|
|
|
|
August 2005
New energy overcomes first-day glitches
Posted Wednesday, August 31, 2005
An unexpected fire alarm and a leaky roof fail to quash the positive mood at Hope High School.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Principal Wayne Montague patrols the hallways.
"The third floor looks good," he says, speaking into his walkie-talkie. "The corridor is clear."
"Do you know where you belong?" is his constant refrain.
He recognizes a young man, high-fives him and keeps on moving.
"Hats off, please," he tells a young man.
The hallways are clear and quiet by 8:30 a.m.
"This is lovely, lovely," says Montague, who runs Hope High School's leadership academy, one of three smaller schools.
At 8:40 a.m., the fire alarm wails. Everyone fears the worst. Did a student pull the alarm? Will this be the start of another year of chaos at Hope High School?
Montague gets a call on his walkie-talkie. It turns out that a teacher pulled the alarm after smelling smoke in a third-floor classroom.
The teachers mobilize the students, escorting them to the circle in front of the building. Thirteen-hundred teenagers file out of the building without any pushing or shoving. They stand in rain with their teachers while their hair gets wet and their shirts grow damp. At least, everyone is miserable together.
Twenty minutes later, the principals get the all-clear and everyone crowds into the darkened auditorium. Many of the teachers are still smiling, even though their first-period lesson plans are shot to hell.
The principals instruct every teacher to stand at the end of their row of students, military style. Principal Arthur Petrosinelli takes the microphone.
"You guys have been great," he tells the students. "Let's have a big applause for how well everyone behaved."
He explains that the fire alarm was real and praises the teacher for acting as soon as she smelled the first hint of smoke.
The next 40 minutes are a study in improvisation.
One teacher after another takes the microphone and tries to entertain 600 restive students. (The other half are in the cafeteria.) As the minutes pile up, the noise level -- and the humidity -- rises.
Principal Scott Sutherland takes the stage and tells the crowd that it's considered good luck when it rains on a couple's wedding day.
"Count this as a blessing," he says. "We have been baptized on our first day of Hope."
Then Montague gets up.
"It's a great day today," he says, "a new beginning. This is the way we want to carry ourselves, with respect and dignity."
The teachers snap into action. Michael Werth, an algebra teacher, extols the virtues of math.
"People think you guys can't add and subtract, but that's not true," he tells them. "Next year, we're offering AP calculus for college credit. It will make the national news. This school is going to be the best in the nation."
Jim Breen, a social worker, is up next.
"I'm here to challenge any one of you to one-on-one basketball," he says. "Any kind of basketball. If I win, you come to school on time, every single day. If I lose, I buy you pizza.
"I have to tell you. I've been playing basketball for 35 years and I've only one bought one pizza in the last 10 years."
Every teacher drives home the same message. You are doing a great job. This is what we expect. Hope will be different this year.
IT'S 10:05 A.M. The fire department has decided that it's safe for most students to return to class. The one exception? The students who were in the six classes on the third floor. It seems that a leaky roof has shorted out some wiring in those classrooms.
"You're doing a good job," Petrosinelli tells them. "Now you're going back to your classrooms, get your stuff and come back here."
Montague and Petrosinelli shift into middle-school mode. They ask the teenagers to line up in rows, two by two, then walk them quietly upstairs. The students look stunned but they do as they're told.
In the hallway, Petrosinelli hurries past Montague and tells him that he wants two boys out of school. Call their mothers, he says.
Montague walks into his office. Two slightly built boys are standing there, hands in their pockets, looking sullenly defiant.
Stand in front of me, he says. Tell me what happened.
One boy says he swore at his teacher because she took his hat.
"Do you swear at your mother?" Montague says.
"Yeah. When I get heated," the teen says.
"Well, stop it. I don't want you swearing at any ladies. Women are to be respected. Your teacher deserves your respect. You are going to find her and apologize."
The other teenager says he got in trouble for walking out of class.
Montague tells them they're lucky because today, he will give them a second chance.
"Is this going to happen again?" he says.
"No," the young men say.
"Are you positive?"
"Yes."
"Because next time, it's all over."
Upstairs, Petrosinelli shakes his head. The rain pools in two blue recycling bins. One of the bins sits in a science classroom.
"Can you imagine," Petrosinelli says, "what I could do if I had a building that was functioning? We have a building problem that just blew up in our faces."
Finally, the third-floor classrooms are opened, just in time for the first lunch.
While Petrosinelli is upstairs, sorting out the roofing problems, teachers are getting to know their students in fresh and unusual ways.
Half the school's 104 teachers are new to the building and some are also new to the classroom. During lunch, several students say they like seeing new faces in front of the class. It feels like a fresh start, they say, the beginning of something new.
A BIG BLUE balloon bounces from one pair of hands to another in Jillian Viera's English class. The balloon game is meant to be an icebreaker. When you catch the balloon, you have to answer two questions that reveal something about yourself.
"What would you do if you won the lottery?"
"First, I'd help my family," one teenager says. "Then I would spend some on me. The rest I'd use to help out Hope High School."
That leads to a conversation about Hope's bad reputation, which spins off into a conversation about the city's dropout rate. No one seems shocked when Viera says that 620 students didn't get their diplomas last year.
"What can we do about that?" Viera says.
Make students come to school on time, one young woman says. Encourage students to do their work, says another.
