Culture of positivity drives success
Texas Serenity Academy rises in ranks by giving kids a safe, nurturing atmosphere
Debra Perdue shepherded 15 students into her third-grade classroom at Texas Serenity Academy on a recent Friday for a lesson on the parts of speech.
“Don’t hold back hugs from me,” Perdue told the children as they filed by. “Everybody get in here.”
The charter school, attended by 363 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, is housed in a church, and the atmosphere of fellowship is apparent.
“We treat each other like a family here,” she said. “These kids need it.”
The grammar lesson, in preparation for graduation to fourth grade, was the priority, and the kids were ready to master it before going to P.E.
“Who can tell me some of the parts of speech we know already?” Perdue asked. “Isaiah?”
The student answered “preposition” — correct — and was rewarded with praise.
“The kids here need all the building up they can get,” Perdue said later. “We never know what our children are encountering at home.”
At Texas Serenity Academy, where nearly 95 percent of the student population comes from lowincome households and 100 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, building these types of relationships is key. Michelle Foreman, principal of the school’s northwest Houston campus, on North Houston Rosslyn Road, said it’s what sets the school apart from traditional elementary schools in Houston Independent School District.
Foreman, who can be found outside at the beginning and end of every school day helping students exit vehicles, said a large percentage of the students at Texas Serenity used to attend traditional public schools before switching to the more intimate atmosphere of the school inside Greater Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.
“From the first day they come in, it’s the positivity that distinguishes us,” Foreman said “Every day we recite a little motto that starts with ‘boys and girls please remember that what you do is up to you and remember we love you here at Texas Serenity.’
They hear that from Day 1.”
According to 2019 elementary school rankings by Children at Risk, a local nonpartisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to addressing the root causes of poor public policies affecting children, the strategy seems to be working. Texas Serenity Academy ranked 126 out of 905 schools locally and scored an overall grade of A-.
Indeed, the school has come a long way, said Foreman, who has been the principal since the school opened 11 years ago. In 2016, the school received a D grade. Beyond its thoughtful approach with students, a lot of that progress is owed to the staff ’s attention to metrics, she said.
“We are a data-driven school — we really truly are,” she said. “We segregate test data in detail and we’re always looking for results. We set goals according to where we need to improve; we believe data fuels instruction.”
Of course, the school faces its share of challenges, Foreman and Perdue acknowledged, many of which manifest in the classroom. Perdue said she never knows what children are encountering in their high-poverty homes, but it certainly affects learning.
“They face so many circumstances that we don’t know everything about,” she said. “‘My uncle is in jail, we don’t have food at home, my dad hit my mom and now she’s bleeding.’ I’ve heard so many issues, and they definitely take center stage in a child’s mind.
“But when they come in I tell them, we’re here, we’re going to learn things, and we’re going to have fun, we’re a family, and we’re safe,” she said.
“We’re going to cheer when they’re winning and we’re going to cry with them when they’re not.”
Back in the classroom, Perdue is running through a list of words with the third graders and having them identify what part of speech each one is. The students are getting most of the answers correct, and when they do, the whole class applauds.