If You Build It,
Will Parents Come?

The city’s showpiece ​“turnaround” school is banking on a new donation of books and food to boost literacy — and to provide a new way to encourage parents to get involved.

Students at the Brennan/Rogers School on Wilmot Road in West Rock opened the doors Friday to two sparkling school libraries. The facilities were completely renovated thanks to a grant from the Heart of America Foundation and free labor from Target Corporation employees.

Students got a first peek at the donation of 2,000 new books, as well as a fleet of new computers, iPads, tables, and chairs, which added up to a $200,000 investment in the school. Each student and his or her siblings also got free books to take home from school. From now until June, Target is also providing 30 pounds of food per month per family in the school, which serves about 350 students in grades pre‑K to 8.

The donation comes as Brennan/Rogers enters the second year of a so-called ​“turnaround,” the first of its kind in the city. Based largely on rock-bottom test scores, the school was dubbed a failing school and was the first to become an in-house Tier III Turnaround under the city’s nascent reform effort. Principal Karen Lott got full authority last year to hire and fire teachers and lengthen the school day. Her staff spent much of last year getting a handle on student behavior. This year, discipline problems have settled down and the school is able to focus more on its goal to ​“create a culture of reading.” 

Principal Lott (pictured) said she hopes the new libraries will serve as a hub for avid reading — and a breeding ground for a renewed effort to get parents involved in the school, with food distribution as a key component.

The library at Katherine Brennan, which serves grades 3 to 8, has new carpets, tables and chairs, said Kevin Pacheco, one of 100 Target employees who volunteered their time on the renovation project. Pacheco, who lives in Rhode Island and works at a Target store in eastern Connecticut, said volunteers helped sort boxes of new books and put them on the shelves.

When students got their first glimpse of the library in around 10:30 a.m. Friday, 3rd-grader Elizabeth McGill (pictured) made a bee-line to the shelves.

“I’m a rock star reader,” she declared. That means she completed the free public library’s challenge to read 10 books over the summer.

Friday, she picked ​“The Frog Princess” off the shelf and read a few lines.

“This book is awesome,” she said.

Only 4.3 percent of the 23 3rd-graders at the school were reading at goal last year, according to the latest Connecticut Mastery Test. That’s compared to 58.4 percent of 3rd-graders statewide. Lott said the school has set a goal for all readers who are behind grade level to make one year to a year-and-a-half of progress in reading this year.

Superintendent Reggie Mayo said a strong foundation in reading is key to the goals of the school reform drive — to close the achievement gap between city kids and their statewide peers, cut the high school dropout rate in half, and ensure students have the resources and preparation to succeed in college.

Mayor John DeStefano credited Brennan/Rogers for progress on another piece that’s central to reform — getting parents involved.

Brennan/Rogers showed the highest parent participation in the district on school surveys last year, with 81 percent of parents offering feedback.

Lott recognized the school still has a long way to go in engaging parents. On the surveys, 62 percent of parents admitted they ​“never” volunteer at the school. The school has no parent-teacher organization, and failed to find any parents willing to serve on a state-mandated School Governance Council that was supposed to be set up last spring.

Lott has a new plan this year to get parents in the door: As part of the Heart of America donation, the school will be getting large shipments of food from the Connecticut Food Bank each month. The school plans to coordinate the food distribution to parents with academic-themed events, such as teaching parents how to help their kids read more fluently. With more parents coming more regularly to the school, Lott said, she hopes to revive the PTO and the School Governance Council.

“This is the beginning” of a new chapter of literacy at the school she said of the libraries.

U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal, who was on hand for the event, praised Lott’s efforts, after pausing to grip and grin with Target’s mascot, a dog called Spot.

Across the street, at the Clarence Rogers building that serves grades pre‑K to 2, students went through a gauntlet of adult high-fivers on the way into the library. 

Librarian Susan Martinez Sendroff (pictured) said both libraries were in shambles when she showed up to the school in the fall of last year. The books were decades old, and were not being circulated very much. She led a campaign that boosted the number of books kids took home, from 689 in 2009-10 to over 8,000 last school year.

Nailah Taylor, Kiara Morrison and Aniyay Moody (pictured, from left) squeezed into a brand new reading chair as other kids checked out bean bag chairs.

Target workers then spread out to classrooms to hand out a taste of what’s to come — a few snacks and seven books per kid, so students can begin their mission of reading, reading and reading to catch up with their statewide peers.

Past stories on the Brennan/Rogers School: 

• 1 Year In, ​“Turnaround” Principal Shares Lessons
• What ​“Magnet” Means
• The Evaluation: Episode Two
• Turnaround Task: Fight Fatigue
• Turnaround School Prepares For 1st Test
• Parents Prepare To Help ​“Govern” 4 Schools
• At Turnaround School, A Reading Push
• In Garden, Teachers Tackle Special Ed Challenge
• Brennan/Rogers Earns Magnet Status
• No Naps For These Kids
• Turnaround Team Sets To Work
• Two Failing Schools Aim High
• West Rock Kids Reap Two-Wheeled Rewards
• Brennan/Rogers Prepares For Turnaround