To Catch Them When They Fall

Glenn Enhanced Option School is located on Cleveland Street in East Nashville, a few blocks from Ellington Parkway. It sits in a low-income neighborhood of rental duplexes, older homes in various stages of disrepair and decay that can be purchased for as little as $20,000, and the Sam Levy Homes, one of Nashville’s oldest and largest public housing projects.

Glenn, which covers grades pre-K through 4, is distinguished in many ways. But one of its more startling statistics is the number of its students who fall below the poverty level. Approximately 95 percent of the school’s 360 children are considered to be living below poverty level—a higher percentage than at any other elementary school in the city. (The income difference between those students and the remaining 5 percent who don’t strictly qualify as poverty level is actually minuscule, meaning that for all intents and purposes almost the entire student body is poor.) As such, it’s classified as a “Title I school,” a designation that applies to any school where 50 percent or more of the enrolled children sign up for the free and reduced lunch program.

The school itself is a symbol of community pride—a 12-year-old, one-and-a-half-story building of simple yet contemporary design constructed of brick, stone and glass block. Everything is sparkling-clean and well kept, but Spartan and devoid of any extras or decorative touches, save a couple of live plants in the office. The grounds of the school are neat and tidy, but with only a shrub or two of landscaping. A fenced playground with old, steel equipment is in one corner of the property, which is bordered on two sides by alleys. On one corner of Cleveland and Meridian is the large Ray of Hope Community Church, built as the Meridian Methodist Church in 1939. Across the street from the church is Fire Engine Co. 3. The burned-out shell of a home that sat adjacent to Glenn has now been razed, and the empty lot is covered with gravel and mulch.

But it’s what’s been happening inside the school that represents a series of small, significant triumphs for this neighborhood. Until the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year, Glenn was a middle school, serving fifth and sixth grades. Then, in 1999, Glenn—along with Park Avenue and Napier schools, which both fall under the Title I designation—was selected to be an enhanced-option elementary school. School officials sought to design an educational program to meet the instructional needs of indigent children who scored poorly on achievement tests. The elements of the program would include a pupil-teacher ratio of 15-to-1 (compared to the standard ratio of 20-to-1), flexible student grouping according to learning styles and needs, and an extended school year that would add 35 learning days to the Metro calendar of 180 days.

Donna Youree, who was then serving as principal of Whitsett Elementary School and who has spent much of her education career at Title I schools, recalls seeing the job posting for the three new principal positions. She was intrigued. “I applied because I truly believe that all children can learn, and can learn at a high level,” she says. “Their economic level should not determine whether or not they can learn. And I do not believe in waiting until they fail, and then starting remedial work.”

Youree was asked by Bill Wise, then director of schools, to take the position at Glenn. She called a like-minded colleague, Sharon Elrod, then Title I coordinator at Stratford High, to ask her advice. As it turned out, Elrod had just taken the position as Title I curriculum coordinator at Glenn, and that only got Youree more excited about the challenge of running a poor school. “We had always felt that if we could have a school together, we could make a huge difference.”

Youree got to work hiring a staff. Applying teachers had to bring in portfolios with their résumés, lesson plans and letters of recommendation—and preferably they’d also have some experience and success working with at-risk and Title I students. There were also intangible qualities they had to bring to the job.

“I wanted a diverse staff, but one that knew how hard they would have to work,” Youree says. “This was all brand-new, and I was asking them to jump into the deep, deep ocean with me. I told them I didn’t need them to feel sorry for these children; you could do that till the cows came home. I needed them to teach these children to read, write and do math.

“Looking at the components of the enhanced option idea, I knew if we got the instructors and the instruction right, everything else would fall into place. I do not believe in allowing poverty to be a determining factor in educating a child; the determining factor is your staff.”

Mission possible

On Oct. 23, the Metro school board approved a new mission statement for Nashville schools: “Our purpose is to do whatever it takes for all students to acquire the knowledge and skills to become productive, responsible citizens.” This replaced the one adopted four years earlier: “The mission of the Metro Nashville public schools is to ensure, through the teaching of a high quality curriculum, that all students attain knowledge and skills to become productive and responsible citizens.”