Classes start early at KIPP STAR, the first elementary charter school in Washington Heights. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

Breakfast begins at 7:15 at KIPP STAR Elementary, the first elementary charter school in Washington Heights, which opened this fall sharing space with Alexander Humboldt Public School 115. Classes begin at 7:45 and continue until 4p.m. when parents form an orderly queue outside on 177 Street.

During their long day, the 101 kindergarteners — who wear khaki pants and skirts and green shirts with big beige stars,KIPP STAR’s symbol — learn numbers, letters, theater and movement.  They have lunch. They take naps.

Unlike Harlem, home to 22 charter schools, Washington Heights previously had only two, Equity Project and New Heights Academy, both opened within the past five* years to serve middle-schoolers. KIPP, which preps mostly African-American and Latino students from poor neighborhoods for college, operates three schools in Harlem and three in the Bronx, yet had none in Washington Heights until this year.

KIPP STAR was also originally planned for Harlem, but space became available at Alexander Humboldt, says principal Anokhi Saraiya.

“It’s a matter of space,” she says, explaining that the Department of Education finds under-enrolled schools in which to house charters. Alexander Humboldt can accommodate 1000 students, but had fewer than 700. “We don’t decide where we open,” Saraiya says. “DOE provides space and we get it.”

Saraiya, who has two master degrees in education and taught at Public School 8 in Washington Heights for eight years, spent three years preparing for her new role. She taught sixth grade at KIPP College Prep in Harlem for a year to learn the charter’s culture. Then she visited KIPP schools around the country to lay out plans for KIPP STAR. It takes a leader to launch a charter school, she says.

To Saraiya, KIPP’s success lies in a teaching approach that focuses on individual students and their needs.  KIPP teachers, she says, are always aware of  “what students are learning and what they still need to learn.” KIPP assigns two teachers to kindergarten classes so that children can receive small-group instruction when necessary.

Children often work in small groups at KIPP. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

Barbara Duran says her son, Daniel Keylap, has adjusted to the long school days. “He’s been in preschool for a long time,” she says.  “It’s good, they do a lot.”

Critics argue that KIPP doesn’t serve enough non-native English speakers or students with special needs. But according to KIPP’s statistics, its seven established New York charters serve 99 percent African-American or Latino students, 1,739 children in all. Approximately 23 percent of KIPP STAR students speak Spanish while learning English, so every class has one Spanish-speaking teacher.

Saraiya says the school also employs a speech pathologist who comes three times a week and an occupational therapist. “About 79 percent of our students receive free lunch,” she adds, meaning that they’re from low-income homes.

KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, is a nationwide network of charter schools started by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin in Houston and the South Bronx. KIPP doesn’t require admission testing, but administers a lottery when it gets more applications than there are seats. “We had 309 students originally apply for our school prior to our lottery in April, and we accepted 104 students,” Saraiya says. “Everyone who wins the lottery gets in.”

Jacqueline Tabb, a parent who learned about KIPP from her internet research, was pleasantly surprised when her son was accepted and the principal came to meet the family.  “It’s unlike any other school,” she says as she hurries up the stairs to pick up her five-year old.

According to New York City School District 6 data, Washington Heights public schools’ academic proficiency remains low – only about 30 percent of middle school students were proficient in English and 40 percent were proficient in math. However, at Harlem’s KIPP Infinity middle school, students scored an average 53 percent proficiency in English and 85.5 percent proficiency in math, according to the City’s school performance report.

Saraiya says KIPP uses a math teaching method from Singapore, focusing on understanding what numbers mean visually. “We spend a month learning numbers one through five,” Saraiya said. “We look at groups of four or five objects and figure out which group is more than the other or less than the other.”

Drawing is part of the curriculum. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

Lenares Rodriguez, who lives on 193 Street, says her daughter loves the school and always talks about what she did in class. “They teach in small groups of, like, 16 kids,” she said, pointing out that KIPP’s classes are named after famous universities to start developing students’ college ambition early. “My daughter is in a Columbia class and her friend John is in an UCLA Class.”

KIPP STAR will eventually host grades kindergarten through four. Also in the works is KIPP Academy, a school for more than a thousand students, kindergarten through grade 12. It took Washington Heights longer than Harlem to establish its charters, but the neighborhood is catching up.

“We’re hoping to make a break this year,” says Steve Ajani, the New York KIPP co-principal and co-founder.

*Correction: The story originally reported that Washington Heights’s two other charter schools opened within the past three years.

The abandoned school's dilapidated courtyard. (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

A derelict former public school in East Harlem will be converted into affordable housing and studio facilities for artists and their families, says a national arts developer. Costing $52.6 million, the enormous building will be converted into 90 units and 10,000 square feet of community space.

Construction on P.S. 109 at 215 E. 99^th Street is scheduled to start early next year now that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has approved, and will announce in the next few days, grants worth about $20 million for the project, according to Will Law, chief operating officer at Artspace, a nonprofit real estate developer of the arts.

