The Post Tribune

12/26/2006

Sharlonda Waterhouse

Charter schools frequently make promises of academic recovery, but one school is making a name among Gary youth as a place for character building and value recovery as well.

A walk through the cafeteria sums up the spirit of the school. While the traditional lunch time is viewed by many youngsters as a chance to break free, yelp, run and release energy, KIPP students have calm conversations, sometimes about social issues, while listening to the melodies of Miles Davis.

“We create a family atmosphere,” explains 10-year-old LeShauna Jones.

That’s why you won’t see children eating their food right away.

They let the tray sit untouched in front of them and read a book until every child in the school is seated at a table.

“We all eat at the same time,” Gabrielle Barber, 10, said.

But there’s more. Gabrielle explains that when students share meals and talk, they refrain from teasing, gossiping, anything negative.

Barber said she’s doesn’t subscribe to the view that that’s just harmless behavior.

“That isn’t fun. If you talk about someone, that’s not nice. We are showing that we can be independent and positive,” she said.

Small groups of students sit at a table chatting only with the person beside or across from them. No Neanderthal yelling down the table. If the chatter gets too loud, teachers who are embroiled in conversations at their own table say nothing.

Instead, a student like James Winbush, 11, lifts his right hand in a fist. It’s a signal. Another student across the room sees it and lifts her hand in a mirror action. Soon, like the contagious waves at sports games, more and more students raise their fists and fall silent until there’s not an utterance in the room.

For Winbush, this is life as he wants to live it — calm, orderly, focused, productive. He’s not just studying hard and earning good grades at the newly opened KIPP LEAD college preparatory school, but he’s also learning what it takes to become a leader.

KIPP Principal April Goble, who walked the streets of Gary in spring signing up students, said the school believes character is just as important as thinking skills.

That only works when students are given the skills to conduct and discipline themselves.

Walk into a math classroom and you won’t see students bugging teachers for missed assignments. There are folders on the wall containing all past assignments. Students returning from an absence know to find the right folders and independently take care of missed work.

Students even have the responsibility for showing visitors around the school and discussing KIPP’s philosophy. On a recent day, James, Gabrielle, LeShauna and Jeramie Frazier were all tour guides.

Frazier, who remembers approaching Goble on the street to inquire about the new school, says leadership includes having perseverance in reaching goals and empathy for others.

The empathy principle is of importance to James, who said “it’s not fair” that homeless live on the streets when there are apartment buildings available.

“If no one helps someone, I like to step up and help them out,” James said.

Sometimes non-KIPP children tease him for being a “goody-goody,” but he doesn’t care. “The school changed my whole perspective of the world. So I get over it. It’s really more fun being mannerable.”

Polishing character takes time and Jeramie admits at the beginning on the school year he had a rough time following directions and getting rid of his “attitude.” Consequently, he missed rewards.

But he didn’t miss any last week when students who had performed well in academics and behavior were taken to the theater to see the movie “Charlotte’s Web.”

The Knowledge is Power Program’s LEAD college prep charter school debuted with a three-week summer semester. They are now wrapping up the first full semester of courses at Gary’s YWCA and functioning temporarily out the YWCA on 15th Avenue in Gary.

KIPP isn’t the only new program on the education block. Thea Bowman Leadership Academy expanded to welcome a high school program this school year.

Thea Bowman started with ninth grade and a class of 80, but next year will add sophomores and one new grade each year after that until the high school is complete.

Having built a reputation as an academic leader among charter schools, Thea Bowman had many public school students expressing interest during the Gary strike.

Diamond Love, 14, was a Tolleston Middle School student last year.

For high school, she elected to join the small charter school population at Bowman.

She was one of the few who didn’t have to get on a waiting list.

Love admits there are benefits and detriments to coming to a growing school: The social scene is limited, but the classes are smaller. The small size means classes are personal and there’s a chance for trips, like to slave museums and colleges.

Principal Gwen Adell said the students have spent days traveling to college campuses and will periodically do so each year until graduating. Like Goble at KIPP, Adell expects her students to pursue higher education.

“Students need to be exposed to universities as early as possible so they can get in the right mind-set,” Adell said.

The school even has video conferencing to enable students to take college courses with remote instructors.

The school offers a full register of classes like any high school, from Spanish to biology, and even band.

Students get immersed in the instruction since often there are 10 to 15 in a class.

One of the most intriguing and passionate classes for students is the social studies class taught by Lew Wallace High School alumna Montia Gardner.

On a recent day, the students explored the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. Gardner led students to not just respond emotionally, but to dissect the legal aftermath and analyze the effects of the crime on society.

Gardner, who formerly taught at in Matteson, Ill., said she appreciates being able to shape a new high school where she has the freedom to pursue challenging curriculum with her students.

Gardner pushes the students to not just give flat responses to social studies information but to create holistic projects to present to the class for a grade.