Principal Christ Kalamatas of Von Humboldt Elementary School entered the 8th grade summer school classroom Thursday with a stack of sealed envelopes.
The anticipation was unbearable.
The ensuing moments marked a major event in the young lives of these pupils. And it also marked the end of Von Humboldt’s bittersweet yearlong journey on academic probation, an epilogue with disturbing results–but also hope that next year will be better.
After being told just last June that they were barred from graduation, the 8th graders enrolled in summer school were about to receive their math and reading scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills taken earlier in the week.
As the pupils opened their envelopes, Room 102 erupted in elation–and devastation.
Yvonne McCoy, 14, bearing a family burden of trying to become the first child among four siblings to graduate from high school, burst into sobs as teachers consoled her. She will repeat 8th grade.
“It’s just that my mother was expecting me to graduate,” Yvonne said. “I tried to my hardest, to do my homework and everything. The only thing I can think right now is, Lord, why me? I didn’t get into no fights. I didn’t cuss. I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink.”
“Yes-s-s-s!” shouted Monique Clark, 14, as she leaped from her chair and danced in the aisle. She passed.
“Yeah, I got it!” blurted out Ortrella Dotson, 14, as she jumped into the air and twirled around.
“Finally! I ain’t got to go to the library anymore,” exclaimed Eddie Padilla, 14. He was the only 8th grader who played by school rules last June and sat in the school library during regular graduation ceremonies as all failing 8th graders were supposed to do.
He passed on Thursday also.
“I’m going to get me clothes today for graduation,” he said, referring to ceremonies Tuesday for 8th graders in the Chicago school system’s summer programs.
But most 8th graders didn’t pass.
Pupils with reputations as class clowns or troublemakers suddenly turned silent. Others stared at the paper, as if hoping the ink would change before their eyes.
A few just left the building.
Meanwhile, some pupils who were headed for transition centers–for those who were turning 15, too old to return to elementary school–were acting as if they’d passed. “It’s time for celebration!” said Carlos Martinez, who will be 15 next month.
In the year that the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees placed Von Humboldt on probation, putting on the line the jobs of its principal, assistant principals and 80 teachers, the school has learned some tough lessons: Perhaps the most difficult is that pupils can fall dangerously behind as early as preschool, which explains why so many 3rd graders failed summer school systemwide.
School board officials are now considering adding summer school next year for failing 1st graders, joining sessions for poor performing 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th graders.
“I don’t believe these kids come to kindergarten with the necessary skills,” Von Humboldt Principal Kalamatas said. “The kids we start at kindergarten are behind because of a lack of home teaching that used to be present in a lot of homes.”
In addition to pedagogical improvements, such as lengthening reading periods during the school day–including adding one for kindergarten–and more after-school math and reading classes for flunking pupils, Kalamatas said he has confronted the human dimensions of probation: Schools cannot easily correct years of automatic promotions for students who should have received remedial attention a long time ago.
Similarly, officials need time to turn around the attitudes of everyone associated with a big institution like Von Humboldt, at 1,300 pupils one of the largest elementary schools in Chicago.
“I don’t think you can put a number on it, 10 years or 8 years,” Kalamatas said. “In terms of staffing and things like that, it’s going to take a little bit longer, getting the staff focused on, `We can do it’–and it’s happening here and people are buying into it. But with the scores being so far behind for so many years, that’s going to take some time to turn it around.
“It wouldn’t be like comparing it to the corporate business world,” he added, “where a company is failing and you can go in and clear house. That’s not what it’s about. We can’t do that. We can’t take back what the kids did or did not learn three or four years ago. You just can’t erase the past.”
At Von Humboldt, among the 109 schools on academic probation in the 557-school system, the numbers of 3rd, 6th and 8th graders failing summer school was below systemwide averages. Last spring, the figures also fell behind most probation schools, which largely posted substantial test score gains.
Whereas 56 percent of all summer school 3rd graders failed and will be forced to repeat their grade, the figure at Von Humboldt, at 2620 W. Hirsch St. in East Humboldt Park, was 71 percent: Only 18 of 62 passed.
While 43 percent of all 6th graders enrolled in summer school in Chicago flunked, Von Humboldt saw 66 percent fail to make the cut: Only 15 of 44 passed.
And for 8th grade summer school, the systemwide failure figure was 38 percent, compared with 58 percent at Von Humboldt. That is, of the 38 pupils in 8th grade attending summer school, 16 met promotion standards and will go to high school. Two failing kids received waivers to go to high school; 14 other failing kids will be retained in 8th grade. The remaining six failed to post required scores, but because they will be 15 years of age by Dec. 1, they will be sent to transition high schools and can enter regular high school only after posting required test scores.
