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Uncommon Schools
E-Newsletter |
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Issue 02
November 2007 |
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Uncommon Schools Welcomes Two Boston Schools to the Network
In the summer of 2007, Uncommon Schools (Uncommon) welcomed two charter schools in Boston, Boston Collegiate Charter School (BCCS) and Roxbury Preparatory Charter School (RPCS), as associate members, making its previously informal relationships with the two schools official. "This happened because it made sense," said Josh Phillips, current co-director of RPCS. "The idea of being able to disseminate our best practices to a more concentrated group of schools is very appealing to us, in addition to professional development training and critical inspections." Uncommon will provide each school with a set of services to support their respective missions and goals, which align with those of schools across the Uncommon network.
A natural affiliation has existed for years between these Boston schools and Uncommon, as both schools were founded by current Uncommon leaders: Brett Peiser (now Managing Director of the Collegiate Network) founded BCCS in 1998, and Evan Rudall (now COO) and John King (now Managing Director of the Excellence and Preparatory Networks) founded RPCS in 1999. Many of the organizing principles of the Boston schools have helped to shape the foundations of our core schools. Incorporating these two schools into the greater Uncommon network will help to solidify and strengthen the successful practices of our schools as the network continues to evolve.
While the two schools maintain independence around management and operations, associate membership gives both schools access to certain services, including professional development workshops and retreats for teachers and school leaders; access to the Uncommon Schools Intranet, which promotes the sharing of school policies and materials; an annual full-day inspection, conducted by Uncommon leaders, which will provide critical feedback on everything from the school's culture to specific teaching practices; opportunities for the schools to participate in the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Scholars Program, which annually awards fifty high-achieving underprivileged students with individualized educational support; enrichment trips; marketing and advocacy efforts; and connection to philanthropic entities, which have partnered with Uncommon Schools.
BCCS and RPCS are the first two associate members of Uncommon Schools. As the network continues to expand and to disseminate successful teaching and managing strategies, we expect that both the Boston schools and our entire network will benefit from the formalized relationships.
To learn more about the two newest members of our network, please see the stories below!
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From Brooklyn to Boston and Back:
Brett Peiser and Boston Collegiate
On a recent Monday morning, Brett Peiser, founder and former Principal and Executive Director of Boston Collegiate Charter School (BCCS) in Dorchester, Massachusetts, pointed up at panels of wood hung from the ceiling in the school's spacious entrance. "Those are held up by aircraft carrier wire," he said, referring to a type of wire, presumably of an aeronautic caliber, used to secure heavy objects. He shook his head in disbelief that the new site for the school ever reached completion and remarked, "It took us three years from site identification to move-in." (The school, originally called South Boston Harbor Academy Charter School, moved from South Boston to Dorchester in 2004.)
Peiser now serves as Managing Director for the Collegiate Charter School network of Uncommon Schools. Yet while walking around with Peiser in his emeritus role in the school he founded nine years ago, watching him pop into classes and greet the older students, it became clear that the audacious, individual stamp he put on the physical plant is a tangible representation of his educational ethos, which lives and breathes in the classrooms and hallways and has made BCCS one of the highest performing public schools in the city. From 2003 through 2006, 100% of the 10th graders passed both the English and Math MCAS exams, making it the only school in the state to achieve that level of performance for four consecutive years. Yet the school effortlessly couples a focused academic environment with joy inside and outside the classroom.
A high school class brainstorming ideas for new "school restaurants" presents its ideas to a panel of adults, one of whom is Tobey Jackson, the current Middle School Principal: "I see the appeal of burgers," Jackson exhales, leaning back in his chair, eyebrows angled downwards, adopting the role of a hardened board member, "But I'm not really sure. I'd consider more veggie-friendly options myself." The students chuckle, but his critique sparks a lively debate about how to present ideas effectively. In a middle-school history class on the American Revolution, a boy stumbles when asked to tell the class something unique about the Battle of Lexington. "Um, well, there was violence?" he volunteers, looking up at his teacher hesitantly. She smiles. "Yes, Robert, there was violence, as with many battles, but let's work through this together." His classmates help him out and he happily takes down notes.