Once slated for demolition, Artspace, in conjunction with El Barrio’s Operation Fightback, an East Harlem community development organization, now has the development rights to P.S. 109. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development was handed control of the site by the Department of Education, and is providing tax credits and subsidies for affordable housing.

Built in 1898, with a gothic, almost castle-like design, the imposing building has fallen into disrepair since the school’s closure in 1996. Five stories tall with drip moldings, green spires corner towers and steeply pitched roof, it stands in stark contrast to its surroundings: a dilapidated housing complex, basketball court and low-rise residential streets. “In the community it’s an iconic building, it’s a landmark,” says Law. Fenced off with signs saying, “Keep Out – Poison,” the overgrown shrubbery, graffiti and boarded up windows, make it an eyesore and health hazard.

“We saw the gorgeous building, so the opportunity to give it a new life is quite exciting,” says Carol Corletta, president of ArtPlace, a public and private investment agency that worked with the National Endowment for the Arts among others to raise $1 million for the project. Corletta says the whole neighborhood will benefit from the plans. “The chance to reinvest in the artists, the location, and in the community – it’s a slam-dunk in our eyes.”

City Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who has supported Artspace’s plans, is equally enthusiastic. “I’m very excited about it,” she says. “I’m very proud of it.”

Yet squabbling about the best use for the building has continued for years. Local activist Gwen Goodwin organized the Coalition to Save P.S. 109, which successfully prevented the building’s demolition in 1999. Goodwin wants to see a restored school there, saying, “We are at a severe shortage of space in every district, East Harlem especially.”

School overcrowding is a hot topic in the area, and to Hector Nazario, president of the District’s Community Education Council, the cause is simple. “We have an overcrowding in East Harlem simply because 109 was closed,” he says.

But Mark-Viverito says that this argument is moot because the Department of Education didn’t want the school anymore. “They handed it over to DHP, it was just too costly,” she says, arguing, “Housing is our biggest problem.”

Law says that given the housing problems in El Barrio, “we fill a void.” He explains that an employee from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development first introduced him to P.S. 109, and as early as 2005 Community Board 11 approved the project.

A lack of agreement about the building’s use was the reason it fell into disrepair initially, argue Mark-Viverito and Law.  Law says that although in recent years “there’s been total consensus on the Community Board,” he admits that in in the past, “it was mired in a lot of community dissension.”

The front entrance remains closed. (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Daisy Matias, 52, who lives in the housing project opposite P.S. 109, remembers this well. “People kept coming and checking the building for years but nothing happened,” she says.

Matias is not particularly enthusiastic about the plans. “They could have opened it up as a school again,” she says wistfully. “The kids need it more.”

Ambivalence is rife among neighborhood residents. “It’s nice that it’s being used but we’d rather it was a school,” says Nilsa Diaz, 52.

Gentrification is the cornerstone of both sides’ argument. Over the last decade the area’s white population has increased by 55 percent, according to the 2010 census. Goodwin says most new residents will be paying rents that locals can’t afford. Describing the project as a “frivolous idea,” she argues current plans “doesn’t have a lot to do with residents of East Harlem.”

Diaz agrees, saying, “It’s for the rich, it’s not for the poor.”

But Law counters that Artspace is part of the solution, not problem. “Increasing gentrification is going on that is continuing to force artists out of Manhattan,” he says, and with apartments expected to rent for $550 to $1,100 a month, he argues that P.S. 109 will help alleviate the impact of rent increases. “We are staking out affordable housing,” he says.

Local artists are enthusiastic. “It sounds like a great idea; I loved it from the very beginning,” says Argentinean painter and Harlem resident Mariano Cinat, who declares he would jump at the chance to move into P.S. 109. “I see the need in the community for more art programs and for more people to get involved.”

But few of those affected, both locals and artists, were aware that the project could move ahead so soon. “I didn’t know,” says Matias. Diaz was unaware, too.

Five years ago Harlem sculptor Lina Puerta completed a survey about what kind of apartment she lived in and the size of her household, “but that’s all I’ve heard.” She adds, “I signed up to their mailing list but I haven’t received any newsletters or emails or updates.”

Law admits Artspace could improve its dialogue with the community. Once the go-ahead is officially given, he says, “then we will really start to liaise with the community.”

With the department’s approval of Artspace’s plans, tenants could move into the restored building in autumn 2013.

Law, who has worked on Artspace P.S. 109 for six years, says he is certain that when the project is completed, the benefits will be evident to most. “I believe it can be transformational,” he says.

Teachers protest in front of the Department of Education on Dec. 15. (Photo by Ksenia Galouchko)

Graph by Zaheer Cassim

Dancing to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” dozens of New York public school teachers gathered in front of the Department of Education Wednesday night. Wearing white United Federation of Teachers knit caps and waving signs declaring “We Stand Together” and “Stop School Closings,” they braved the cold to protest school closures and new tenure guidelines.

