ANOTHER VIEW FROM BEAUFORT
While on a business trip recently, I got a take on how schools in Beaufort County are handling some of the same issues we have here. What a difference 67 miles makes. Charleston County is clearly alone and still in the Dark Ages on much of this. Beaufort has issues, but it is far and away more in compliance with the law and with common sense than anything we are seeing here.
I realize this is based on just one example and reflects only a first impression but it is still very encouraging. One otherwise very ordinary elementary school (Port Royal Elementary School or PRES) is associated with a neighborhood very much like Park Circle in North Charleston. At PRES they have 350 students in a PK-5 school building that was built in 3 parts ove r the last 100 years...and they like it that way, being sort of funky, as it sets them apart as unique. Part of the school building is closer and more directly connected to the street than even Memminger, not unlike schools I've seen in small cities, towns and villages throughout Europe. It's school "yard" doubles as an open community park, almost a reminder of Harmon Field across from Burke, only immediately next to the school.
Twelve years ago PRES was a failing school near the run down state ports authority and other industrial facilities located in "downtown" Port Royal. Despite its location there was a commitment to turn it around. This was primarily a position taken when it was learned that the school district didn't really own the land under the school. If they tore the school down...the property wasn't theirs to sell. Essentially, the Beaufort School District was stuck with the school so they had to make it successful or it would continue to be a drag on the district. Making it work was their only logical option when it was down to 75 student, 5 teachers and facing closure. In the 12 years since it has had as many as 365 students at one time. Currently it is at 350 students with 35% minority, 40% FRL, and a modest number of Hispanic and Vietnamese students classified as ESL. Overall, it fairly well reflects the demographics of the Beaufort County School District.
By a vote of its SIC and PTO, they decide each year how best to spend their school's Title One funds! (Get that, they decide how to direct their financial resources...and this is a "working class" school with a fairly large minority population!) They have an after care program that runs before and after the school day which is officially from 8:00 am to 3:15 pm. The after care is both academically and recreationally focused. It opens with breakfast at 7am and closes each day at 6pm. Day care is an unbelievable bargin with a sliding scale of charges that max out at $25 per week per child (they may have to raise that by $10 next year) depending on each family's financial need. Since all parents at PRES work (even in 2 parent households) the first hour of after school care is free for all students and usually focused on completing homework or class projects.
They have Spanish offered at all grade levels starting at PK. They're trying to offer Chinese, but they haven't found a qualified teacher yet. As for their interest in Chinese, those involved with this school have found that LD students (including those identified as ADD or Dyslexic) often excell in learning foreign languages when the alphabet is different. Part of the reason for this need and their discovery of how to address it their commitment to including special needs students within their program. By school community and local parent preferences, they requested years ago to have an LD class at the school. This was in order to meet community demands even though the school's relatively small size would normally exempt them from including classes for children with "exceptional needs". If this wasn't enough, the school voluntarily has accommodated 9 children with more severe special education needs, including 2 with Autism.
They have taken this foreign language challenge even further. (Oh, how refreshing to learn that educators are allowed to use their imaginations in places that are beyond the reach of CCSD.) This school recognized that it had several students who were loosing what is sometimes called "heritage" language skills as 2nd and 3rd generation children of imigrants who are no longer speaking traditional languages at home. To reverse this trend some Hispanic parents have asked that their children be allowed to participate in an optional class that helps them translate their written assignments into Spanish so that their bi-lingual language skill will progress equally. The only trouble with this advanced foreign language approach at PRES is (at least for the moment) that when PRES kids get to middle school, the current Beaufort County Schools foreign language program forces them to start over with numbers and colors. Needless to say former PRES students are all making "A's" in their 6th grade middle school Spanish classes. Beaufort is now looking into making an intermediate level Spanish class available since so many well prepared kids (if they are not already bi-lingual) are entering some of their middle schools from schools like PRES.
Oh, and this school has had an elementary level International Bacalauret (IB) program for years. It just started single gender classes (another parent approved change) about 3 years ago starting with their 1st grade. They are now up to 3rd grade and will move the single gender classes all the way to 5th grade...if that's what the parents want. They have uniforms, too. Just khaki pants and navy shirts with the school logo.