Peiser was initially drawn to South Boston for two reasons: first, parents clamored for a college preparatory public school, and second, there had been a rash of teen suicides and suicide attempts in the South Boston area in the mid-1990s. After graduating from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (KSG) with a Master in Public Policy (MPP) degree and a focus in education, he partnered with Susan Fortin, a fellow KSG graduate, and State Senator (now Congressman) Stephen Lynch, and began drafting ideas for a new school.
"When I started Boston Collegiate, I thought we would find a panacea that would revolutionize education, given the flexibility we were offered," Peiser remembers. "But I realized there is never one 100% solution. Instead, it's one hundred 1% solutions that make a school work. We grew on three pillars: a structured academic environment that allows creativity to flourish, fantastically high expectations for the students academically and behaviorally, and the knowledge that an organization can only be as good as the people who work there."
Having taught history at Midwood High School in Brooklyn after graduating from Brown University, Peiser approached the founding of his new school not only with the eye of a trained MPP, but also that of a teacher. He remembers thinking of the project in rather global terms: "If we were to start from scratch, if we were to colonize another planet, would we really give teachers thirty-five kids in a class? Would we really only observe teachers twice a year? We had a blank slate, and we used simple, commonsensical solutions to create our school." The results of these "commonsensical solutions" were - and have continued to be - exceptional, year in and year out, at the small planet of BCCS.
Since its founding as a 5-7 middle school with 120 students, BCCS has evolved in myriad ways. Kathleen Sullivan serves as Executive Director, and Peiser's original principal position has divided in two, Jackson serving as Middle School Principal and Jenna Ogundipe as High School Principal. The school itself has expanded to include a high school and will double the size of the middle school in the next few years, creating space to give more Boston families the opportunity to ensure that their children receive a high-quality public education complete with Advanced Placement classes and stronger sports teams.
Teachers have autonomy and have added classes to the curriculum. Danielle Pfister, now in her fourth year as a middle-school English teacher, says that "at BCCS, if you have an idea that you feel passionate about, something that could help promote student achievement or team building, people here will listen to you. There is an entrepreneurial spirit, and I know that my curriculum is mine. The entire class is mine." Pfister took advantage of this and started a writer's workshop for her middle schoolers.
But in his new role, Peiser has less to do with these developments than he did initially. After meeting Norman Atkins at a conference in 2000, the two educational entrepreneurs eventually decided to combine their efforts in 2004, when both received planning grants to explore the idea of expansion. This year, BCCS joins the Uncommon Schools network as an associate member, reaping a variety of benefits through various services and the sharing of best practices (see other article). Says Peiser of the affiliation, "Charter schools are always under intense pressure. There will always be a political debate about them, and being part of a network can only help to strengthen them against those political winds."
Visitors who enter the school and cross under the now safely secured wooden panels that line the ceiling will see the Brett M. Peiser Library in front of them, with a framed picture of the smiling founder outside. Across the hall is a humbler tribute to Peiser: a wooden plaque, entitled "The Brett Peiser Award for Leadership." The plaque lists the names of only four recipients to date, but there is room for at least another fifty. "This award honors a graduating senior who has displayed the qualities exemplified by the school's founder," the plaque's explanation reads, "including unflagging dedication in pursuing one's beliefs, tenacity, the ability to listen, adapt, and change course to achieve success, and long-term vision." Each year, as the plaque fills with the names of individuals who have been shaped by BCCS, Peiser's hope for a panacea will seem less like a dream and more like an emerging reality.
— By Sophie Brickman
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Roxbury Prep: Small Facility, Skyscraper Results
Evan Rudall, co-founder of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School (Roxbury Prep) and now COO of Uncommon Schools (Uncommon), found his life's passion as a tenth grader at a public school on the South Side of Chicago, when he watched his teacher fall asleep in class.
Recalling the moment from the Uncommon home office recently, Rudall said, "At that moment, I was deeply struck by the fact that while my teacher was sleeping and students were wandering in and out of class, the students at the private Chicago Lab school down the road were being prepared to enter the top colleges in the country. I knew then that I wanted to be involved in education."
The school he founded with John King, now Managing Director of the Excellence and Preparatory Networks at Uncommon, is a success story even the most committed and imaginative boy could not have day dreamed as his teacher snored.