“Their job is not to measure data,” one speaker yelled about the administrators in the department, “but to come to every school and ask, ‘How can we make this better?’”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an overhaul of the teacher tenure system in September; the United Federation of Teachers has opposed his initiative.

The tenure guidelines, announced Monday, will require principals to rate new teachers in each of three categories: “instructional practice,” “professional contributions” and “impact on student learning,” according to the Department of Education memo sent to principals. Principals will base their decisions on a variety of factors that measure teachers’ success in and out of the classroom, including standardized test results, the memo stated.

Bloomberg’s plan relies on a four-tier rating system to make tenure decisions, according to a statement on the mayor’s website. Beginning this year, only teachers rated “effective” or “highly effective” will be eligible for tenure.

“This will transform the tenure system from one in which tenure is taken for granted, to one in which it must be earned through effective performance in the classroom,” Bloomberg’s September statement said.

The new approach aims “to help schools build a culture where teachers receive regular feedback and support for their professional growth” as well as to “transform the awarding of tenure from a right, granted practically by default, to an honor bestowed upon our outstanding teachers,” the city memo stated.

“From now on, only teachers who demonstrate significant professional skill and meaningful, positive impact on student learning will receive lifetime employment.”

The public school teachers who‘d come to the rally were angry about the new guidelines. “They don’t want old experienced teachers who are too expensive,” said Marcia Rothman, a teacher for 14 years. “It’s a concerted effort to harass older teachers, so they can hire two young teachers.”

“Is the standardized test the only thing we do with kids all year?” asked Joan Gleisher, a tenured teacher from IS 234 in Brooklyn. “We work with special needs kids, ESL kids” – referring to English as a Second Language programs — “the class size is huge—28 to 30 students. They don’t take that into account.”

“It’s disgraceful that they expect foreign kids who have just arrived to be proficient in English,” she added.

“Every kid is different, you can’t measure them all with one test,” agreed Jean Alexander from PS 134 in Queens. “It’s only a way to break the union.”

A discouraging drop in this year’s school progress report grades has intensified questions about teaching effectiveness in public schools, and debates over how to monitor it and how to deal with ineffective instructors.

At the Renaissance Leadership Academy on 129^th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, for example, stern-looking security officers check student bags for weapons or illegal substances. Last year the academy, considered a failing school in 2007, received an A on its progress report, raising hopes that an ambitious new principal could bring dramatic and rapid academic change.

But this year only about 20 percent of the school’s students were proficient in math and English, the progress report showed. The Renaissance Leadership Academy, like nearly 35 percent of New York City’s public schools, received a C on its progress report.

Many New York public schools experienced similar declines because of modifications made to standardized tests that, state officials said, gave a more accurate picture of students’ skills. The results, in which only 43 percent of city public school students passed their English exams and 54 percent passed math, showed actual decline since 2006.

Incoming Chancellor Cathleen P. Black told NY1 that effective teaching remains her priority. “We know, over and over, that that is the key to success,” Black said.  “And I think that we should be looking at all ways to loosen tenure if we possibly can.”

Bloomberg began his effort to revamp tenure, until this year almost always given to New York public school teachers during their third year, by making student test scores a factor in determining which teachers qualified.

According to the proposed change, “Tenure may be awarded in the third year, or any time thereafter, always contingent on whether a teacher has made a significant impact on student achievement.”

The Department of Education supported Bloomberg’s proposal. “Lifetime employment should be earned, not awarded casually,” Matt Mittenthal, deputy press secretary, said in an e-mail.

Last academic year 11 percent of New York City’s tenure-eligible teachers did not receive tenure, according to the Department of Education tenure data report — almost twice the rejection and deferral rate of the previous year.

Possible layoffs of 8,500 New York teachers because of Gov. David Paterson’s proposed $1.3 billion New York City budget cuts have made teacher tenure an especially contentious topic, because state law mandates that teachers with the least experience be laid off first.  Since tenure makes firing teachers a complicated, time-consuming and costly process, the “last in, first out” policy targets mostly young teachers, regardless of skill.

Faced with the risk of the largest number of layoffs in more than a generation, former Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein opposed the “last in, first out” policy. “Experience matters, but it cannot be the sole or even principal factor considered in layoff decisions,” Klein told The New York Times in April. “We must be able to take into account each individual’s track record of success.”

The United Federation of Teachers has criticized the mayor’s proposals. In a September statement, President Michael Mulgrew called the seniority layoff process “part of state law and a critical guarantee against discrimination” and argued that the “automatic” tenure process the mayor “complains about is automatic only if the administration allows it to be.”

Historically, tenure was introduced to protect teachers from losing their jobs because of their political beliefs, or because of race or gender discrimination.

