86555326
September signifies novelty for local students, but tomorrow will offer extra newness to the nearly 200 enrollees at the James Alcorn Middle Years Academy, 1319 S. 26th St.
The learners will look to benefit from 11 months of discussions to better Grays Ferry’s public education identity, as the School District of Philadelphia has designed their site as an offshoot of the James Alcorn School, 3200 Dickinson St., which the body had hoped to assist last year before budget cuts doomed its plans. The original venue will instruct kindergarteners through fifth graders, with the added spot, formerly King of Peace School, grooming sixth through eighth graders.
“We have had Alcorn on our radar for some time,” Penny Nixon, the district’s chief academic officer, said of the 80-year-old institution, which in February received a “10,” the worst possible score, on her employer’s School Performance Index. “We knew efficient changes had to come to sustain it.”
Through a January 2011 announcement, the district had sought to transform Alcorn into a Promise Academy under the Renaissance Schools Initiative. A huge component of then-Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s Imagine 2014 design to achieve a six-year graduation rate of 80 percent, the plan included the elementary facility because of its and the area’s struggles with academics, illiteracy, unemployment and violence. Facing significant financial woes, the district removed Alcorn from the initiative, Nixon said, yet deemed it a Renaissance Alert school because of chronic deficiencies, including lackluster scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.
“Our outreach revealed that academic worries and lack of space mattered most to parents and guardians,” Nixon said of Alcorn, which last school year served 589 students.
The district, Alcorn’s School Advisory Council and the Southeast Pennsylvania Network for Family, Health, Education and Welfare teamed to craft solutions to the dilemmas, including furthering the neighborhood’s relationship with Universal Companies, 800 S. 15th St., which runs Universal Audenried Charter High School, 3301 Tasker St.
“We have had heavy talks about Alcorn’s future since October,” the network’s Vernard Johnson, a community activist, said, noting presence at School Reform Commission meetings stressed the severity of countering concerns with action.
The summer proved so fruitful that Nixon issued a letter to the Alcorn community Aug. 10 to invite its members to an Aug. 15 meeting at the academy. King of Peace closed in 1999, but the district has used it as a haven for transition students, conduct code violators in need of intervention before their return to traditional settings. Crossroads of King of Peace last year guided 80 pupils in third through eighth grades, later absorbing the Crossroads of Hunting Park to swell the figure to 156 learners.
“Because that site has been helpful to us, we felt it would make a solid choice for middle schoolers,” Nixon said.
“We had heard the disappointment from parents and wanted to rejuvenate their hope,” Johnson added.
Nixon said 175 people attended the evening gathering, through which they received a formal breakdown of her missive’s contents. Its 2010-’11 report, the last available one through the Office of Sustainability, shows that Alcorn met only eight of 24 targets in student achievement, school operations, community satisfaction and school-specific indicators, though it made strides in a few key areas, including its PSSA reading and math marks.
The academy will aim to boost results with a rigorous design that also includes writing emphasis, special education designees will engage in targeted programs and a college-and-career pathways model will establish links between a sound education and professional opportunities. Nixon noted the chief component will be the pre-Career and Technical Education offering, which Universal will oversee as a way to encourage vocational deliberations and to court learners as future Audenried attendees.
“That definitely will resound well with residents, who have said their children’s future matters most,” she said.
Those same inhabitants will have chances to use the academy’s parent and family resource center and to connect with a health and wellness community network. The youngsters will have the same opportunities and will be able to enrich their time at the site through intramural sports, an increased emphasis on technology, including the acquisition of laptop cards, and a robust arts, music and dance curriculum that will include the composition of one-acts plays through Philadelphia Young Playwrights, which holds an annual festival for budding scribes.
“At the meeting, I saw so much enthusiasm when we laid out specifics,” Nixon said.
Her letter told Grays Ferry figures they “should look forward to a new, improved climate and culture at both school campuses and high expectations to dramatically improve student achievement.” Though it may seem as if only the older students will benefit, the younger set will receive the guidance of new principal Reginald Johnson and, to assuage safety concerns, will, like the others, have shuttle bus service.
“We and the School Advisory Council have worked hard to establish a feasible plan,” Vernard Johnson said.
Though the council elected not to comment on the academy’s creation, he figures to be a frequent converser with principal Sheila Mallory. As Alcorn, which last school year had 93.9 percent of enrollees dubbed “economically disadvantaged,” is one of the 64 Intensive Support and Intervention schools, the new learning location will receive monthly site visits, with data analysis seeking to gauge the effectiveness of providing middle schoolers with such an array of services, most of them, Nixon said, new ideas. She and the district are finalizing after-school options with South of South-based Universal, which has tried to position itself as a savior for Point Breeze and Grays Ferry, areas the Philadelphia City Planning Commission three years ago recertified as blighted and requiring revitalization.
“What I have encountered are people who are optimistic but cautious,” Vernard Johnson said Friday on his way to inspect the academy. “They want improvements and to say goodbye to underachievement.”
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
86555346
86555336
