Chicago high schools try a little experiment August 31, 2001 BY JANET RAUSA FULLER AND ROSALIND ROSSI STAFF REPORTERS Mayor Daley thinks high schools are getting so big, they're losing students. That's why he and Chicago Public School officials said Thursday they will spend $18.2 million in grants to convert at least five large city high schools struggling to keep their doors open into 15 to 20 smaller and hopefully more successful ones in the next five years. The new schools will be housed in groups of three or four in existing buildings. Each school will enroll no more than 450 students. [an error occurred while processing this directive] The hope is that more intimate school environments will boost attendance, improve student performance and reverse the dropout rate. "This is not just about testing," Mayor Daley said at the Cregier Multiplex, 2040 W. Adams. "This is about improving the lives of . . . every child here in the city of Chicago." An Office of Small Schools will be created and staffed by Jeanne Nowaczewski, who is staff counsel for Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. Though they may be located under the same roof, the new small schools will operate independently of each other, each with its own name and set of teachers who will see students through their entire four-year high school career, Nowaczewski said. Officials have not yet determined which schools will be divided. "Outside partners," such as universities or community groups, are eligible to submit written proposals to divide up a large school or create different small schools within one structure, Nowaczewski said. A school's size isn't the only deciding factor. Lane Tech, for example, is likely not to be converted, even though it boasts the highest enrollment in the city. "I'm not worried about Lane Tech," Schools CEO Arne Duncan said. "We're going to look to make a difference in schools that are really struggling, to go to schools, areas, communities that really need to be turned around." Each school also will operate under a performance-based contract drafted by the board that spells out specific goals for student achievement that need to be met, a setup that currently exists for Chicago charter schools. "Its re-doing how we provide education," Duncan said. "It's doing it in a much more personalized manner, so the numbers of [students and staff] don't change so much as the quality changes." The small schools movement has been gaining momentum across the nation in the past two decades, beginning in New York. Studies, such as one released last year by the Bank Street College of Education titled "Small Schools, Great Strides," have shown that students in small schools generally post better attendance rates, higher GPAs and higher achievement test scores, have lower dropout rates and fail fewer courses. In Chicago, the concept of small schools--either free-standing or within larger schools--got a boost under former schools chief Paul Vallas. Cregier Multiplex was a product of Vallas' small schools push. The former high school was shut down in 1995 because of poor attendance rates. It re-opened in 1996 as a first-of-its-kind multiplex, housing three separate and varied schools under one principal: Best Practice High School, which has a current enrollment of 420; Foundation Elementary, with 182 kindergarten through 8th-grade students; and Nia Community School, with 90 middle school students. The schools are flourishing now, with a sizable waiting list at Best Practice, officials say. But translating the same sort of success to small high schools within high schools in Chicago has been slower to catch on. Currently, there are 80 small schools in Chicago, some housed within larger high schools, some joined with other small schools. Manley High School, 2935 W. Polk, split into six small schools--one for freshman, and five devoted to different vocational skills--in 1995. Though Principal Katherine Flanagan says the school has seen a decrease in discipline problems since the shift, test scores remain a hurdle. In 1995, when Manley made the shift, only 3.8 percent of its students were reading at the national norms. It fluctuated up then down until 1999, when the school began a "master teachers" program. In 2000, the percentage jumped to 15.9 percent, but it still lags behind national levels. Still, the sense of community at Manley, which serves 800 students, is priceless, Flanagan says. "Kids get lost in high schools, and they need guidance, and they seek it. If they are able to know that they belong to a group, then I think they fare much better, especially for kids who are not as motivated as a kid might be at Lane," where admission is based on test scores. But, "Just being small is not going to do the trick," said Ann Cook, co-director of the Urban Academy, a Manhattan high school that co-exists in one building with three other high schools, an elementary school and a junior high school for autistic children. "You have to make use of the small, that's the big issue. You have to take small and say what does it allow me to do differently?" The six schools operate, each with its own administration, out of the Julia Richman Education Complex, which once was a premier all-girls school. Students share the facilities; schedules for which school can use which gym are determined in a weekly meeting of the schools' principals. But there are shared opportunities, too, such as a lunch and