Now some, including Justin Snider, research fellow at the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University’s Teachers College, question its continuing importance. “In the past teachers could get fired for unpopular political beliefs, women could get fired for getting pregnant,” Snider says. “The question is, are these concerns still relevant? Today they are less relevant.”

But state budget cuts make seniority protection particularly important to the union because of the fear that without tenure, principals will lay off the highest earners. “If a district is trying to save money, and has to choose between expensive veteran teachers and younger, cheaper teachers, they would choose the latter,” says Justin Snider, “Tenure provides protection in such situations.”

Tenure has also been criticized for shielding inadequate teachers, says Jeffrey Henig, professor at Columbia Teachers College.  He considers it still an important protection against discrimination, however. “Some think that these issues have disappeared, but that’s not true,” he says.

The union that represents New York City principals said in a statement, “Once seniority protections are removed, we are concerned that issues such as cronyism, nepotism, religion, race and age would once again become problems in our city schools.”

Teachers yelled "We Stand Together" at Department of Education protest. (Photo by Ksenia Galouchko)

Teachers themselves both support and criticize tenure.

Jerry Roebuck, a tenured teacher at Harlem Choir Academy, says, “Teacher tenure is important because there needs to be some job security.”

“This wholesale firing in education is unwarranted, it doesn’t work,” Roebuck argues. “If there are teachers who aren’t doing well, the answer is not just fire them; the answer is to give them professional development that is needed, so they can carry on in their profession.”

The key to failing schools’ low academic performance, according to Roebuck, lies in socio-economic factors. “If you just ignore other factors and say, all kids can learn at the same level and speed, you’re kidding yourself.  That’s not true.”

But Candace Cardwell, a 10-year teacher who now works at the Children’s Storefront, an independent, non-unionized Harlem school, still remembers her inadequate third-grade English teacher. “That year in school was lost to me, I still don’t know how to write script,” Cardwell says. “The teacher was tenured, so nothing could be done.”

Cardwell adds: “I don’t think tenure is needed at all. If you are a good teacher, you work hard and there’s no reason to fear getting fired…Tenure often dampens teachers’ enthusiasm; they don’t work as hard when they are sure of their pay and financial benefits.”

Michael Williams, a public school teacher for 13 years, three of them at I.S. 195 Roberto Clemente, believes that some teachers enter the profession specifically because of tenure and its benefits. “I remember apathetic teachers who had tenure, and it was frustrating to work with them,” Williams says. Yet administrators couldn’t remove them.

He can envision better ways to approach job security. “If there was a system in place that awarded tenure based on evaluations, it would be good,” Williams says. “Fellow teachers’ observations, student performance, classroom management — these are tricky to measure, but they should be part of the evaluation.”

To his mind, “The danger of Department of Education heads coming in is that they are there for a day, only get a snapshot, don’t understand the full system.”

Williams further urges that poor teachers be given an opportunity to improve before getting fired. “I want to see more money funneled into courses of professional growth,” he says.

Gregory Hodge, principal at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, says even tenured teachers should focus on constantly improving their skills. “I believe that teachers, after they get tenure, should go back for additional training to make sure they can teach more complicated courses,” Hodge says.  That would give them “more up-to-date information” so that “they could bring back more hands-on knowledge to the classroom.”

Hodge adds: “My teachers that are truly extraordinary, capable teachers don’t think that tenure is of value. Many of the teachers are very interested in this incentive-type program where teachers are compensated based on the outcome. So many teachers that are very successful look forward to merit-based pay.”

Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Columbia University, says Bloomberg’s proposal reflects a national movement to change teacher evaluations, not just in regard to tenure, but for other purposes, like performance-based pay.

The key weakness of current teacher evaluation, Pallas says, is that evaluations aren’t sufficiently tied to students’ academic performance or teachers’ engagement in professional practices.

“It is a source of concern when in some school districts like New York City, 95 percent of teachers are getting evaluations that are fully satisfactory or higher,” Pallas says.

“It is not clear if this reform is really going to dramatically change things, because many teachers choose to leave or are canceled out before they get to a tenure review,” Pallas adds. “But symbolically it’s important to convey to anyone who has a stake in public education that now there’s an effort to try to focus teachers’ impact on students’ learning and teachers’ use of best practices in the classroom.”

Standardized tests can’t be ignored when evaluating teachers, Pallas says. But he fears that “focusing on one number means that we don’t pay attention to many other factors that we expect teachers to cultivate in children, such as critical thinking.”

Twenty-four laps around the P.S. 102 gym in East Harlem add up to a mile. Physical education teacher Steven Sloan makes his fifth graders run 25 laps.

“You tell ‘em to jog,” Sloan says, “and they just want to run, fast. They like to run all out.”

His regimen, which he admits is tough, has led P.S. 102 to the top ranks of New York Road Runners’ Mighty Milers youth program. Its 300-plus students together ran more than 50,000 miles last year.

