As relatives before her have done since 1973, 12-year-old JoMarie Oquendo heard the final bell at Von Humboldt Elementary School and joined 1,300 students exiting its doors, another day done, another homework assignment in hand.
With a loaded backpack, the 6th grader picked up her 3-year-old preschool sister at Von Humboldt’s child-parent center across the corner.
Together they headed toward their father’s barbershop four blocks away. Past the mural of the Puerto Rican flag unfurling over Lake Michigan, past the community garden just now turning a fragile green, past the street corners that gangbangers and drug dealers would claim later in the day–JoMarie and Melanie Oquendo walked side by side, a sisterly portrait that offered the makings of a sweet childhood memory.
As well, it was one snapshot of the myriad scenes that unfold in the lives of students at Von Humboldt after the school doors close and teachers no longer have control of their time and education. What happens at home–perhaps as much as in the classroom–is critical in determining whether Von Humboldt students improve enough to lift the school off the system’s academic probation list. But that, of course, is open to a range of ungovernable forces.
In this case, the girls entered the back room of Jayuya Barber Stylist at 2606 W. Division St., where Reinaldo Oquendo, 37, was clipping men’s hair at $10 a cut. The sisters spend afternoons there because their mother works days as a clerk for warehouses.
They shed their coats, dumped the book bag on the floor and climbed into an old leather barber’s chair. After pulling a blanket around themselves, the girls promptly took a nap.
An hour later, they were awakened by their father and a visitor. Startled and sleepy, Melanie started crying, but her good humor quickly returned. Soon she was playing hide-and-seek under the blanket.
As Melanie chattered and ran about the shop, JoMarie finally opened her homework and pulled out a language arts book, a ritual carried out unfortunately in front of a small black-and-white TV set. A cherubic girl with long black hair, JoMarie laughed at some of the jokes on “Full House” while she wrote answers.
“I didn’t write down my reading homework,” she confessed. “I’ll do it in the morning (at school).”
A review of her homework revealed that it was poorly done. In a few sections, most answers were wrong, and one portion was only half completed because JoMarie didn’t read the instructions thoroughly.
Asked if she rushed through her homework to watch TV, she confessed, “That’s one of the reasons.”
JoMarie’s mother, Margarita, 36, concedes that her daughter requires a vigilant eye.
“JoMarie can work your mind over. She’s very well-spoken. You got to be hard on her, sometimes, because she’ll work you over,” the mother said. “Other than that, she is learning a lot.”
Von Humboldt’s probation journey, as well as JoMarie’s 6th grade education, will soon reach a climax when all 483 elementary schools–including the 71 on probation–take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills this week, the only objective measure of whether any Chicago public schools have improved since Mayor Daley’s executive team assumed control almost two years ago.
The school’s performance on the test will be riding on the small shoulders of students like JoMarie and a dozen other 6th graders who have been receiving extra reading and math classes the past several weeks for the Iowa Tests.
Students in other grades whose math and reading scores are just below national norms like JoMarie’s are receiving similar instruction in the hope that their scores can be raised to national norms.
But the volatile factors that occur after school complicate, and sometimes undermine, the mission of Von Humboldt, at 2620 W. Hirsch St.
Even for families where two parents are at home and are involved in their kids’ lives, there’s a serendipitous quality to whether kids complete homework, avoid the distractions of television, get to bed early and pursue healthy activities in neighborhoods controlled by gangs and drug dealers.
While the thrust of probation efforts has been training initiatives for teachers and principals, along with scrutiny of classroom procedures, how a child’s education is affected by the vagaries of growing up in a typical inner-city neighborhood is harder to delineate.
According to many parents interviewed, blame is not so easily assigned in explaining why a child cannot read or is several years behind grade level when the culprits may be of an extensive you-pick-’em variety: Crime, family disintegration, drugs, poverty, dropout parents who are fearful and ignorant of schools, or the material condition of a decayed neighborhood that is depressing and intimidating despite new low-income housing.
At the same time, it is equally hard to ascertain parents’ prevailing view of, and their participation in, the probation process, an initiative the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees says should help schools.
With just eight weeks left in the school year, Von Humboldt’s experience with probation has created dramatically divergent opinions among parents. Perhaps most surprising is that a significant number of parents interviewed did not even know Von Humboldt was on probation–a finding that baffled Principal Christ Kalamatas.