Since the Beaufort YMCA is a block or two away, the students walk to the Y and their PE classes include basic swimming lessons...the Y is essentially this elementary school's gym for a few hours a week.
This is not an upscale part of Beaufort...as I said it's more like Park Circle since it's also very near the entrance to Parris Island Marine Station...not exactly Mt. Pleasant or South of Broad, either. As for AYP...it's 'Yes'...for the moment.
They are only rated "Average" by state standards, but they see meeting community needs as a higher calling than playing games with school report card scores. They don't cherry pick kids (as demonstrated by their inclusion of two types of special needs students...including those least likely to help raise their PACT scores.). No child from their attendance zone is ever turned away...though they did have to make arrangements for one child to be home schooled because he was too disruptive. They are 30 students over their maximum capacity, which accounts for both NCLB transfers in (they take priority over all other non-attendance zone transfers) and as many as 35 children of District employees, administrators and in-school teachers who choose to send their children to this school. Again, no child from the Port Royal attendance zone is ever denied a seat, but interestingly, they never put a child out if their family moves...they just make room.
Another interesting statistic from this "little school that could" was also mentioned. Provided they meet the attendance zone or tranfer requirements, the school continues to attract a number of students with parents looking to leave private schools and instead enter the public school system for the first time.
The natural market demand for this school is confirming and validating whatever it is that they are doing at Port Royal...and it seems to be just right. Again, they accommodate their neighborhood kids first and still manage to reflect the economic and racial mix that is the average for the entire district. If they didn't have the innovative programs they have been allowed to develop from within, the school wouldn't be able to attract or keep the students they have...and they wouldn't reflect the demographics of the Beaufort District or even their attendance zone either. In other words, every school in downtown Charleston could be this way if CCSD would just let it happen and there was a commitment from within each school to do it.
Unfortunately, because county and school politics being what they are almost everywhere (and because PRES doesn't have the protections associated with a charter school), Port Royal can only guarantee that their programs (and the people who run them) will be in place for one year at a time. The superintendent and the county school board, not the parents or the surrounding community, could decide to sweep it all away for reasons that have nothing to do with educating these particular students or serving this part of Beaufort County.
The Port Royal school appears to have great chemistry and the enthusiasm is obvious as several staff members described to me what they enjoy most about the school which is a lot. The entire staff (very diverse in age, race and backgrounds from what I saw) have been at the same school for 3-15 years. They aren't stuck in one place either because the school is still evolving and they are proud of that, too. They have no one with less than 3 years experience working at the school and the principal was part of the team that turned the school around 12 or more years ago.
They roll their eyes but agreed with me when I said that I'm more concerned with how a school works than how a school looks on paper. They honestly admitted that they expect their report card to possibly drop below an "average" rating the next year or two simply because the school progress reporting system is so geared to "one size fits all". They openly stated that they are more focused on meeting individual student needs, especially as these are always changing. They are not all that focused on school report card objectives...at least they are not obsessed with them, but it's a reality they have to operate within those guidelines until the state changes them. They also expect to miss the 10% annual improvement objectives since their school is reaching the logical limits of this game. It's clear they have made significant improvements to get to this point and will continue to be competative with other good schools, no matter how it's measured.
Instead of giving me questionable school report card statistics, they have done something that some have only been able to talk about on the District 20 Board, an idea that CCSD has simply ignored. The Port Royal staff can track what happens to their students years after their students leave the school following 5th grade. That's the true reflection of their success story. Twenty-seven of their former students graduated from Beaufort High last year and were accepted at the college of their choice. Of these, 19 received full or partial scholarships to those colleges.
They couldn't have had much more than 50 students in each grade at PRES. Even if you didn't consider that not all PRES students end up at Beaufort HS or that some former PRES students move out of the area before completing high school...PRES has a college acceptance rate that looks like CCSD's drop out rate! That's over 50% of its students.
Former Port Royal students consistantly do extremely well on an 8th grade achievement test. The teachers at the middle school that PRES feeds into say that Port Royal students are easily identifiable in their classes simply because those are their students who are the most engaged, always curious and ask the most questions starting on day one. One last thing...PRES is a year round school that students, teachers and parents all swear is the best system for their school community.
Why can't we do this here? Port Royal isn't in Bordeaux or some exotic or foreign place like that. For christ sake, it's just Beaufort.
