With New Leader and New Spirit, Southwest High Hopes to Shed ‘Failing’ Tag

By Julie Hubbard, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Feb. 11–For the past five years, Southwest High School has been branded with a label it despises: It’s a “failing” school, according to the state of Georgia.

Since 2002, too many of its students have failed math and reading tests on state exams. During those years, the south Macon school also has struggled to reach a 60 percent graduation rate, a target the state expects schools to hit.

The latest Georgia Public Policy Foundation poll ranks it as one of the worst — No. 322 out of 361 high schools across the state — because just 34 percent of its students score well on state exams. If the school doesn’t make substantial improvements by 2008, the state can come in, fire the school’s staff and take charge — a consequence for schools that fail under federal No Child Left Behind mandates.

To break the cycle, at least 81 percent of its students will need to pass an English/language arts test and 46 percent of them must pass math on state exams this spring.

It’s all a sore spot for the school, which has a long, proud history dating to the days of Willingham and McEvoy high schools. Willingham, a boys’ school, and McEvoy, a girls’ school, were merged to create Southwest. During the early 1970s, it was one of the largest high schools in the country. For years, it fielded nationally recognized basketball teams, and its graduates include former NBA stars Norm Nixon and Jeff Malone.

Now, despite the recent track record, there are early signs that the school — under new leadership — and its students are getting the message. Inside the old white brick walls with blue trim, students say momentum for change grows.

“I feel like people gave up on this school a long time ago,” said sophomore Courtney Thomas. “All they see is Southwest doing something bad.”

“We’re trying to come back up,” 17-year-old junior Parrish Taylor said during a recent lunch break. “I see changes. Administration has started to tighten up. It used to be laid back, but students are working harder, studying.”

The school, with new principal Tyrone Bacon at the helm, has spent about $222,000 of its budget to reorganize under a massive restructuring plan, implemented a year earlier than required by the state, so school officials can take a run this year at defying the odds — and make Adequate Yearly Progress.

TATTERED IMAGE

Southwest High has been on the state’s “needs improvement” list for four years, because for five years it hasn’t met AYP, the accountability gauge that measures whether a school has met No Child Left Behind benchmarks.

Only 19 schools in the state are in the same position. Eleven schools statewide are at a dire stage, not having met AYP for seven years, said Wanda Creel, Georgia Department of Education’s director of school improvement.

Most of the schools continually on the needs-improvement list are urban with high percentages of low-income, black or Hispanic students, or those with disabilities or in other ethnic subgroups. A school’s overall student body and each of its subgroups are required to pass reading and math on state exams, Creel said.

A school’s about-face “can be done,” she said, saying that of the 48 schools that did not meet AYP for seven years, 83 percent of them made it in 2006.

“It’s about the level of support given to a school, strategies in place … working with students to see progress,” she said.

Until the 1980s, Southwest was a “successful” school, school board member Tommy Barnes said. Looking back, the school did take “some hits,” he said.

Rezoning was one factor, Barnes said, since Southwest absorbed many low-income students from Southeast High School when it closed several years ago.

“But that doesn’t add up to where it is now,” he said. “We’re giving it the special attention it deserves. We want to change its course.”

Ninety-seven percent of Southwest’s student population is black, and 81 percent of its students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

“It’s not an excuse, but it does make a difference,” Bacon said.

Statistically, students who come from a two-parent home or from a more affluent home have had more “time on learning” by the time they reach high school, he said, and children from broken homes generally have not had that same learning time.

Southwest teachers point to a series of blunders and missteps that, over the years, contributed to the school’s downward spiral.

From 2003 to 2006, for example, about one in four teachers quit. Many of them quit after they were placed in ninth-grade classrooms with virtually no support, staff members said in the school’s restructuring plan, which requires them to cite their problems. Block scheduling — hour-and-a-half-long classes condensed into one semester — also challenged students’ attention spans and left them even more unprepared, said teachers such as Dorothy Goodrum.

Ineffective leadership, no teacher accountability, limited programs of study and inconsistent school policies also were blamed.

THE ‘TURNAROUND SCHOOL’

The first step to turn around a school is to get solid leadership at the top, said Gene Bottoms, an expert on high school reform for the Southern Regional Education Board.

“That alone, if the person is good, can give a jump in student achievement,” he said.

When Southwest High School’s former principal Gail Fowler announced that she planned to retire last spring after working there since 1998, the system searched for a go-getter.

They found Bacon, 35, who rolled up his sleeves immediately. On the first day of school in August, he even ripped a hole in the knee of his suit pants when he broke up a fight.

In the first month, he held a senior night and fed seniors and their parents fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, then handed each senior a folder with their credits needed to graduate on time.

“He’s real aggressive with dealing with discipline,” said Mike Van Wyck, the system’s assistant superintendent of student support services. In 2005-06, 487 disciplinary actions were reported at Southwest, compared to 854 so far this year.

One of Bacon’s first purchases was buying his staff walkie-talkies to break up fights faster. He also rewards students with pep rallies for good behavior. Student Jamario Walker said they’ve had three this school year.

“There’s no sleeping in class,” he said. “People want to come to school.”

Bacon walks the hallways like a popular senior. Parents and community members help him do 100 “walk throughs” a week, showing up unannounced in classrooms to observe teachers and hold them accountable — another change, school officials said.

“They want to learn and graduate,” Goodrum said of the school’s revival. “They don’t want to drop out.”

In the past, teachers’ lessons didn’t match the state curriculum or challenge students to think deeply enough, said Valeria Cordy, the system’s director of special programs.

The high school also wasn’t using its resources to support teaching the state curriculum, and it didn’t build in student tutorials or safety nets for students needing remedial help, she said.

In 2005-06, the school spent $201,000 in federal Title I money to hire five people, either retired teachers or paraprofessionals, to work in classrooms and to buy copiers and computer printers, Cordy said.

“Most of the money has gone this year toward after-school (student) tutorials, transportation, parent activities, training for teachers and instructional supplies,” she said of the $197,000 Title I money and $84,000 in school improvement funds.

School officials also have assigned correct codes for students for testing purposes and reorganized master schedules, so students aren’t taking high school graduation tests on subjects before they cover the material in class.

NEW FACILITY, NEW ATTITUDE

With proceeds from a countywide 2005 penny sales tax, a new $31.9 million Southwest facility is being planned. It is scheduled to open in August 2009.

“New schools provide new attitudes and new incentives to get things done,” said Bill Barr, Bibb’s school facility design consultant. “It tells the community the school system cares about them and wants them to have a good place to learn.”

School officials have traveled to New York to study high-performing high schools.

According to board member Gary Bechtel, the rebuilt Southwest could house a ninth-grade academy or a smaller “learning communities” component. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also has talked about potential funding, he said.

Over the years, the “failing” label has taken its toll on Southwest, said Ulysses Fitzpatrick, who’s taught geometry at the school for more then a decade. He’s ready for change.

“We really are a good school,” he said. “We’re just now an academic-minded school. We have to learn to compete, and taking tests is part of competition.

“That’s what we have to get good at.”

To contact Julie Hubbard, call 744-4331 or e-mail jhubbard@macontel.com [mailto:jhubbard@macontel.com].

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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