Two fifth-grade students work on math in the common area (filled with desks for testing) at KIPP Journey Academy , a charter school sponsored by Fordham in Columbus.
Last week, Laura Pohl (Fordham's new media director) and I had the privilege of visiting our Ohio colleagues. A particularly memorable part of the trip was peering in on two charter schools in Columbus that Fordham sponsors (authorizes). Both schools are in their first year and both serve just one grade at the moment, but will expand. Here's a little more about them.
At KIPP Journey Academy, walls??are covered with art, inspirational sayings and??photos of the students (there's??a "glow-out" wall, where students and teachers can post compliments of one another). The school of 62 fifth graders, most of whom are African-American students from??low-income families, emphasizes responsibility, respecting yourself/others, setting and attaining high??goals and??giving back to the community. They have longer schooldays, an incentive program for good work and a policy that allows students to contact teachers by phone until 9:30pm, we were told. Like other KIPP schools, students regularly do school chants and we were lucky enough to hear Iyana Hill and Melik Scott??give us a sampling-- "Read, Baby, Read," "The KIPP Journey Credo," and a few math multiplication songs. A charming video of that will be posted soon, so please check back.??(Melik called the chants??"one of my favorite things here.")
A sixth-grade student at Columbus Collegiate Academy listens to a math lesson.
Not too far away is Columbus Collegiate Academy , a school that??meets in a church and has to break down much of the wall adornment, supplies and teaching materials every week in preparation for church services.??It's a "no frills, all academic school," according to its founder, Andrew Boy. The school is home to 49 sixth graders - many of whom started the year at a third-grade reading level, he told us. But high expectations are the norm. "We're teaching on a 6th grade level regardless of your background," he said, adding that the school obviously maintains a strong focus on college attendance. Students have toured Ohio State University (both the law school and veterinary school -- while visiting the latter, they watched an operation being performed on a horse!). And they're also in the midst of taking a street law class taught by students from Ohio State's Moritz College of Law .
There's more that could be said about both schools. Suffice it to say the visits were interesting and eye-opening. Many thanks to the schools for opening their doors to us! And thanks as well to Emmy Partin and Theda Sampson, our wise and wonderful Ohio guides!