Baltimore Talent Development High School – “It’s not magic.” (10-29-08)

“Attention all travelers, the train departing at 12:47 to New York is delayed indefinitely.” This announcement of course put a small dent in my day, but rather than simply hoping for the best I chose to change my ticket to the 1:30 train that cost a little bit of additional money, but was worth my sanity. Delays are one thing…indefinite delays are a whole different story.

As I was changing my ticket at the Amtrak counter the sales agent and I struck up a conversation. After telling him my profession as a high school math teacher he perked up and told me to share a quote with my students. As my trip is all about learning I told him I’d be more than happy to oblige his request. “Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable.” “I’ll say it again,” as he leaned closer to the glass buffer that separated us, “Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable.” As I walked towards the snack bar to pick out a sandwich his words continued to ring in my head. How did the Amtrak sales representative, with such a simple quote, summarize the core of “beat the odds” high schools. Everything they do is purposeful and as a result they are filled with focused and driven communities of administrators, teachers and students. They are the opposite of the chaotic images of urban high schools that are graphically depicted by Hollywood films.

Without purpose, and constant re-examination of their purpose, none of these schools would be making it happen. Who knew that Amtrak had such an intellectual staff?

Apparently Mr. Jeffery Robinson had the same sales representative at Amtrak over five years ago when he became the principal of Baltimore Talent Development High School.

As he puts it, “we don’t yield or bend” in following our purpose of educating our students in a safe and caring environment. “It’s not magic or out of the box thinking” he continues. “We use good teaching, a strong administration and a curriculum that matches our client’s needs.” Mr. Robinson, dressed in a white button down with a pink sweater vest, is clearly the keeper of the culture along with Mr. Hill and Ms. Carter, the two assistant principals. As Mr. Hill states so clearly, “school climate is everything.” “We greet students at the door every morning and provide them with a school that’s not just a building, but a safe and loving family. These students are my family.”

Following the love and achievement summary that I’ve been using to describe these “beat the odds” paternalistic high schools, BTDHS is no exception. “A lot of our students don’t have a steady family and aren’t loved or appreciated. We make them part of something and that grabs a good percentage of our students.” Hill explains that he and the rest of the administration have open-door policies and are always willing to meet and work with students on any of their mental, social or academic needs. In addition, the school employees a social worker and mental health doctor who are both available four days a week. The nurse’s office includes drug counseling and other support services for students in need of them. With 89 % of their first senior class graduating it’s hard to argue that their “love the kids” focus hasn’t paid off. (For the record, 3 of the students who didn’t graduate are still at school working on meeting the requirements). To put that 89 % number in perspective I have to describe the community the school is situated in.

Baltimore, like many American cities, has some problems, but its problems are more extreme than others and certainly in plain sight. 50 % of the three to four story housing complexes surrounding the school are vacant and boarded up. As the cab driver pulled onto Harlem Ave. into the area of Baltimore where the school is located he quickly rolled my window up and locked the doors. It’s a totally “dead” community filled with gangs, drugs and all of the hardships of poverty. Some cab drivers won’t even come pick you up if you order a taxi in the neighborhood. Despite the community from which the students attend the school continues to succeed. Clearly a “no-excuse” high school, BTDHS once again disqualifies the argument that until an impoverished community is turned around its students can’t be successful.

How do they do it?

Students start with a 2 week “bridge program” in the summer before their freshmen year. The program consists of math, English, science and social studies classes as well as acquainting students with procedures, policies, transcripts and all other components of the school. They also receive their advisors at this time who are in charge of 12 – 15 students. Once attending the school, students are split into teams of 75 – 90 of which four core teachers are responsible for education at each grade level. Groups of students within the team travel with one another to each of their core classes. The teaching teams meet on Wednesday afternoons (half days for students) to discuss student needs and collaborate on instruction. Each team has a lead teacher who is paid an additional stipend for facilitating the group.

Students have 8 conferences with their advisors through out the school year, four for attendance conferences and four for report card conferences. Each conference is a check in with students that may do anything from celebrating their passing of all core classes to discussing what’s stopping them from attending regularly.

Intentional School Culture – What does the school purposefully do to create a safe, loving and focused learning environment?

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the school was a big poster with an illustration of a thermometer. There was a mark at 86, representing the 86 % attendance rate that was achieved during the week of 10/6 – 10/10 and there was another mark at 90 % next to which read “our goal.” Above the poster in large letters was “your attendance counts.” Once the bell rang swarms of yellow polo shirts filled the hallway. Each class in the school is assigned a color and that is the only type of shirt they can wear. The polos have the school name on them and there are also buttoned down shirts.

