CASTING AN ‘ANCHOR’
School program for struggling students finally finds permanent home
“There are a lot of smiles from staff throughout the day, from students throughout the day. You can tell it’s a place that everyone feels comfortable and good to be in.” Laura Greene, Anchor School director
STAMFORD — Keeping students engaged is the name of the game for a Stamford public schools program aimed at the most vulnerable students, and officials hope a new home will help with that goal.
The Anchor program, designed to help struggling middle and high school students — either because they experience repeated discipline problems or face depression, school phobia or anxiety — finally has a permanent home in downtown Stamford, after many years of moving around.
Laura Greene, the director of the program, said the feedback after the first few weeks at the school has been positive.
“There are a lot of smiles from staff throughout the day, from students throughout the day,” she said. “You can tell it’s a place that everyone feels comfortable and good to be in.”
The new home is the former location of the Stamford Academy charter high school, which was shuttered in 2019. The site, located at 229 North St., had been on the city’s short list of properties to sell. But school officials decided to keep the building in the city’s possession as the lease on the former location for the Anchor program on Southfield Avenue was about to expire.
The city spent roughly $2.4 million to bring the 12,000-square-foot North Street building up to code and get it ready for occupancy this fall. The work involved mechanical improvements, new railings and Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant equipment, as well as asbestos abatement. A full interior
renovation, which would be a much more expensive project, could come later down the road.
Anchor has had a transient past, having used various locations around the city as its home. In the mid-2000s, when the program was known as ARTS, or Alternative Routes to Success, it moved multiple times, including stays at Stamford Government Center, the Yerwood Center, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, and Congregation Agudath Sholom.
At the moment, there are roughly 90 students at Anchor. Greene said enrollment fluctuates after the first few days every year, as students are identified throughout the school year as possible candidates for the program. In order to become an Anchor student, a school counselor or administrator at a student’s home school must first refer a student to the program.
Some students also leave the program, including those who want to return to their home school and do well enough at Anchor to accomplish that.
The new space on North Street offers students and staff more room, compared to the previous location where Anchor was housed.
But that doesn’t mean the program is looking to expand.
Amy Beldotti, associate superintendent for teaching and learning, said the district is only in the talking stages of potentially expanding Anchor. But a lot will depend on demand.
“If the demand is there, we want to respond to that and make sure we always have appropriate programming for all of our students,” she said. “The door is definitely not closed on that, but we don’t have any definite plans for a big expansion.”
The program is designed to have a 10-to-1 ratio of students to teachers, and focuses on project-based learning. Teachers also work on improving the social and emotional skills of students just as much as their academic performance.
Last school year, the COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on the attendance of students at Anchor.
In all, 53 percent of students were chronically absent for the year, meaning they missed at least 10 percent of classes. Prepandemic, that number was around 40 percent.
“COVID affected all students, and many students in different ways,” Greene said, adding that the program has many support services in place to help students and families.
She said having a new and stable home for the program will hopefully lead to less absences.
“Attendance all day, every day is our goal,” Greene said.
So far, the returns are promising. Greene said one student even came up to her this week with the sole purpose of telling her, “I love this school.”
Greene said it’s nice to finally have a place to call home for the long run.
“It’s ours,” she said. “It’s not just a building that we’re in. It’s our building.”