North Star Academy is a charter school located in the heart of downtown Newark. Its mission: to provide Newark students from high poverty neighborhoods with the skills, values, and knowledge they need to lead successful lives. Interested parents enter their children in a random lottery to gain admittance. Originally open only to students in Grades 5-8, the school's leaders have amended the charter to extend the program into the high school grades because of parent interest.
The challenges of starting a school from scratch include the need to train and prepare the entire faculty and create a school with a strong, positive culture. Accordingly, school co-founders James Verrilli and Norman Atkins seized on the summer months as a chance to do the hard work of teacher preparation and culture-building. After they had hired teachers who shared their sense of commitment, they spent the summer before school opened four years ago working with the faculty to design a school that reflected their collective vision. Teachers visited exemplary inner city schools, had intense discussions about what they had seen, and brought their own ideas to the table.
The result of this summer work is a school that emphasizes community and academic seriousness. Students wear uniforms, meet in a Community Circle each morning, and are expected to embrace the school's core values: caring, respect, responsibility, and justice. According to Verrilli, this means that visitors who come to the school -- and there have been more than a thousand in the last three years -- are greeted by students who look them in the eye and courteously offer them information. It also means that there is a structured and consistent discipline code and that teachers expect a tone of respect at all times. Students who are guilty of a serious infraction apologize to the entire school community.
In addition to designing a school culture with supportive rituals and policies, teachers spent that initial summer developing a rigorous academic program. As a result, the school year is 11 months long, and the school day is an hour longer than in other Newark public schools. The curriculum is skills- and content-based, but incorporates a variety of educational philosophies, including elements of Ted Sizer's work and ideas of E.D. Hirsch.
In their initial planning, the faculty designed the month of July to differ from other months in several ways. Students come to school for a half-day, attending classes that include an interdisciplinary course on the Italian Renaissance, a poetry workshop, and a class that uses sports to teach statistics. Students who have not met the school's standards for each grade also spend this time doing intensive remedial work.
The July schedule was not designed for students only. The faculty recognized the need to schedule a significant block of time for their own professional development, so the second half of the day teachers spend time improving their own skills. According to Verrilli, these sessions are designed to be a time away from the hustle of the school year when teachers can be reflective and analytical about their practice. "Teachers spend some of their time working together as a faculty and some of their time working individually or in teams. This time is very important for all of us, in that it gives teachers ownership in the program and their own growth." He further adds that "teachers like the fact that they have a voice in how the time is spent."
In planning the July time, the faculty picks an area of concern on which to concentrate. During the first two summers, teachers spent some of this time on procedures and scheduling, but increasingly, the entire time is devoted to curriculum and teacher development. In the summer of 2000, the faculty chose to focus on technology and performance assessment. For a few days, North Star staff with expertise conducted workshops on how to use PowerPoint and Front Page in the classroom. Teachers spent other joint sessions in workshops led by Verrilli, a specialist in assessment. The faculty focused on what they wanted students to know and be able to do in different disciplines, and on designing tasks that targeted these goals. They also spent time refining rubrics, aligning them so that teachers are all using the same criteria to assess students' work.
During the school year, the faculty continues to develop the skills they have learned during the summer in faculty meetings and in monthly half-day professional development days. This year they will continue to hold technology workshops, and time will be provided for teachers to reflect on their experiences with alternative assessments. Teachers are given a "homework" assignment to observe each other's classrooms as a way to improve the quality of these discussions.
With test scores significantly higher than the city average, Verrilli feels the school is on the right track. Eighty-eight percent of the student body was rated proficient or advanced proficient on the state criterion-referenced test in language arts and literacy, compared with an average of 53 percent in the city as a whole. On the state math test, 66 percent of North Star students succeeded, compared with a 24 percent city average. In addition, on the Stanford 9, a norm-referenced test, students have shown consistent growth. Evidence of the school's success shows up in the enthusiasm of parents and teachers, and in the focused and academic climate of the school. More than 750 names are on the school's waiting list. Only three teachers out of 20 have left the school since it opened. Verrilli attributes this low turnover rate to selective hiring and to the fact that teachers feel ownership for the program, in large part due to the summer sessions. "Teachers work extremely hard, but they also have a voice," he comments. "They are each responsible for their own growth, and the growth and direction of the school as a whole."