“How could they not know? Every month in my newsletter I write `Probation Update, Probation Update,’ ” Kalamatas said. “I think it’s because people have been oblivious to (accountability) for so long. It’s never been an option done by the board before. It’s disappointing. . . . Yeah, it bothers me, especially after we were on remediation for a half a year last year.”
In general, parents felt their children were learning more this year, though some said they have noticed no difference. Most parents aware of Von Humboldt’s probation status said they have found teachers and the principal more responsive than in the past. Yet many teachers insisted they have been working as hard as ever.
Among the more emotional responses from parents was the matter of whether their school should be on probation.
“They got a lot of nerve,” said Vanessa Lee, 38, who has two children at Von Humboldt and whose two daughters have graduated from the school, including one who was valedictorian and now attends Lane Tech High School.
“The board should have asked the parents whether Von Humboldt should be on probation, and we would have said, `Hell, no!’ ” Lee said. “This school is a hidden treasure, even though it’s in a bad neighborhood.”
But others parents felt the school was in want of a wake-up call.
“It needs to be on probation,” said Linda Zayas, 32, a neighborhood resident since age 5 who graduated from Von Humboldt in 1979. She has a son in 4th grade and daughter in 6th. A Clemente High School dropout, Zayas said she wanted her children to learn more than she did.
“Before they first got on probation, the kids didn’t want to go to school because the teachers weren’t teaching them,” Zayas said. “Now, the teachers are putting an effort to helping the students.”
Margarita Oquendo has been acquainted with the school since enrolling in 1973 and graduating in 1975.
Since then, Margarita Oquendo’s siblings, three children, and nieces and nephews have been attending Von Humboldt–a rare phenomenon when the trend for Chicago middle-class families is to move to the suburbs in search of better schools.
The Oquendo family tradition is expected to last until 2007, when Melanie should graduate, marking 34 years of family ties to Von Humboldt.
Given the family tradition, Oquendo expressed some embarrassment for not knowing about Von Humboldt’s probation status. She added that she has hardly seen any of the school newsletters that Kalamatas said he writes every month.
“Until you mentioned it, I didn’t know,” Oquendo said, who added that the news struck her as funny.
“What are they doing wrong? Now, I’m worried that with all the school (extracurricular) activities they do have, it may be taking them out of the classroom,” Oquendo said.
At report card pickup day last month, an occasion that typically draws 85 percent of the school’s parents, many moms and dads were puzzled when asked about their experience with probation.
LaTerra Hadnot, 37, who has daughters in 3rd and 6th grades, was standing with another mother also unaware that Von Humboldt was on probation.
“I didn’t know the school was on probation,” said Hadnot, turning to the other parent as both stood outside a 6th-grade classroom waiting their turn to pick up report cards. “Jeez, he’s (a reporter) from the outside and he’s telling us, and we’re on the inside.”
At the same time, Hadnot said she has noticed several changes in the past year: More student discipline, security guards who walk some children home, the offer of a payment plan to buy the navy-blue-and-white school uniforms and Von Humboldt Dolphins T-shirts, and a school key chain distributed during report card pickup day.
“It’s improved to me,” Hadnot said.
Julio Irizarry, 33, a Cook County Forest Preserve police officer who lives across the street from Von Humboldt, has lived in the neighborhood all his life, but he, his wife and their two children who attend Von Humboldt are planning to move out of the neighborhood because they want to buy a home of their own.
“I went to public schools, and it’s different today,” Irizarry said. “You don’t have the influence from the parents. I remember my mother being involved in the school programs, and there used to be a clique (of parents) in the community. It’s a tough world to grow up out there. . . . It’s frustrating, and it’s like a domino effect. It starts out at home, and it runs into the schools.”
Irizarry said he has noticed many improvements while Von Humboldt has been on probation, such as more involvement between teachers and parents. Ultimately, he said, good schools depend on good homes.
“(T)here has been a dramatic improvement, and if it has to do with probation, then so be it,” Irizarry said. “You . . . wonder why did the school let itself get to where it’s at? . . . Maybe I as a parent should be more involved with the school. It’s a joint effort: The parents, the community, the school, the teachers. If I’m going to blame the school, then I’m going to blame the parents.”