“Here at P.S. 102, the kids really very quickly build up to where they are running a mile and sometimes more than a mile a day,” says Cliff Sperber, executive director of youth programs at New York Road Runners, at a recent event honoring the students. “It’s very impressive.”

In class, Sloan, 55, calls his students by pet names, like “Puff Cheeks,” “Muhammad Ali,” “Vanilla Smoothie” and “Hot Salsa.” He has his stars, the natural athletes who have come to love running under his tutelage. But just as important to him are the ones who come along when it’s not so easy.

Gloria Cruz, “Puff Cheeks,” counts herself among the latter; like many youth in East Harlem, she has asthma. In 2008, the disease sent 11 of every 1,000 neighborhood children to hospitals; in August, the city health department opened a youth asthma center aimed at halving that number.

The demands of gym class helped Gloria get healthier and more fit. Her homework, like her classmates’, is to run a mile a day, seven days a week. Regular instruction from Sloan has also helped Gloria and her mother manage her condition better, leading to fewer hospital visits.

For Gloria and her mother, Maria Santana, weekend walks from their Manhattan Avenue apartment to the school on Second Avenue used to take an hour and a half.

“Now it only takes us 40 or 45 minutes,” says Santana.

Steven "Superstar" Sloan, physical education teacher at P.S. 102 in East Harlem, chats with 5th-grade students Stephanie Azalo (center) and Darlene Salas (right), before a warm-up jog. (Photo by Jason Alcorn)

Sloan also must combat child obesity, another major issue facing Harlem youth. More than 46 percent of children between kindergarten and eighth-grade in East Harlem are obese or overweight, compared to 40 percent citywide, according to Department of Education statistics. The school serves a predominantly Hispanic student body; 96 percent have low enough household income to qualify for free lunches.

Sloan teaches his students to eat more healthily. Pizza, McDonald’s and Burger King have turned into “chicken, rice and healthy stuff,” as fifth-grader Darlene Salas puts it.

“Before I was here I used to eat a lot of junk food,” says Mohamed Yusef, a fifth-grader. “But now that I’m here I eat more healthy food and less junk food and I jog around the Jefferson Park track” across the street from the school.

Fifth-grader Melissa Lopez puts it more bluntly. “I know no one wants to be fat,” she says. “When you’re fat you can’t run anymore.”

In order to reach the students, Sloan takes a hard-line approach–one that, in the past, discomfited school administrators and teachers because he aggressively held parents accountable for students’ performance, he says.

Because of budget cuts, New York City’s public schools are producing fewer high-caliber athletes, Sloan says, and his old-school approach is meant to overcome those reductions. In class, his demeanor vacillates from playful to stern–if he feels the students are cutting corners.

“You’re out of breath because you didn’t do nothing this weekend,” Sloan shouts during a recent Monday morning gym class, as students slow their pace, doubling over, hands creeping toward their knees. “Unbelievable! It’s called that l-a-z-y word again. L-a-z-y: spells lazy.” The pace quickly picks up.

Since P.S. 102 principal Sandra Gittens approached Sloan seven years ago with the opportunity to join Mighty Milers, he’s had, as he puts it, “a happy marriage” with the school.

Last school year, over 10,000 students at 57 schools north of 96th Street in Manhattan participated in Mighty Milers or Young Runners, another New York Road Runners program.

“It’s great to teach kids a sport for life, very inexpensive, very accessible,” says Sperber, of New York Road Runners. “Running is that sport.”

Harlem Renaissance High School, a transfer school in East Harlem, offers programs tailored to the needs of students previously off-track from graduating. (Photo by Rachael Horowitz)

Dashawn Gadsen left John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx without a diploma after four years of poor attendance. Overage and under-credited, he entered Harlem Renaissance High School in 2008, at the age of 17, in the hopes of turning around his academic record. “A real person will admit to their mistakes,” he said of his years at JFK, where his problems had less to do with his classes and more to do with his not showing up. “I had to break out of it.”

The Department of Education does not freely offer public records of overage students like Gadsen in the system, but it does offer a definition of overage as being two or more years older than the standard age for a grade. Gadsen is at risk for dropping out due to his age and his lack of credits, but unlike him, many at-risk students are already overage by the time they leave middle school, if not earlier. About 65 percent of the students in the city who drop out of high school were overage when they began ninth grade, according to a 2008 study from the department’s Office of Accountability.

Students become overage when they repeat grades, either because they don’t meet the promotional criteria or because of interruptions in their schooling, like foster care or frequent family relocation. “They’re overage because they’ve gone through a series of systems that haven’t met their needs,” said Shadia Alvarez, an aspiring principal at Harlem Renaissance High School, from which Gadsen hopes to graduate in August. “By the time we get them, they come in fighting us. We have to break down that wall in order to gain access to help and support them.”