"You guys are going to have a lot of choice in my class," Viera tells them. "What do you want the leadership academy to be about?"
Two young men slump over their desks, their heads resting on their arms. Viera tries to tease them out of their indolence: "Is that the Snoopy epidemic happening over there?"
In a psychology class on the basement floor, Alexis Webster talks about expectations. She says, "Ask me for feedback. Don't be afraid to ask for help. And she tells them, "I'm not perfect. I won't always have the answers."
A large red rug with a Navajo pattern covers the floor. Webster says she brought it in because she hoped it would make the drab room feel bright.
As she speaks, the intercom constantly interrupts her, like a fly buzzing in a dark bedroom.
During class, a young woman says she appreciates seeing all the new faces.
"The best part is the new teachers," she says. "They have the energy to teach. And I see a lot more structure this year. Rules are being repeated and that's good."
The last bell rings. Students pour out the front doors and cluster in front of the RIPTA bus stop. Girls touch up their lipstick and flip open cell phones. The boys swagger a little and flirt, their low-rise jeans pushed just one notch lower. The hats and do-rags go back on.
It's 3:30 p.m. About 50 students are still here. Some of the RIPTA buses are late.
Students talk about their first day. Some say it was boring. Others shrug and walk away. One student, however, takes the time to really reflect on what it was like.
"I've been here for four years," Melchris Francisco says. "It feels a lot more disciplined, which is what we needed. It's better than last year. You know, it feels like a school."
New principals and overhauled faculty fired up to turn high school around
Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Overline: Hope for a new day
Principals Wayne Montague and Arthur Petrosinelli tag-team the crowd. First, Petrosinelli exhorts the teachers, then he steps back and Montague takes over.
Montague, one of three principals at Hope High School, points to the big screen.
"No torn jeans," he tells the teachers. "Model the behavior that you expect from your students. That means the coffee and soda stops."
Petrosinelli jumps in:
"Come to work on time," he says, his voice booming. "We will not have a lateness problem -- not like last year."
Yesterday morning, 104 teachers, half of them new, arrived for their first day of school at Hope High School with a mixture of anxiety, enthusiasm and determination.
More than any other high school in Rhode Island, all eyes are on Hope. After two years of state intervention, three changes in high school leadership and endless planning, this is the year that everyone -- from the mayor of Providence to the state education commissioner -- says that real change has to happen at Hope.
The high school is divided into three smaller schools or academies, each organized around a theme. Montague is principal of the leadership academy; Petrosinelli heads the technology academy and Scott Sutherland has just been appointed to run the arts academy.
(Sutherland, the former director of Cooley High School, has spent 15 years in the Providence schools. Before running Cooley, he was principal of the Lauro and Sackett elementary schools.)
Yesterday, the school's three principals pulled no punches.
" 'I go to Hopeless,' " Petrosinelli says. "We've all heard it. We need students to be proud to say, 'I go to Hope, not Hopeless.' "
Teachers will be expected to get to know their students through weekly meetings or advisories. Teachers will be expected to reach out to parents and make them feel part of the school community. Teachers will develop individual learning plans for each of the school's 1,300 students.
The old way of doing business is over, the principals said. Forget all of the bad publicity, the false alarms and the fights, the internal squabbling and the abysmal test scores.
"It's a new day, friends," Montague tells the faculty. "This is our home. These students are like our children. I believe that we are going to change this school. And it starts right now."
Petrosinelli continues his spiel. Since two-thirds of Hope's students are reading at least two years below grade level, those children will receive double periods of English and, if needed, math.
"This is 90 minutes, my friends," Petrosinelli says, alluding to the block schedules. "If you think you can combine two lessons or let the kids do homework for 20 minutes, forget it. The kids know when there's nothing to do. That's when the problems start."
A teacher raises her hand.
"I have a quick question," she says. "What's the earliest I can come to school?"
Petrosinelli smiles. He says he has never heard that question before. You can get into the building at 6 a.m., he tells her.
Hope is much more organized this year, he tells the faculty. All of the teacher vacancies are filled; each child has a meaningful schedule; each teacher has nine weeks' worth of lesson plans about what to do during the advisory periods.
During a lunch of barbecued chicken, baked beans and cole slaw, the teachers seem psyched. They compare schedules, talk about their summers and caught up with old friends.
"This is a great opportunity to build one of the premier schools in the nation," says Michael Werth, a math teacher at the Arts Academy. "In four years, we will have a symphony orchestra. Trust me."
Sean Goehegan came here from San Francisco, where he says he taught at one of the city's toughest high schools. When he moved here, he could see Hope High School's towers from his apartment.
"It was fated," he says of his decision to teach at Hope. "I came here looking for this kind of school. I want to show people that it can happen here. And if it can, maybe people will try it elsewhere."
Brian Carn is an 11-year veteran. He has weathered this reform and that one. He has seen leaders -- and superintendents -- come and go. He should be jaded but he isn't. That's why he's still here.
"You come here with optimism," he says. "You do your best."
Marianne Davidson, a 22-year veteran of Hope, is asked to say a few words to the newcomers. Don't be afraid, she says, to ask the old-timers for advice.
"We are all starting fresh," she says. "The old teachers aren't any better than the new."
After Davidson speaks, a first-year teacher, Michaela Keegan, takes the stage.
"I felt a real energy here from the first day I walked in," she says. "We're all in this together."
|
|
