As Von Humboldt Elementary School was celebrating being removed from academic probation after three years of stagnant test scores, the Class of ’99 was throwing a curious celebration of its own in the auditorium.
This was the thoroughly modern 8th-grade graduation party as manifested by the Chicago Public Schools’ nationally watched ban on social promotions:
The pupils, all about the same age, had at one time been a distinguishable class, in 6th grade together. But they made quite a different portrait now.
There were the typical graduates who had met the school board’s promotion standards and were moving on to high school.
Then there were 8th graders who hadn’t graduated and instead were being required to attend summer school.
Another subset were those still in 7th grade, who had flunked once.
And finally there were a few who were still in 6th grade, having flunked twice.
The splintering of the class came after the school board banned promoting kids who hadn’t met standards, aiming to improve academic performance but also creating a breach in camaraderie.
Earlier this week, many members of the Class of 1999, profiled in a 1996-97 Tribune series–Probation on Trial–about Von Humboldt’s experience with academic probation, got together for one last time in an auditorium pumped with ear-crushing rap, salsa, mix and cumbia music and catered with chips, pop and a Latin dish of rice and beans.
While Principal Christ Kalamatas and his teachers were finishing up a school day with the vast relief of knowing their school is finally off probation–“It’s like a sword has been removed from my back,” one staff member said–the members of the Class of 1999 were remarkably at ease. Congratulations were offered all around for the graduates along with polite silence for those who failed. The only real awkward moments were the unsuccessful efforts to get the adolescents to dance on the wide-open floor.
The pupils were relieved as well, and many said that while probation was a scourge in one sense, it also invigorated learning at the racially diverse school of about 1,400 pupils in the violent and crime-ridden East Humboldt Park neighborhood.
“It’s good because we’ve been on there for so long. I was thinking, like, finally,” said Nina Rodriguez, 14, who will be going to another probation school in the fall, Clemente High School.
“I guess the kids never knew how much it affected us,” Rodriguez said. “Now they realize. It meant that we didn’t put our minds to what we were doing. Most of the time, we didn’t care– because probably people didn’t remind them that much. I know I did my job to make the school better.”
Laura Zayas, 14, was among the 8th graders who was dressed up for graduation but officially was unable to participate because she didn’t meet promotion standards.
“I felt happy for them, but inside I felt sad,” she said. “I’m going to get my scores right and take summer school,” with the hope of graduating in August.
Also among the original class were two boys who were never able to get out of the 6th grade until this year. This spring, the boys finally met the promotion standards and will be sent to 7th grade.
As they talked with friends and subtly flirted with girls, the two boys admitted to their failings the past three years, set in sharp relief by former classmates celebrating the milestone of going to high school.
“I flunked twice,” said Ricky Garcia, 14. A seemingly popular boy with a cheerful disposition, Ricky didn’t offer clear answers on why he failed. “I don’t know. I didn’t do nothing hardly. I didn’t do my homework, and my scores were too low,” he said. He credited his teacher’s encouragement this year for finally meeting promotion standards.
The other 6th-grade boy, who asked that his name not to be used, gave a more direct assessment. The boy still possessed the brightest smile in the class, but his speech was filled with more slang and substandard English than when he was interviewed three years ago.
“I was a fool and thinking school was a game–and part of messing up,” the boy said. “I just got messed in the test. I got scared and nervous.”
He said a family visit to Puerto Rico for several weeks during one school year also hurt his studies.
For Von Humboldt’s staff and the probation team monitoring its progress, the school’s improvement in test scores was something of a surprise. The scores had dropped slightly since the school was put on probation but then rose dramatically this spring, to 21.5 percent. Kalamatas had assumed the school would have to spend another year or two on probation.
A school is placed on probation if 15 percent or less of its pupils read at grade level on the Iowa Tests. A school is removed from probation if 20 percent or more of its kids read at grade level. In addition to improved reading scores at Von Humboldt, 2620 W. Hirsch St., its math score was 27.2 percent. The system’s probation list is expected to drop from 91 schools to 69 this year, officials said.
Next school year, however, the board will raise the probation standards: 20 percent or less to get on probation and 25 percent to get off probation, schools chief Paul Vallas announced Tuesday. The board will include high dropout rates and low attendance rates as criteria for placing a school on probation because officials fear schools may be “pushing out” weak pupils to inflate test scores, Vallas said.
“It feels great,” a visibly relieved Kalamatas said. “We’re happy about it. We’re going to celebrate, but by the same token, this can fall. There’s no guarantee we’re going to be at 21 percent next year unless we put in an all-out effort. When I patted them on the back, I told my staff now we got 21 percent of our kids to read at grade level, but it’s going to be more challenging to get to, say, 30 percent.”
He said the probation experience was “absolutely overwhelming. You know what was humiliating? That we worked so hard and see the scores drop. Some teachers took it hard and they had no explanation. I kept telling them, keep persevering, keep moving, don’t give up.”
Still, Kalamatas said he recognized that even having only 20 percent or 30 percent of a school’s kids reading at grade level is “unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. That’s the message we’re giving our teachers now. We’ve got to increase.”
Probation was tumultuous for Von Humboldt, where the crumbling brick and limestone exterior and prisonlike caged windows seemed emblematic of its suffering. In the past three years, it had three external partners (an education consultant hired by the board and the school) and three probation managers (usually a central office administrator advising the board on whether anyone should be fired in a probation school). In fact, the board stopped doing business last year with one of Von Humboldt’s former external partners because of poor performance.
Vallas said he was impressed with the school’s publicized struggle with probation. Improvement was slow because the school made radical changes, including moving away from whole language reading instruction to phonics.
“The principal has got a plan. Although he was frustrated with performance three years ago, he was basically laying a foundation,” Vallas said. “Most importantly, he’s got a quality faculty that has bought into his strategy. I expect he will remain off probation.”