Alvarez is training to become a principal through the New York City Leadership Academy and has been at Harlem Renaissance – a transfer school that accepts only students who have already been in ninth grade and are considered off-track for graduation – since August. The students are part of a group categorized by the Department of Education as under-credited, and as a result, more than 1 in 4 is also overage – older than the typical student in his or her grade.

The number of overage students in the city is significant and extends to all five boroughs, according to Christie Hill, a staff attorney for Advocates for Children of New York, an education access advocacy group, but disproportionate numbers are non-native English speakers, students with special needs and students of color. Ninety-eight percent of students at Harlem Renaissance Academy are African-American or Latino.

Advocates for Children is in the process of analyzing the Department of Education’s data on overage students to make recommendations and raise awareness, “so people know that a 16- or 17-year-old in eighth grade is not all that uncommon in New York City,” Hill said.

The issue of overage students is tied to promotion and retention policies in school – when students are allowed to pass from one grade to the next. Because overage students are less likely to graduate from high school, some people equate leaving back a student with giving him or her a dropout sentence.

However, the Department of Education released a report in October detailing the success of the latest fifth-grade retention and promotion policy, requiring students to earn a level 2 out of 4 in both math and English language arts proficiency tests before they advance to sixth grade. A level 2 generally indicates that the student is approaching grade level standards in the subject. The department began implementing the policy with third graders in 2003 and extended it to include fifth graders in 2004 and commissioned the RAND Corporation to conduct a study of its effectiveness.

Very few fifth graders – approximately 600 – were retained during the first three years of the policy, according to Jennifer McCombs a co-author of the study, which followed three cohorts of fifth graders from 2005 to 2007. A small number of those students were multiple holdovers, meaning they had already been retained once before: 126 in the first year and 56 in the third year.

“The majority of overage fifth graders end up being promoted,” McCombs said, supporting the conclusion that the impact of the fifth grade promotion policy on the number of overage students already in the system is minimal, and that it has increased student performance overall.

Despite RAND’s results, critics of retention still point to longstanding research correlating retention and lower graduation rates. “Retaining a student even one time puts them on a track to drop out at an exponential rate,” Hill said. She is particularly critical of the way retention is implemented in the city, where students who don’t meet promotional criteria in one area must repeat the entire year’s curriculum. “It keeps them off track,” she said, adding that if the Department of Education wants to use retention, it needs to “be smarter,” about it.

Concerns about overage students are frequently expressed in high-need schools where students are more likely to be retained, said McCombs. But researchers at RAND believe that as performance continues to increase in schools, over time the number of overage students will drop off. “It’s a very small population, but there’s grave concerns around these kids,” McCombs said.

The department has acknowledged the challenges of the overage population, a major, but less often discussed subset of the dropout population, and as a result is targeting it specifically at the high school level with the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation. The office allows schools like Harlem Renaissance to tailor to the needs of students who’ve fallen off the traditional time line for high school graduation. “We recognize that it’s not just ‘Brand X,’ ” said Tom Pendleton, the director of learning to work initiatives at the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation, one of the programs available to the overage, under-credited high school population, which according to Alvarez has offered a lot of support to Harlem Renaissance. “There’s not just one student who falls behind in high school,” Pendleton said.

Elisia Burrows likes to go by the name “Star.” In 10th grade, she took a yearlong break from school after the birth of her son, Sincere. When she returned to school, she chose Harlem Renaissance because it offers on-site daycare for her son. Now 20 years old, she can’t imagine herself at a “regular” high school. “It’s embarrassing,” she said. Burrows plans to graduate in June.

At Harlem Renaissance High School, students are not divided by grade level, but rather, by how many credits they’ve earned in an effort to target the specific needs of each student. In early December, the school’s credit recovery week gave students the opportunity to “recover” hours of missed coursework. Students flowed in and out of Alvarez’s office, eager to make up the credits they need in order to stay on track for graduation. This year the school implemented a computer-assisted program for credit recovery and students had questions about login information, passwords and assignments.

During this time, students at Harlem Renaissance worked busily on laptops in each classroom for a singular purpose: catch up. While this wasn’t what a typical day looks like at the school, it reflected the atmosphere there: one that encourages students who are off-track to take control of their academic future. Alvarez explained, “We’re trying to create an environment where people don’t see that as a negative, but as a possibility.”

“The work going on at the high school level is needed,” Hill said. “But we do need to do the work earlier.” She is optimistic about the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation’s efforts and recommends that middle schools follow suit. “A 16-year-old in eighth grade has different needs than a 13-year old,” Hill said. She explained that middle schools should be authorized to be “flexible” to meet the needs of these students and keep them invested with half-day programs, midyear promotion to high school, or increased access to high school curriculum to earn credits even if they’ve been retained.

