Schools That Work

All in this together

by Ron Isaac

Nov 15, 2007 3:57 PM

Low class size, discipline and partnership keys to improvement at MS 45, Manhattan

The staff at MS 45, Manhattan, finds that partnership makes perfect.

From SURR with Love!

This twist on the title of the popular ’60s movie, “To Sir With Love,” about an intrepid teacher whose tough love helps supposedly incorrigible kids succeed, works just as well for East Harlem’s MS 45, the Stars Prep Academy, as it slowly but surely pulls itself off the SURR list.

“Great schools like ours are created by partnership, not by decree,” said Roberto Claudio Jr., whose 7th-grade social studies class delighted UFT President Randi Weingarten during a surprise visit in October. She watched as the students paid rapt attention to a lesson that deftly linked Dr. Seuss to the school system’s discipline code.

< “We don’t just give lip-service to collaboration,” Claudio said, “we walk and breathe it. We help the kids help themselves. Our whole school family of teachers, administrators, supporting staff and parents shares the light of ideas and the glory of results.”

Claudio called the SURR (Schools Under Registration Review) list “largely a state of mind — and we are going to alter that state.”

Weingarten’s in-depth tour of the rebounding school led her to conclude that “they are not turning around because of magic or mystery, but rather as a logical outcome of the priorities that the school leadership, in consultation with the faculty, established together.” She highlighted several of those priorities:

• A class-size cap of 20 — expensive, but a terrific investment as research and the experience of many teachers attest to the positive effects of lower class size.
• Effective discipline, including a tightly structured and always operational SAVE room which functions as a genuine learning environment. Real, not busy work, is assigned and checked and students are held accountable to complete it on time. The SAVE room is a no-nonsense environment for behavioral modification and includes a reward system that kids understand and respect.
• Teacher-driven staff development. The school believes that classroom teachers are the best judges of what has been useful to them.
• There is no wall separating teachers from administration. The staff overwhelmingly believes that their relationship with supervisors is collaborative. Before becoming its principal, Maria Aviles was a veteran teacher and she seems to regard that move as more lateral than vertical. Teachers run in her family and none among them, including Aviles, has run from teaching itself. “I am a teacher. That is one of the greatest compliments I can earn,” she said.

Luis C. Diaz, the chapter leader and physical education teacher who was raised within an arm’s length of the school’s front gates, compares the administrative-instructional staff relationship to a “good marriage that always has to be worked on, like any good marriage. And we’re all lucky to have a compatible conscience.”

Claudio said the concerted effort to lift MS 45 off the list of failing schools was a “work in progress for everyone and our kids accept that. When they shine we share their luster. When they miss the mark we help them keep their eye on the prize. We don’t get bogged down by power trips, egos or politics. Our principal, Ms. Aviles, deserves a lot of the credit. Her knowledge and grace binds us as a community.”

Like most middle schools, particularly those with many ELL students, MS 45 certainly has its share of obstacles, but Aviles believes the school has found the way past those obstacles. “We followed the recommendations of the Middle School Task Force because teachers believed it would create a better learning environment and it certainly did,” she pointed out. “And we invested in a technology lab on each floor, in three computers in every general education class and two in every special education class.”

One measure of success is how a school feels about itself and MS 45 exudes confidence. Brilliant posters and decorations, all of them without protective covering and none of them defaced, adorn the classrooms and the hallways. The floors are like mirrors, no furniture has even the hint of a scratch, and the Olympic-sized swimming pool, one of only three in the city’s middle schools, is pristine. Kids do not prowl the halls and the atmosphere is clean as a whistle without being sterile. None of this is merely cosmetic. Much of it has to do with the school safety agents and custodial crew feeling they are a valued part of the Stars Prep Academy team.

One hundred percent compliance with the student dress code, which requires the wearing of a uniform, is a sign of esprit de corps, not regimentation. Students in different grades have their own uniforms and occupy their own floors, making kids who wander readily identifiable. The students seem to luxuriate in the self-discipline they have been taught. It shows in their academic product and in their shying away from mischief.

Of course, the students also know that the principal doesn’t mess around. She reports all incidents and is not afraid to mete out appropriate punishment. Last year there were 263 suspensions to the SAVE room, run with earnest tender loving care by Evelyn Alvarez, the “angel who SAVES.”

This year, inlarge part due to the lower class sizes, the number of incidents have tumbled.

Alvarez has been instrumental in creating a SAVE room that is a model for the whole city. “It is not a dumping ground, it is never closed, and it is a place where kids who have been sent there both realize the error of their ways and actually enjoy doing all the assignments that their subject teachers coordinate with the instruction they are missing in the classroom,” Alvarez said.

Parents have prior notice that their kids have been referred there and have never protested. Why?

Roberto Cameron, parent coordinator, explained: “We don’t talk down to parents and we don’t pander to them, either. We are open with parents and keep them involved in the life of the school. We treat all kids the same way and all our rules are made with their best interest in mind. We take the time to earn their trust.”

In everything it does, the school lives by its motto: “Making a difference … one child at a time.”

These are the elements that have turned Stars Prep Academy into a glowing constellation.