The early years were easy and gave no warning.
Norma Gobert’s son, Heath Owens, was a bright child in the gifted program at Aurora’s Bardwell Grade School. But by 4th grade, he had begun losing interest in his schoolwork. And when he was 10, in 5th grade, his 4-year-old sister accidentally drowned.
“He stopped being interested, and he stopped caring if he learned anything,” Gobert said.
By junior high, Gobert’s former A student was bringing home D’s. He was smart enough to know just what he had to do to pass but not willing to do more. Battles over homework became a nightly heartache for his mother and stepfather, John Gobert.
“Teachers disliked him because he’s smart but refused to take an interest, not because he caused trouble. He has always been polite,” Norma Gobert said. When Owens was to graduate from Waldo Middle School last year, the Goberts began considering sending him to a parochial high school. Then Owens heard a presentation in school about Communities in Schools (CIS) Academy, Aurora’s 9th-grade school for underachievers who are at risk of dropping out. He told his parents he wanted to go there.
“It sounds ridiculous when I hear myself saying it, but he became more responsible,” said Gobert, an active member of the CIS Parent Advisory Council. “He’s getting good grades. We’re getting along at home. That’s a big thing. Instead of looking for reasons to not go to school, he wants to go.”
Communities in Schools Academy focuses more on the word “community” than it does on the word “academy.” Housed in the former Barber-Green road equipment manufacturing plant on Aurora’s west side, the small staff of five wraps the 48 students in as much academics, leadership, responsibility and community involvement as they can, said CIS principal Joan Glotzbach, who also teaches in the school.
“You plant as many seeds as you can, and then you see what takes off,” Glotzbach said. “You can’t be a passive learner here.”
CIS is one of about 40 related academies nationwide that exist outside the walls of a traditional school but the only one in Illinois. Teachers and counselors nominate 60 incoming high school freshmen from West Aurora School District 129 and East Aurora School District 131. The students must want to turn around their poor school performance.
Classes are small. There are no East-West divisions. Learning is hands-on, project-based and individualized to allow students to progress at their own speed. Freshman academics are backed up with study skills classes, leadership classes, team building, social skills, individual counseling, peer mediation, tutoring and extras like speech/theater, art, vocal ensemble and a book club.
Parent-teacher-student relationships are strong. “We don’t hesitate to use the phone, to involve the family,” said Glotzbach, who knows ages, grades and details on each student — but doesn’t tell. “Trust is a biggie. We are emotionally invested in these kids.”
Each of the students has circumstances that hindered his or her academics. Some were absent from school often. Others, because of family problems, lost belief in themselves. Most got behind, felt overwhelmed and reacted with apathy.
Problems at home–including illness, divorce, living in foster homes, poverty, sexual and chemical abuse, homelessness, gangs and crime–have affected the majority of the students, Glotzbach said.
Shannon Highsmith, 15, had a mix of poor and failing grades at Aurora’s Washington Middle School last year. At the end of the year, she admitted, she had failed to turn in 31 math assignments.
“I went to school every day, but when I got to the middle of 8th grade I knew I was failing,” Highsmith said. “I figured I could never get caught up. Why not just let it go?”
This year at CIS, Shannon’s grades are C’s and above. She is more motivated, she said. “The teachers have more time for you. It’s not simple, but it’s easier to learn,” she said. “I’m learning that if you do your homework and listen in class, and do what the teachers tell you, it’s easier.”
Incorporated in 1994, the districts formed CIS because of the high percentage of freshmen who dropped out of high school; in the ’92-93 school year, a majority of freshmen left. When word spread in January that CIS’s top student from last year had tried Aurora East and West Aurora High Schools, then dropped out as a sophomore, the news hit hard. CIS parents rallied for support to make it more than a one-year school.
In January, Aurora Mayor David Stover offered CIS a rent-free home on the fourth floor of Aurora’s Root Street Community Resource Center beginning with the next school year, a move that will allow CIS to include a sophomore year and expand from 60 to 105 students next year. He also designated $100,000 from the city’s gang intervention funds for the academy, some of which will go toward renovations at the center.
“It’s very difficult to turn around in nine months what has taken years to fall apart,” said Glotzbach, who believes a second year at CIS will give students time to build on self-esteem and confidence as well as academics.
But next year’s new students will come to CIS only from District 131, Glotzbach said, not from District 129.
Aurora West principal Mark McDonald said his school may send individual freshman students to CIS on a day-to-day basis, but the district intends to have its own in-house freshman academy by next school year.
“Part of the problem is that the (staff) people CIS students bond with are not here,” McDonald said. “There has been a problem when the kids come back.”
Pat Davenport of DeKalb, CIS executive director, said, “We believe that the negative influence from older peers is not as strong when (they are educated) outside the traditional high school setting.” Davenport describes the CIS partnership of East and West students as a great accomplishment: “No one in the school is known as East or West. They are there to work together, which is what you want to teach people to do.”
CIS’ current operating budget of about $2,200 per student comes from the two districts’ Title I federal funds (provided to supplement regular education and based on the number of low-income students in a school), as well as City of Aurora grants and a few private donations, Davenport said. She anticipates that the extra $100,000 from the city and the elimination of $70,000 a year on rent, utilities and building upkeep will help offset the loss of District 129’s financial support.
“This is the traditional freshman curriculum taught in a different manner,” Glotzbach said. “These are kids who have the potential, but it hasn’t come out. They all set goals here of what they want to accomplish, and we work to reach those goals.”
“We” is a key word.
“Having the family involved is a very powerful tool to a student’s success,” she said. “It not only empowers the student to have school and parents supporting them, but it also empowers the parents who have felt at such a loss at what to do.
“The kids grow a lot in one year, and you find that the families grow alongside the kids.”