This year the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation also opened the High School for Excellence and Innovation, designated for students who turned 16 in the eighth grade, and according to Pendleton, the city is opening more transfer schools each year. While these interventions show promise for an under-served population, some worry that it’s not enough. “The resources do not meet the demand,” Hill said, noting the long waiting lists for many of these new schools.

Alvarez is also concerned about the large numbers of students requiring the type of specialized academic setting offered at Harlem Renaissance, which serves 230 students and has increased its class sizes. “The DOE will send you everyone if they think you have a supportive environment,” she said. “But they’re not taking into account what happens when you overpopulate a classroom.”

Though the resources may not yet meet the need, acknowledging the unique needs of overage students is a step for the Department of Education in reining in the number of high school dropouts. “New York is one of our leading cities in terms of addressing the dropout crisis,” said Chris Sturgis, former consultant to the U.S. Department of Education on secondary school strategies, and co-founder of the Youth Transition Funders Group, a network of grant organizations focusing on young adults in need of extra support.

Hill also acknowledged the work of advocacy groups and non-profits in supporting the overage population in New York. “There’s lots of good work going on across the city,” she said, “but they’re in their own silos not communicating.”

Kappa IV students warm up before their first match. (Photo by Nate Rawlings)

In Harlem, basketball and football are the most popular sports. But at Kappa IV, a public middle school at St. Nicholas and 135th Street, wrestling is gaining traction. The afterschool classes started a month ago, when an organization called Beat the Streets teamed up with Jets of Harlem, the youth football league. Sonal Shah reports from Kappa IV. (Click play below to hear more.)

Parents at P.S. 123, the Mahalia Jackson Academy, have protested sharing space with the Harlem Success Academy since the charter moved into the building last year. (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)

When Harlem Success Academy 2 returned for its second year at 301 W 140th St., it added grades – a typical practice for charter schools, Jenny Sadlis, director of Success Charter Network’s external communications, said via email. With a growing student body, though, the school needed more classrooms and moved into some previously used by P.S. 123, with which it shares the building. The action further strained the relationship between the schools and in the surrounding community.

Parents and advocates for P.S. 123, the Mahalia Jackson Academy, have complained that the charter is taking away space without concern for the public school students. William Hargraves, whose niece attends P.S. 123, charged that the Department of Education favors charters over regular public schools.

Harlem Success Academy, whose current enrollment is 361, serves kindergarten through second grade; it eventually plans to expand to eighth grade. P.S. 123 has an enrollment of 630 students this year in pre-kindergarten through seventh grade.

The tensions began when the charter school first moved into the building, but increased this year when P.S. 123 lost its computer room to the charter school, as well as part of its teachers’ lounge and half its library, now devoted to Harlem Success Academy office space, said Hargraves.

P.S. 123 was offered basement rooms to replace some of the space Harlem Success Academy has commandeered, but “there’s no way a kid can learn in that environment,” Hargraves said, describing the basement as “no more than a storage area.” The school squeezed in classes elsewhere in the building.

Space is allocated in all schools across the city based on “a footprint” the Department of Education determines, said spokesperson William Havemann. While the footprint allocates the number of each type of classroom a school should have, based on its enrollment, “it does not determine which particular rooms in a building go to each school,” he said. The school officials decide that themselves.

“A lot of work went into the agreement between P.S. 123 and Harlem Success, and both schools participated in discussions,” said Havemann in a follow-up email.

But Hargraves still feels that the Harlem Success Academy “has the choice of the best rooms.”

The charter school, however, maintains that it has divided space fairly. “We treat all of our roommates with the utmost respect,” Sadlis said.

But Dianne Johnson, president of Community Education Council 5, said the Academy sometimes demonstrates a “disrespectful” attitude toward its public school neighbors. “If we have to be in the same building, then we all need to learn how to get along,” she said.

Parents, teachers and students have held rallies opposing the charter school since last year. At the most recent, held last month before the Academy’s annual parent appreciation event at the Roseland Ballroom, the chants ranged from “The people united will never be defeated” to “Eva Moskowitz must go” – a reference to Harlem Success’s founder. They plan to continue the rallies, Hargraves said at the time, but have not held once since then.

For Hargraves, the issue goes beyond the competition with the Harlem Success Academy. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration have abandoned public schools and favor charter schools, charged Hargraves, who at the rally led chants of “Bloomberg lies while public schools die.”

Mabel Moody Washington, however, has two grandchildren in the Harlem Success Academy, primarily because it provided a better education than regular public schools, she said; she is unapologetic about that choice.

She sees the Harlem Success Academy as helping disadvantaged communities catch up to the more privileged. “For centuries, our children have lagged behind. Now they’re not,” she said. “You leave there with the academic skills you need to succeed.”

The charter was ranked number 32 out of 3,500 schools in the city, according to its website. One hundred percent of its third graders passed last year’s math exam. At all four Harlem Success schools, 95 percent of third graders passed the English Language Arts exam.

