For freshmen at the Marine Military Academy on Chicago’s West Side Tuesday, the first day of school revealed a work in progress.
Administrators unpacked computers and assembled desks, while students strolled the hallways without their mandated uniforms — due to construction delays, their khaki outfits were missing in action, sitting on pallets in the building, waiting to be unloaded.
None of it, however, fazed the freshmen at the nation’s first public high school affiliated with the Marine Corps.
“I’m here for discipline,” said Roberto Rodriguez, 14. “I want to leave here with discipline and a nice career.”
At 641 other public schools across Chicago, a new year for 410,000 students means anxious delays, high expectations, new principals and back-to-school headaches for school staff and families getting used to new student-tracking software.
Grasping a large, golden bell, Mayor Richard Daley rang in the new school year on the steps of Harvard School for Excellence, 7525 S. Harvard Ave., where he hailed the overhauled school as an example of the dramatic changes sweeping the Chicago Public Schools district.
“The highest priority and the best gift I could give to any child here in the city of Chicago is a good, quality education. It’s up to the parents, it’s up to the community,” Daley said.
Daley, accompanied by schools chief Arne Duncan, chose Harvard to open the school year because it is the school district’s second “turnaround” school, with a new principal and all but two of its teaching staff replaced in an effort to improve student performance and teacher accountability.
The mayor cited Harvard and another turnaround effort, the Sherman School of Excellence on the South Side, which was featured in a Tribune series this week, as examples of the city seeking to make dramatic changes in troubled schools.
Duncan noted that the district this year has instituted a merit-pay pilot program at 10 schools in which staff can potentially earn more money for raising student performance. And he also said that a record 171 city schools are starting the new year with new principals at the helm.
“We are really excited about their caliber and commitment,” he said of the principals.
On her first school day as the new principal of Harper High in West Englewood, Kenyatta Butler displayed the tough-love approach she hopes can turn around the academically failing school.
Butler admonished tardy students at the door, saying, “You have to be on time. This is not going to work.” She advised a 17-year-old freshman who didn’t want to attend Harper to enroll in a GED program. And she gave a failing 19-year-old student a chance to re-enroll, adding, “Don’t ever say I don’t give second chances.”
Butler, who arrived at the school at 6 a.m., knows she has her work cut out. She said just 36 percent of Harper students graduate, citing a recent University of Chicago report.
“I think she’s making a lot of good changes,” said senior Chiamaka Mogbo, 18.
Not all the changes went smoothly. Butler and other principals reported delays with a new districtwide software system that allows teachers to take attendance, report grades and track student achievement on classroom computers. District officials said that high usage during peak hours slowed the system, causing delays at some schools with reporting attendance and registering new students.
Officials said they were striving for 100 percent attendance on the first day of school. Each percentage point in overall attendance means the district gets an additional $18 million in state funding for the next school year.
Typically, officials said, about 92 percent of Chicago students turn up on the first day, which means about 369,000 students were expected Tuesday. But officials don’t expect to announce exact attendance numbers until later this week.
The Marine Military Academy, one of 17 new schools opened this fall, has an inaugural class of about 135 students but has room for 150. Principal Paul Stroh said the aim is to gain another class each year until it has a full 9th- to 12th-grade school of 550 students.
Students are required to have four years of English, math and science and must take two 50-minute classes of algebra. Morning drill sessions open each school day.
Students eventually will dress in military uniforms, but Stroh said officials are not gearing them toward a military career.
“The overarching objective is to prepare our students to go to college,” Stroh said. “We don’t push the military, we push post-secondary education.”Gabrielle Mendoza, 14, from the Brighton Park neighborhood, said she chose the school because of its small size.
“The schools I would have gone to, it wouldn’t have been the same. Here it’s stricter, more disciplined and safer,” she said.
The Austin Polytechnical Academy also opened Tuesday with 130 freshmen, each clad in khaki pants and a dark-blue polo shirt. The school, located on the second floor of the old Austin High School on the West Side, aims to prepare students for college and high-tech manufacturing jobs. The campus will add a new freshman class every year.
On Tuesday, however, students spent much of their time trying to find their classes and wave off the dean, who kept insisting they tuck in their shirts.
Jordan Moore, 14, said he signed up for the academy because he wanted to be part of something new.
“It’s a new school, so we get to be the leaders,” said Moore, who lives two blocks from the school.
The new school comes as some relief to Austin community members, who were angered when the district began phasing out Austin High four years ago. Since then, teenagers who live in the neighborhood have been scattered across the city to find an education. Many community activists want the return of a large, four-year high school.
The academy shares space with the Austin Business and Entrepreneurship High School, a 2-year-old pre-engineering school operated for the district, located on the first floor of the old Austin High. It is run in cooperation with the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, a group of area labor, business and education leaders.
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jebriggs@tribune.com
IN THE WEB EDITION
See more pictures and videos of the back-to-school experience, and the Tribune special report “The Toughest Assignment,” at chicagotribune.com/ schoolstarts
