm after all). Stop co-opting Obama’s message to fit your thinly veiled “change” that is probably just more of the same. Domus’ method sounds like it will work, but it isn’t revolutionary. Support staff like guidance counselors (does Cross have one yet, Mayo?) are what the district needs.
posted by: Unacceptable on June 13, 2010 9:02am
“I went to see my brother in prison,” reported Mike. He hadn’t seen his brother in 10 years. His brother cried, he said. Mike said he didn’t know where the prison was—somewhere out of state.
Smith took the chance to give him some advice.
“You’ve got to get your act together, because that’s where you’re going to end up if you don’t act right,” she said.
It is disgraceful that a teacher would say that to a student. Clearly this young man is trying to reach ou and open up. He’s even giving some insight to the root of his bad behavior, but this teacher kicks him when he’s down and reinforces what is likely a very real fear for this boy. Do they say this nonsense to middle schoolers in the suburbs or do they say, “if you don’t get your act together you won’t get into harvard/Yale/Princeton? I understand prison Is unfortunately a possibility for many young people in New Haven. Could it have something to do with the fact that adults like this tell children from an early age they’re on their way? I wonder if this young man was ever told he could make the Ivy league.