• 9^th grade – Yellow (golden rod)
• 10^th grade – Black
• 11^th grade – Light, faded yellow
• 12^th grade – light, oxford blue

As Mr. Robinson took me to visit a 9^th grade class a student asked him why they weren’t given a certain privilege, “you’re a 9^th grader,” he responded, “you have no rights.” At BTDHS your privileges are earned over time and through achievement.

The stairwell that takes you from one grade level to the next (each grade has its own floor), is separated by a division down the middle. “UP” is for the right side of the stairs and “DOWN” is for the left. Although the separation was already there when the school open it’s just another detail in maintaining an orderly and safe school climate. There’s no fighting to get through a crowd as you walk up and down the steps…it’s like forced etiquette.

An additional component of the intentional culture places great emphasis on the student. For example, if they are removed from class they must fill out a form in the office explaining what behavior or incident occurred that got them removed. Then, upon meeting with an administrator they may be “reinstated” into class or further consequences may occur depending on the infraction.

Students who arrive out of dress code, regardless of their excuse or whether or not they’ve come with a note from their parent or guardian are immediately sent home to change. “My dryer broke” is not an acceptable excuse. In fact, there is no acceptable excuse. As Mr. Hill puts it “This (being a student) is a job, you’re responsible for dressing and acting a certain way. Your employer when you’re older isn’t going to accept the excuse that your dryer broke so why should we.” BTDHS really is a “no excuse” high school.

Another anecdote of the intentional culture established in the school happened right in front of me in the office. A male student entered Ms. Carter’s office to request that his cell phone be returned to him. “Was it out in class,” Ms. Carter responded. “Did the teacher have to ask you to put it away?” The student acknowledged the question with a simple non-verbal affirmation. “Then it’s mine…end of story.”

The Classroom – What does it look like?

Ms. Davis, a 10^th grade social studies teacher, held up a font page article in the local newspaper regarding high stakes testing in the Baltimore School District and began a discussion on the impacts that such tests would have on the students in the room. She explained to the students that their scores on tests in Algebra, Geometry, Biology and English (both reading and writing) would have to be passed in order to graduate if legislation was approved. “Do you think this is good for you?” she asked the class. A consistent “no” response filled the room. “Hold on a minute, do you know that if Ms. Davis was asked whether or not the testing practice should be implemented she would emphatically say yes.” Breaking down her reasoning to the disapproving class here’s a rough version of what she shared.

“The standards are already to low for you. People don’t think you can achieve. I disagree. We have to change the mentality of our students and the community. Tests are good for you. If you can’t pass these foundation tests than how will you be able to succeed after high school?” Furthermore, she shared some data with the students to encourage them. “In this class last year we had 76 % of students passing the High School Assessments. Do you know that only 43 % of students in the city passed the same tests? Are we beating the odds or what? We can pass these tests!”

Rather than be afraid of state assessments that hold schools accountable for ensuring that all students are learning Ms. Davis is working hard to make sure her students see the need for succeeding on state exams. It doesn’t hurt that she is also part of the state committee who writes the test questions. She describes them as fair and articulates to her students that what they’ll see in college is going to be far more complex so at the very least they need to be able to pass these foundation exams. (It should be noted that students who are close to passing any of the content area tests may complete “rigorous” projects to demonstrate proficiency of their missing areas. In addition, the tests are only taken upon a student’s completion of that specific course. In other words, they’re not just 9^th grade math assessments; they are taken based on the specific course completed)

All of the classes at BTDHS have some commonalities to them. Each board at the front of the room includes the following…

- Date

- Lesson Objective – “At the end of class today students will be able to…”

o Ex. Identify their roles in a political campaign by completing a questionnaire.

- Drill – Starting problem, question or task

- Class work – Description of what students are going to do during class

- Homework – Details about their assignment

Besides these consistencies I also observed some clear differences. In the two classes that I spent time in, Ms. Davis’s social studies class and a fellow 10^th grade teachers Algebra II class the students acted differently and the classrooms had a different feel to them.

Students who were in proper dress code in the first class then kept their jackets on for the second class. The percentage of focused and engaged students was dramatically different between the two rooms and in the second class one particular girl spent a great deal of time text messaging. There are a few reasons for this shift between classes. One is that the first teacher, Ms. Davis, is clearly a die hard keeper of the culture flame. Constantly telling students quiet down with the “shh” sound and asking them to join her in whatever the focus of the class should be she is relentless in her effort to keep everyone on board. She is also the lead teacher on her team. The Algebra teacher on the contrary is new to the team and still in the process of developing his knowledge, understanding and implementation of the culture.