Despite home visits by school officials, four 8th graders never even showed up to summer school, including a girl who became pregnant and a boy whom 8th grade teacher Daniel Snyder would see on the streets in the morning as he drove into the school parking lot.
He was unsuccessful in persuading the boy to attend classes. All four pupils, apparently resigned to failure, will be sent to transition centers because of their age.
“There were really not many surprises about the 16 (who passed),” said Snyder, 37. “They were hard workers. They showed up almost every day and had no attendance problems. But some of them who didn’t make it had behavior problems.”
Visits to 6th and 8th grade classrooms during the summer showed that those behavior problems included shouting obscenities, throwing paper wads at the teacher, ignoring practice tests, and, in the 8th grade classes, drawing gang symbols or cartoons–leading to many trips to the principal’s office. A few 8th graders were suspended.
One boy wore slippers with a stuffed gorilla on the front; a girl had some in the shape of bulldogs. The girl passed summer school, the boy didn’t.
Then there was the 6th grader who just before summer school began was grazed by a bullet one evening. That student, though hard working, didn’t pass.
Still, the Von Humboldt test figures are by no means the worst in the Chicago school system. Some probation schools had a failure rate as high as 80 percent.
Kalamatas finds consolation in that fact. He said he is also encouraged by how many pupils posted big improvements, even if not enough to meet the Chicago school board’s new promotion criteria (which does not even require a child to be at grade level, but rather only a year or two behind, depending on grade).
“If you broke it down to summer schools at probation schools, I bet you we did pretty darn good,” Kalamatas said. “The 16 who passed (promotion standards), they wouldn’t be entering high school if they weren’t in the summer program. I’ve got 16 success stories.”
He also noted that his 6th graders’ reading scores grew on average by 6 1/2 months and their math scores by 4 1/2 months.
“That to me was really encouraging,” Kalamatas said. “I’m real happy with that. The board is putting so much emphasis on these scores, and I’m starting to find some positive things in them.”
While last spring’s test scores influenced the removal of some probation managers and consultants at a few probation schools, summer school results are not expected to have a great impact on how the board proceeds at probation schools, said Paul Vallas, the school board’s chief executive officer.
Vallas said he recognized that probation schools like Von Humboldt “are digging themselves out of a deeper hole” because they have more pupils severely behind grade level.
“We will adjust the ways we do things in the school based on the summer school results. We look at what the school has accomplished during the regular school year and during summer school. This is an organic progress,” Vallas said.
“What gets schools off probation is overall results. Summer school is part of the school year, but it’s the smallest part of the school year. To the degree that the summer school results help the academic performance of the students, to that degree it will help the school get off probation,” Vallas said.
The board’s use of a uniform curriculum this summer has led to an initiative to begin creating a uniform curriculum for each grade level during the regular school year, school officials said.
Observations of summer school classes at Von Humboldt were intensified by the smaller learning environment, where a total of 214 pupils were enrolled in various summer school programs. Student conduct was frequently disruptive and occasionally disturbing.
On one day, in a hot, non-air-conditioned 6th grade classroom, two boys began fighting over the sole fan in the back of the room. One boy named Robert began shouting obscenities at the other, and a girl joined the action.
Teacher Cheryl Mackey, 41, sent Robert into the hallway, but he later disappeared and Mackey called security. He was eventually found.
In an interview later, Robert was asked why he became disruptive.
“To bring my anger out–what else am I supposed to do?” said Robert, who took two buses and a rapid transit train to arrive at Von Humboldt because his family moved to the South Side shortly after summer school began. “I know what I did was wrong.”
Robert passed summer school.
THE SERIES
– Oct. 27, 1996: Observers across the nation watch Von Humboldt and other Chicago public schools on probation to see if turning a major urban school system over to City Hall can work.
– Dec. 1, 1996: The first envoys of the Chicago school board take a close look at the school. Their diagnosis: Things are looking up, but the school has a long way to go.
– Feb. 9, 1997: As spring tests loom, teachers wonder whether an outside probation manager can find the answers to lift pupils’ scores.
– March 9, 1997: Pupils take the IGAP test, a potential barometer of the school’s progress in its struggle to get off academic probation.
– May 5, 1997: On report card day, many parents are surprised to learn that the school has been on academic probation.
– May 25, 1997: Despite a year of effort, Von Humboldt fails its big test: raising scores. Now pupils and staff are smarting as summer school looms.
– June 17, 1997: A bittersweet day for 8th graders: 59 pupils graduate but 45 don’t, because their scores on standardized tests don’t make the grade.
– June 29, 1997: Von Humboldt ends a long, frustrating school year with little or no improvement in pupils’ test results.
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MORE ON THE INTERNET: The Tribune’s series on Chicago public schools–Probation on Trial: One School’s Journey–can be found at chicago.tribune.com/news
