Grading Stamford Academy on a curve
Stamford Academy’s leaders seem remarkably poised considering they were fighting for the school’s survival just 24 hours earlier in Hartford.
They explain how they improved the numbers the state Board of Education cares about enough to get a two-year renewal after months on probation. Numbers involving absenteeism and suspension rates.
State Board Chairman Allan Taylor gave the process a pat on the back at Wednesday’s hearing by declaring “It’s clearly working.”
Scrutiny is a good thing, and seemed to produce encouraging improvements. The Stamford Academy officials sound contrite during our meeting at Domus, which runs the school. But anyone who grades the school only by numbers should be put on probation.
On the drive back from a public hearing, one of the charter school’s students asked Stamford Academy Board of Directors Chairman Rick D’Avino to drop him off at Fairway Market.
It wasn’t for snacks. The student lives in a nearby shelter and explained that “the men are tough to deal with before the curfew.”
The lives of Stamford Academy students are typically shorthanded with adjectives such as “troubled.” Staff members use euphemisms such as “boulders” to represent obstacles the students face.
The typical Stamford Academy student heaves three such boulders, such as being born addicted to drugs, having parents in prison, witnessing violence, seeing caretakers deported.
“They are not sitting at home saying, ‘I hate school and I’m not coming,’ ” says Mike Duggan, executive director of Domus. “It’s all this other noise.”
Staff members work with families to pay for beds or gas money or to fix cars. One student explained he had to get his brother on the bus while his mom worked. They paid a neighbor to take over bus duty.
Another student explained a scheduling conflict with a needed job at Dunkin’ Donuts. Staff members negotiated a shift change with the manager.
Yes, every child is a unique story. But each of the 150 or so students at Stamford Academy is more of a social novel worthy of Ta-Nehisi Coates.
D’Avino, Duggan, Craig Baker and Andrew Martin all maintain admirable composure as I ask them about the collision between their work and the negative perception of Stamford Academy by members of the community and the state.
After 20 years with Domus, Chief Education Officer Baker simmers just a little when he puts a highlight marker over the problem.
“What does it say about the community that these kids were allowed to get to us at 16 with all of these deficits? Why are we the bad guy for trying to be part of the solution ...
He repeats the phrase. Because it bears repeating. “Part of the solution. At what point does the community get together and say ‘How do we put Stamford Academy out of business someday because there is not such a need?’ ”
It’s like failing to put oil and gas in your car, then blaming the mechanic because there’s a knock in the engine.
Some city officials would like to shutter Stamford Academy and reallocate the financial resources.
People forget it was only 15 years ago that a need was recognized to try a different approach to educate the kids with nowhere else to go.
D’Avino says he is reassured that Superintendent of Schools Earl Kim recognizes the wisdom of Stamford Academy’s approach. Kim also knows how to do the math. Absorbing the 100 Stamford students at the academy into the mainstream high schools would probably cost the district a couple million dollars. Most of the remaining students live in Bridgeport, with the rest coming from other surrounding towns.
I find common ground chatting with Baker. He grew up in Greenwich playing football and baseball for coaches I covered as a sports editor. His father was a Stamford police officer and his brother is currently on the force. He’s also able to tune into the frequency of Stamford Academy critics because his own kids attend Stamford public schools.
I ask Baker if he hears from any of the academy’s first students, estimating they would now be about 30.
“How did you know that? That’s the exact number,” he responds. “I keep in touch with, I don’t know, about 50 former students.”
He admits to being taken aback when they ask for parenting advice. He knows it’s not as common for educators in conventional schools to maintain relationships the same way.
The kids also help Baker keep problems in perspective. He conjures a scenario that sounds like a bad country song. A fight with his wife in the morning, an empty gas tank when he’s running late to work, “and I’m ready to fall apart.”
“Then these kids have these compound traumas.”
So he listens to them; he learns from them; he respects them.
Because educators shouldn’t be another obstacle, nor should they teach by the numbers.