The distinctive appeal of the school is best embodied by the image of a handful of graduates, sitting in the library, hunched over their homework. They return to the building from their prestigious high schools to complete their assignments in an atmosphere that nurtured their success. On the 2007 8th grade MCAS Math test, for example, Roxbury Prep outperformed every school in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They also return to become, once again, a part of a small community of teachers and students who collaborate to make this school, humbly comprised of eight rooms off of a single hallway on the third floor of a nursing home, a remarkable testament to the potential of public education.
The beginning of the school dates back to January 5, 1998, when Rudall handed in the charter application - the day, incidentally, when the two future co-directors met for the first time. It was King's birthday, and Rudall's sister-in-law, who had attended Harvard with King, introduced them, believing they were like "long lost twins." In April of 1999, King (who had been teaching at the City on a Hill Charter School) joined Rudall. Roxbury Prep opened in September of 1999.
Between them, King and Rudall had run after school programs and taught in public, private, and charter schools across the country. They decided to split the job of running the school into separate leadership roles, Rudall taking the operations and development side and King, the instructional. "I saw district, private, and even charter school principals allow the operations responsibilities to interfere with curriculum and instruction," recalled Rudall. "I was determined not to let that happen given the urgency of the academic work."
The academic work was urgent indeed. King remembered that when he was at City on a Hill, "I had incoming ninth grade students reading at a fourth or fifth grade level, or doing math at a third or fourth grade level. I wanted to make a school that taught subjects differently, so that students arriving in high school would have the skills my previous students lacked." The school day King and Rudall established still exists. Core classes meet from 8:15am to 3:15pm, and an enrichment program closes the day, wherein students spend one hour participating in a variety of activities, from soccer and Tae Kwon Do to visual and performing arts. King instituted the "Drop Everything And Read" (DEAR) program, which requires that students read quietly for one half hour every day, and encourages them to carry their book with them to read during any down time. If students finish their "Do Now" early, they'll open up their books (many of them, this past month, being the new Harry Potter tome) and read, unprompted, until instruction begins.
High academic expectations are balanced with an overall spirit of partnership. In Will Austin's math class last month, a sixth-grader named Ralph raises his hand and asks Austin for help. Austin looks at the team's work, and asks Ralph's partner, "Amani, are you hogging your knowledge? Share it with Ralph!" The two students giggle and complete the problem together. In Ben Wells' 8th grade English class, the class learns how to peer edit, splitting into pairs and discussing their partner's work in hushed tones.
Rudall also instituted a punishment-reward system. Demerits are given out at Roxbury Prep for infractions so minute they would not be noticed at other schools. The converse of a demerit is a "creed deed," awarded to students who exemplify the values of the school, which range from integrity and dignity to leadership and investment. Every six weeks, students can "cash in" their creed deeds for a variety of prizes, a binder for a small amount, a trip to Six Flags for a larger amount. Laura Christian, the Director of Development, reports that most winners, rather than spend a day at a theme park, choose to spend a day in school switching roles with the school's co-directors, Josh Phillips or Dana Lehman. "Josh or Dana will meet them at the bus, carry their backpacks for them, bring them things throughout the day," Christian said. "The kids love it."
When they are not busy waiting on their students directly, Phillips and Lehman continue to build upon the practices laid by Rudall and King, and Phillips is thrilled about the new Associate Membership with Uncommon. Said Phillips in his office in Roxbury, "We continue to grow every day, and our quality is improving. The new relationship with Uncommon [as an associate member] will help us disseminate our best practices to a more concentrated group of schools."
At the end of a day, Raymond Cruz, the office manager, will call a cab for any visitors. The cab will be late. (Phillips is not surprised. "No one ever knows where we are," he's been known to mutter.) Cruz will call the cab company once, twice again, until twenty minutes later, a car will appear. "Fisher Avenue!" the cab driver will exclaim in a thick Boston accent, "I've driven my car around Boston for twenty years and I've never once been down this street!" He's right. It is easy to miss, hidden away on a quiet, leafy street behind the main thoroughfare, but behind the modest façade, a school is revolutionizing public education.
— By Sophie Brickman
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