nutrition committee made up of students from each school who have a say in whether ice cream is on the lunchroom menu. Details still are being worked out in the new Chicago initiative, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and six local foundations. The new schools will each have either their own principal or teacher-leader, and likely their own local school councils, which elect principals. "This is not about firing teachers or anything. This is about restructuring our high schools so we can graduate our kids and keep them in school," said Nowaczewski. Small schools John DiPirro, Driscoll Catholic High School, Addison With an enrollment of 475 students, Driscoll Catholic High School in Addison is one of the smallest high schools in DuPage County. John DiPirro, a 17-year-old senior from nearby Glendale Heights, likes it that way. DiPirro, active in classes and in sports--including being the school's one-man swim team--knows almost all of the other students and has been taught at one time or another by most of the teachers there. The cozy brick school may look out of place next to some of the larger schools in the county with enrollments numbering in the thousands, but to DiPirro, it feels like home. ''I was used to a small school because I came from a small school. For me, that was kind of homelike. I came from classes with 15 or 20 people--and that was the whole class. So going to a school with a [senior] class of 120, that's actually pretty big for me,'' he said. ''Sooner or later you meet everybody. Even in a small school like this I've found every year you still learn new things about new people--like you knew who they were, you've seen them before, but you never really talked to that person before. So even though you know everybody, it's still kind of cool because you're always meeting and being acquainted with people, as opposed to just knowing who they are and seeing them around the school. That's a cool thing. ''Here, we get a lot of attention from the teachers. The classes are small, that's good, too. The teachers here want to be here--you know that about them because of the differences between public and private salaries, all that kind of thing. They wouldn't come here if they didn't want to be here. They do put the effort out, they do help you,'' he said. ''Some of the teachers are involved in everything. That's really cool because you see them more than once. They become like your friends,'' he said. "My English teacher this year taught my brother and sister in their classes, he taught them in chorus when they were in high school, he's friends with my parents. I like that. It's a great advantage, I think. It's cool they're not just like teachers that we see. That's cool because when you develop that relationship it's more of a home atmosphere, it's more of a familylike atmosphere.'' DiPirro said that ''What makes it real cool is there's people from everywhere coming here. You know people from your grade school and your town, so you know more people. I don't really get tired of it. I sit at lunch and I have all my best friends at my table, and I couldn't ask for that much more.'' Dan Rozek Large schools Milisava Zecevic, Lane Technical High School, Chicago Though she attends the largest high school in Chicago, Milisava Zecevic of Jefferson Park doesn't feel lost. The 16-year-old, who ranks in the top 50 in her class, sets herself apart from the 4,000-plus students at Lane Technical High School by immersing herself in activities. She runs cross-country in fall, plays soccer in spring and is active in several clubs. She says the school's size fits her personality well and gives her extracurricular choices other schools may not be able to offer. Zecevic starts her junior year next week. "It is really big, but it feels pretty good for me. I like being involved in sports and clubs and stuff, and that's what Lane offers. Because we have a lot of clubs that other schools don't have--the Key Club, Young Life. At [Young Life] meetings, we play games, sometimes we do volunteer work on the weekends, that kind of stuff. In Key Club, we collect donations for charities. Same thing with the SOS [Students of Service] Club. We do volunteer work, charity, food drives, clothing drives in the winter. "I looked at Von Steuben, Whitney Young, Northside Prep, Sullivan. I didn't want to go [to Sullivan] at all. I went on an interview, but I don't know, I just didn't like it. "When I first saw [Lane Tech] I thought, 'Wow, this is a nice school.' They just gave you a lot of choices. And when I found out they had art classes--they have a really good art program--I liked that. I want to be a pediatrician, but art is always something I've wanted to do. You can be a music, art or tech major. You have to choose when you go into Lane. "There's maybe 25, 30 students at the most [in each class]. I'm pretty comfortable with the size because we do a lot of group work. "Most people told me that smaller schools pay more attention to the individual, and that's true, I believe. But no matter where you're at, if you're involved, you're still going to belong to the school, you know what I mean? I don't know everybody in the school. There's no way I can know 4,000 people. I don't even know half! "But still, I like it. There's diversity. Everybody's got their own style. There's no such thing as popular.'' Janet Rausa Fuller -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
