Evolving Success Story at Chicago’s Spencer Elementary

Earning parents’ trustspencer 11
The principal doesn’t point to himself for the credit – he points to the community, to partnerships developed with churches and colleges, home day cares and businesses and the state of Illinois. Most of all, he forged a bond with the children’s parents. Their trust is paramount.
When Jackson took over as principal at age 32 in 2007, Spencer had been considered a failing school for years and its reputation was terrible.
Striving for the federal benchmark would only set the school up for more failure, he calculated. He needed smaller targets.
He had to build momentum so the community would believe.
Jackson took the goals and the available data and broke them down to numbers of children per grade. He posted the numbers around the school. He supported teachers in their quest to bring children up to speed and gave them autonomy to teach their own way.
“It was very important that we created something that we could shoot for internally, something that we could all rally around and something that I could get the community behind as well,” Jackson said. “We had growth every single year, so we were able to kind of build momentum.”
Step by step, the scores kept increasing, until it looked like the school could get off probation.
And at that point, Jackson said, “What we were saying didn’t sound so crazy.”
He knows he’s still far from the federal target, but his worries are wider than mere test scores.  “You’d like to meet the federal guidelines, but the reality is, it goes back to that question: What is your measure of success?”

A culture of learning. Higher attendance. Satisfied teachers. Engaged, curious learners. Proud, involved parents. Students who choose not only whether to go to college but which school they prefer. Children who stand a chance in life at competing for jobs and homes and everything else that anyone would want.

Children prepared to be what they want to be. Achieving that would take more than a school. It would take the whole community.

“There are no successful schools without parental involvement,” Jackson said

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‘Parent Scholars’ play a rolespencer 9

CPS is adding a parental satisfaction component to its school report cards this year, but Spencer realized years ago he would need parents to buy in.

They would have to play a bigger part in their children’s education, like they do in wealthier schools. But many Spencer parents had needs of their own. They faced unemployment and poverty. Some never graduated from high school or were lost to prison or to the streets.
If we empower the parents, Jackson’s parent advocate Cynthia Peterson told him, we impact the child. So the school made room for its parents, dubbing the volunteers “Parent Scholars.”

Peterson also got the school established as a work site where parents could fulfill the volunteering requirements of some state aid checks. They had to work somewhere, she said, so why not at their own child’s school?

She moved their lounge from a little space in the basement to a spacious air-conditioned spot on the main floor. That got their attention, Peterson explained – and raised expectations.

“You need administrators who believe the community and parents are part of the solution for the school,” she said. “The child is attached to a family.”

The school has Spencer Parent University, too, where parents can take free classes in their own dedicated space, to prep for the GED test, learn computer skills, study a foreign language or poetry. They can work on resumes or interview skills. “Instead of being at home, they can be here with their children,” Peterson said.

Kelly Williamson, a mother of two Spencer sons and a loyal volunteer, pops her head out of a classroom. “When Dr. Jackson came, it turned around,” she said. ” . . .The students were used to running amuck in that school. I don’t see any of that anymore.”

Williamson has dealt with Spencer since her 16-year-old was in first grade. “A lot of them before, it was all about getting the school off probation,” she said. “With him, that’s what he wanted, but he put the kids first.”
Sure, she wishes her seventh-grader had the kind of arts exposure she received in suburban schools so she wouldn’t have to supplement so much at home. She’s a single mom with a teaching degree, and she is back in school to become a counselor. And she wishes the school had a better gym and the kids got more exercise. She has made her opinions known to the principal.
“He’s on the path,” she said. “There are other things he has to do first.”

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