Ohio’s first KIPP school is making some changes

By JENNIFER SMITH RICHARDS

COLUMBUS (AP) — Michelle Person stops teaching, sighs and glances at the clock on her cell phone.

“You just took two minutes out of class time,” she tells her fifth-grade math pupils, a handful of whom are bickering. She shoots a stern glance at one. “Don’t suck your teeth.”

“Let me share the facts with you,” Person says. “You had the lowest test scores of any group on Friday. Want to know why? Because I have to stop class every few minutes to deal with something like this. You are really, really struggling with the ‘Be Nice’ piece.”

Except for the uniforms, Ohio’s first KIPP school doesn’t look much like established Knowledge is Power Program schools in other cities. The crucial “work hard, be nice” culture that has brought success for urban students elsewhere wasn’t taught well enough here in the beginning, leaders say.

So at less than 4 months old, KIPP Journey Academy is shaking things up.

The charter school’s founding principal resigned early this month after being told she wasn’t following the KIPP model closely enough. The KIPP school board has delayed its plans to open a second Columbus school next year; it was to be one of five in the city.

Instead of the 96 pupils officials had anticipated, only 71 are enrolled at KIPP Journey. The lower enrollment, plus a busing problem, have put the school more than $200,000 over budget.

The Columbus school district won’t bus pupils who live within 2 miles of the school, the same rule it applies to pupils who attend district schools. KIPP leaders hired a private busing company so pupils don’t have to walk in the dark to make it for the 7:30 a.m. start or after classes end at 5 p.m.

Even so, Jamal McCall, the KIPP executive director for central Ohio, says he knows that everything will be OK. The school is nimble and is righting itself early enough in the year.

“At KIPP, there are no excuses. There are things that are KIPP culture. You have to be relentless about those things in the early years for it to work in later years,” McCall said. “We don’t want a turnaround situation. We will produce the results that we know we can produce.”

He is acting as principal until Hannah Powell, who was hired to run the now-postponed second KIPP school, takes over Dec. 1.

In the meantime:

UThe entire school is attending daily meetings to relearn some basics of the highly structured KIPP program. One topic was how to change classes and walk to the restroom.

UStaff members are going door to door in the Linden neighborhood on weekends to recruit more pupils.

UMcCall is reviewing teachers’ lesson plans, tests and pupil data to make sure everyone is on target.

UFundraisers are working to cover the budget shortfall.

UTeachers are being recruited for next year.

“We are essentially where we should be after four months. I don’t think that [having to make changes] will affect our results or, more importantly, our ability to measure and gauge our results,” said Algenon L. Marbley, a federal judge and the president of KIPP Journey’s school board.

The school is a startup, Marbley said, but it’s hard to compare it to other charter schools that have made big promises and ended in spectacular failure. No other charter school — perhaps no other traditional public school — in central Ohio has the level of community-leader backing that KIPP does.

Only two KIPP schools in the country (there are now 66 ) had replaced a school leader midyear; seven have closed or left the KIPP network. But the schools that, like Journey, replaced principals during the year have excelled, said Steve Mancini, KIPP’s national spokesman.

McCall said the quality of teaching isn’t the problem. Two of the four full-time teachers have worked at KIPP schools before. They know how to get things done.

In Person’s class, pupils have learned the multiplication-table chants that are a KIPP trademark.

At the top of every assignment, students write “Class of 2016,” a sign of their drive toward graduation. And, in most cases, pupils are learning to “assign themselves,” or make sure they’re responsible for their own learning. An example: When pupils are done with a task early, they pull out a library book and read quietly until the teacher is ready to move on.

That’s one of the things that Yolanda Holt’s twin boys, Christopher and Jason, enjoy most. Holt works as a speech pathologist at the school and said she has seen positive changes since the founding school leader left. The school is on pace to be its best version by the end of the year, she said.

“From the perspective I have, the school is becoming what you expect. There’s going to be bumps. If you don’t expect that, you don’t give yourself or the school or anybody else the opportunity to become that thing,” she said.

Pupils are struggling with the amount of homework, the long class periods, the intense instruction and the requirement that unfinished homework and test grades must be signed by parents, McCall said, but that’s normal for fifth-graders who aren’t used to this level of work.

Many seem to understand the goal. “I want to go to college because I want to get a good job and a nice house,” said 10-year-old Sean Fisher.

The school’s not in dire straits, McCall said. As a charter school, KIPP Journey is flexible, and McCall has experience as a principal at two other KIPP schools.

“We’re not giving up. KIPP is consistent,” McCall said. “We will overtake [pupils’] familiar behavior.”