The reason for illustrating the differences between the two classes is not meant to be a judgment of either teacher. The schedule was abnormal as the classes were shortened for the half day. In addition, I spent less than 30 minutes in each class and to see such a small window doesn’t provide enough information to generalize what happens regularly. Having said that, the anecdote does show imperfection. “Paternalistic” schools are human and to assume that things are always in order and learning is focused 100 % of the time is a false notion. Like any good business, schools are a work in progress. Some employees are further along the learning curve than others and so long as everyone is progressing to the same purposeful goal it can be said that the group as a whole is a success. It’s easy to walk into Ms. Davis’s social studies classroom and say this is how all classes should be; Engaged students listening to one another’s opinions, sharing ideas, and producing relevant work. However, it is unrealistic that everyone can instantaneously replicate such a learning environment.

Assessment and Interventions

The school uses two diagnostic tools to track their student’s progress. These assessments are given three times during the year…beginning, middle and end.

- CTBS – Mathematics

- Gates-Megenti – English

At the beginning of the year the student’s scores on these assessments are used to place them appropriately in classes and provide them with additional supports. In addition to tracking students based on their abilities as diagnosed by the assessments there are additional interventions to help get students caught up.

- Students are pulled out of their elective classes to attend lab sessions where they work with different software to intensify their instruction and act as a supplement to classroom learning.

- There are after school work sessions available for all students. It is mandatory for teachers to stay late at least one day during the week, but many stay everyday. Some are also available before school and during lunch.

As far as school wide norms for each subject area with regards to assessment I didn’t discover any particular consistent practice.

THE BIG QUESTION - What can we take away?

1.) We do or are trying to do a lot of the same things as BTDHS

a. Advisory – Just like BTDHS our students have advisory groups facilitated by an adult advocate who encourages attendance, conferences regularly and creates a family like support system.

b. Teaching Teams – Almost identical to BTDHS, we’re split into teaching teams of core teachers that are responsible for approximately 75 students. Meeting regularly to conference around student needs and collaborate on instruction and assessment; we follow a very similar process to BTDHS.

c. Diagnostic Assessments – Using the SRI for students reading levels, our own writing rubric and assessment practices and our own incoming “Algebra readiness” exam, we have certainly started to diagnose our student’s learning levels as they come into school. However, it’s clear that we need to develop these practices further, including the assessments themselves (perhaps we should look into the math diagnostic test used by BTDHS) and use the data we gain in a more efficient and purposeful manner.

d. Attendance goals – We don’t have the public, wall size poster thermometer illustrating our attendance % and the goal we’re trying to receive (which we easily could and should do), but we’re clearly putting a great deal of energy behind improving our attendance. The recent breakdown in advisory attendance numbers that we’ve been sharing with our advisories and our specific goal around attendance in our School Improvement Plan are both ways in which we’re working to improve attendance.

e. Classroom routines – Much like BTDHS, our Do Now, Learning Outcomes, Agenda, and POP’s posted in each room create instructional consistency amongst our teaching force.

f. Student love – family – At Manual High School one of our greatest strengths is creating a caring and loving learning environment for our students.

g. Summer Academy – Our freshmen academy aims to accomplish the same tasks that BTDHS’s “bridge” program works on during its two week, pre 9^th grade program. Diagnosing student strengths and weaknesses in core academic areas, building a “family-like” community and culture and introducing students to policies, procedures and school expectations are all invaluable to our pre-Manual High School program. As we reflect on our first effort to run a summer academy and revise our efforts we will certainly improve in using the time with new students to accomplish the major tasks more effectively and then use that experience to really jump into the school year.

2.) The biggest take away from Baltimore Talent Development High School must be their “don’t yield, don’t bend” philosophy around school climate and culture.

a. As much as we work to engrain our school’s cultural values in our students it is evident from our constant dress code battles, issues with profanity and vulgar language, high numbers of tardies and other pieces of data, both formal and anecdotal, that we have not yet established the school climate that we’re striving for. This is not to say that a school that’s been around for less than a year should “be there” when it comes to a fully established intentional school culture, but as you consider our school adding an additional 150 students and 8 + more teachers next year the task of maintaining a strong base of students and teachers who are “on board” becomes more overwhelming. Working hard now to make sure that we nail down the expectations of our school with our current student population will take us far when it comes to dealing with the upcoming growth.

b. The “keepers of the culture,” the principal Mr. Robinson and his administrative colleagues, Mr. Hill and Ms. Carter, set a tone of firmness and fairness for the entire school population. Their constant presence in the classroom and hallways is powerful and strengthened more by their ongoing interaction with students. Teachers and students alike witness these interactions and as such I believe become more in tune with the expectations of the school. Teachers who see the assistant principal approach a student about dress code in a “firm” manner while accepting no excuses become more likely to do the same when they find themselves dealing with a student in the same situation. The bottom line is that as the entire school staff and students are accountable for the school climate it is highly evident that the tone is set each day by the constant efforts of the administrative team. Everyone is involved, but the keepers of the flame lead the charge.