Audio Slideshow of Roswell Kent Middle School
Akron’s Roswell Kent Middle School was built in the 1950s and still has the comfy feel of that era - clean wide hallways with smooth tile walls. Gym floors that amplify the squeak of sneakers. And a tone-deaf bell that breaks down the school day.
But the school and the south Akron world around it have changed a lot over the last 60 years. The population has dwindled and those remaining are largely black and poor.
Close to 200 of the school’s nearly 600 kids show up for the free breakfast - about double a year ago. The poverty rate in the area was above 90% even beforethe economy tanked. The city’s population has dipped under 200,000, and the district is consolidating schools. Principal Jo Orlando and some of the teachers came over to Roswell Kent when Goodrich Middle School shut down two years ago.
Orlando starts each day the same way. Stationed in the hall and greeting hundreds: "Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good job. Good morning.”
Orlando’s job is part traffic cop, social worker, cheerleader, mentor, boss, parent, eyes of the community - and laundress. Roswell Kent’s kids wear uniforms. Collared shirts of basic colors and khaki, blue or black pants. Orlando has made it her job to ensure that a clean stock of spares is always on hand. She says little things like that can give a troubled child an opening to come talk to the principal.
Orlando: Every time I have a student come to me and say something such as, 'I’m having an issue with so and so and I don’t want it to be in a fight because I don’t want to get suspended. I don’t want my grades to drop.' It is more than 'ah-ah.' It’s 'Yes! You value what we are trying to convince you is power for you for a lifetime.' When I have a child come to me. Their clothing is dirty and they’re embarrassed to go into class and I say to them, 'You want to borrow a shirt that we have, and we’ll get your shirt laundered for you?' and they feel safe enough to come to us for that. That’s a shot of adrenalin.
An Age of Change
Roswell Kent is a middle school, and in middle schools one big constant is that moods of the kids are always changing.
Gregg: It’s all about emotion and the social is first.
That’s Barb Gregg, a sixth-grade science teacher, talking about vulnerability of middle schoolers to peer pressure, their need to belong and their struggle to discover who they are. Compared to all that, math, science and reading can seem insignificant.
Gregg: Of course the young elementary students, academics; they want to learn. But then they get to middle school and, I think urban kids even more, it’s such a challenge because it’s all about social, and you have to be really willing to work in that framework.
One way Roswell Kent operates in that framework is with a systematic way of rewarding positive behavior. Kids get prizes for not-so random acts of kindness and good work. We’ll let student Anthony Jackson explain what’s called the GOTCHA program.
Jackson: If they see you doing something good, they will give you a gotcha and you can put it in a drawing and there’s also you can have lunch with your favorite teacher or jump to the front of the line in lunch or go to Dairy Queen with two friends. They really encourage you to do better.
Another way Roswell Kent sustains positive interactions is by training teachers to integrate the tools of the high-tech age that many kids are growing up in.
The Real Meaning of Life-long Learning
David Skelton is a techno-convert. He’s easing some teachers down the path of the Smartboard. It’s a kind of PC projector that lets a science class dissect a virtual frog, a math class estimate the M&Ms in a virtual cookie and a social studies class take a virtual tour of the American Museum of Natural History - all at the touch of a real fingertip. He says it works well in his classes.
Skelton: They can type, they can write, they can put things into it. It's more interactive; it’s more hands on. I have fun with it. It was a new way for me to teach and just to go back and see some of the scores from some of the kids that went up, it was just a good indicator.
Sixth-grader Tyler Hill says technology isn’t everything. But it is something.
Hill: It really doesn’t matter what you’re using to learn so long as you’re learning. But I think the Smartboard is more fun. It’s like a big blackboard. But you hook it up to your computer, the picture comes out of the projector and it shows up there, and then if the teacher, if she makes a Power Point, she just touches the little arrow and it will go to the next power point. It’s really cool.
The Human Equation
Beyond the technology, the teacher training and the special programs, the success of any school weighs heavily on the teachers and administrators themselves. The challenges of teaching in an inner-city school where the students often start with disadvantages brings teachers down some days and lifts them up on others.
Patty Belcher will retire this year. She’s taught for 30 years, 22 in the inner city, and she’s going out on a high. She just got done with a science fair that included a requirement that kids write essays explaining their scientific methods. And 80 percent of the kids carried through.
Belcher: This particular group of children that I have I think I’m blessed this year. They’re really with me and you don’t always feel that way. They’re really learning together with me. Maybe because I’ve taught it more often now, maybe I’m better at presenting it.
Gwen Bryant, a teaching coach now, reflects on a student from her past who remained virtually silent.
Bryant: Everyone in the building thought he had a learning disability, and then one day, I had read this one story that I had read over and over again, and he started joining in and saying the story. My mouth was almost open the whole time. He had been in foster homes the mother was trying to build relationships and she had just gotten him back and she was just so happy that he had felt comfortable enough to start talking in school.
Math coach Jill Medonia relates to that. She says teaching at schools like Roswell Kent is more likely to be a series of gentle climbs than mountaintop experiences.
Medonia: Sometimes the outside world just is more powerful than we can be, and especially if we haven’t been able to build relationships with those kids - and there are some who are resistant, who just who aren’t here enough days to reap the benefits of that relationship. We can’t take them home with us and sometimes the street wins, unfortunately, or sometimes the demands of their homes win.
Principal Jo Orlando understands those forces well and how they cause students to be tough - or give up.
Orlando: You know, it’s so common at this age to hear, 'I don’t care.' And so our message is, 'That’s all right. We will care for you until you care again.'
Signs of Progress
Ohio measures its public schools by building report cards - a combination of standardized test scores, attendance and graduation rates. By that measure, Roswell Kent is still getting "C’s" overall, but they are better "C’s" than in the past. It keeps climbing when measured against itself year after year, and the bar charts are inching up in reading and math test scores - getting closer to the state magic number of 75% proficient.
Close, but not quite.
Bette Brooks says Roswell Kent is doing what it needs to do to stay in the game. She teaches middle school social sciences at Kent State’s College of Education, and has placed education majors at Roswell Kent.
Brooks: Nothing worthwhile ever was easy. So, where are your students, what do they need to know from your class? How do I help them bridge from where they are to where they need to be? And that is what has to happen, whether you’re at Beachwood or whether you’re at Roswell Kent.