P.S. 123 is rated a successful school too. It received an A from the Department of Education last year, and a B each of the prior two years. But although 77 percent of its third graders passed the math exam, just 39 percent passed the English Language Arts exam.

While Johnson said she doesn’t oppose charter schools and thinks that parents deserve educational choices, she feels that regular public schools deserve more respect. “It’s like you’re picking, your children are better than my children,” she said. “It’s starting to cause a whole lot of controversy from neighbor to neighbor.”

Johnson said she has contacted Moscowitz about forming a committee, with representatives from both schools, to work together, but Moscowitz has not yet replied.

“We are not aware of any such request,” Sedlis said.

But Johnson said she planned to try again. “The only thing I can do is keep reaching out,” she said. “It’s up to her to respond.”

Nancy Easton, co-founder of Wellness in the Schools, works with the Department of Education to get healthier food into school cafeterias. (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)

On a Wednesday afternoon, the yellow and green cafeteria at P.S. 161 was full of students talking and shouting. One sat down and pulled out a Lunchables, a prepackaged meal combination, but everyone else headed straight for the school kitchen. Most eagerly ate their sweet and sour roasted chicken, but didn’t touch the rice or collards with sweet tomato on their white Styrofoam trays.

Sometimes the school lunch is tasty, but “sometimes it’s disgusting,” said one fifth-grader, poking at her collards with a plastic utensil called a spork. “The vegetables are nasty.”

Her classmate agreed. “I like vegetables at home,” he said, but at school they just don’t taste good.

For some children, whatever they think of school food, there aren’t many alternatives. In low-income neighborhoods, many students get free or reduced-price lunches at school, which become a primary source of nutrition for the day. At this school, 93 percent of the student body lives at or below the poverty level and can be eligible for free or reduced-priced meals.

But critics charge that the meals aren’t always that nutritious or tasty and contribute to larger health problems. Financial and logistical problems make it difficult for the Office of SchoolFood to improve the cuisine, and despites its efforts, change can be slow in coming, the advocates say.

Some students eat little of what the school gives them, said Nayvi Merino, whose son is a first grader at P.S. 161. Merino works as a restaurant hostess in midtown, and although she gets home as early as she can in the afternoon, she said, often her son is ravenous.

“It worries me,” Merino said. “He’s not eating well at school.”

For students who do eat their fill, school food advocates have cited unhealthy lunches as a contributing factor to New York’s childhood obesity rate. Forty-three percent of the city’s children are overweight and about half of those are obese, according to a 2004 study conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Many of these children come from low-income communities.

School lunch programs are “horribly underfunded,” said James Subudhi of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, so schools are often forced to take short cuts to meet federal nutrition requirements, which limit fat content and mandate that school meals provide at least a third of the recommended daily allowances of protein, iron, calcium and Vitamins A and C.

The Office of SchoolFood’s budget allows about 90 cents per meal, limiting the amount of fresh ingredients it can buy, said Nancy Easton, co-founder of Wellness in the Schools, a grassroots organization that works to improve nutrition, health and fitness in public schools. A typical menu item is a “golden fish and cheese sandwich,” which Easton described as “mystery meat fish with mystery cheese on top wrapped in a breaded substance that has been frozen for a long time.”

By contrast, Harlem Children’s Zone schools, part of a nonprofit organization aimed at helping disadvantage families break the poverty cycle, spend about $6 on each meal, which normally contains organic vegetables and meat, Subudhi said.

But school food issues aren’t only budgetary; they’re also logistical. The Office of SchoolFood is charged with feeding about 860,000 students a day, Marge Feinberg, a Department of Education representative, said in an email.

At overcrowded schools where cafeteria time is precious, some students eat lunch at 10:30 a.m., Subudhi said. Many kitchens don’t have the necessary appliances to cook from scratch, forcing them to serve only reheated food, Merino added.

And almost all the kitchen staff lack formal culinary training, Easton said. When it comes to schools preparing nutritious, high-quality food, “all the odds are against them,” she said.

The Department of Education declined to comment on these obstacles.

Some problems are simply beyond the Office of SchoolFood’s control. Several students at P.S. 161 said they just didn’t like eating vegetables anywhere. But pizza, served every Friday, got rave reviews from nearly everyone.

And some students, like P.S. 161 fifth-grader Aaron Valdidia, don’t have problems with school meals. “I think they’re pretty good,” he said.

In the past five years, the Department of Education has taken steps like eliminating trans fats, replacing white bread with whole wheat and including more locally grown vegetables in its food, Feinberg said.

It has also put a salad bar in every high school, something Daniel James, an 18-year-old at Alfred E. Smith High School praised as “going the right way,” even though he usually skips the cafeteria lunch and grabs Subway after school.

But Merino would like to see a salad bar in every school, not just high schools. “Some of the stuff we want,” she said, “it’s not really that hard.”