Parents, young students find success with Chester charter

GINA MAYS of Chester was relieved when she learned that her son had been accepted by Widener University to begin his educational career. In kindergarten.

"We spent the summer biting our nails," Mays said. "I am thrilled beyond belief he was able to get in."

In Chester - where, according to the last U.S. Census, only 69 percent of residents have a high-school diploma and just 9 percent have a bachelor's degree - attending a college or university can seem as improbable as the tooth fairy.

But some students in the economically depressed Delaware County city - many of whom still believe in the tooth fairy - are learning that college is not just a dream for kids in other ZIP codes.

The Widener Partnership Charter School, founded in 2006, is an elementary school created by Widener University administrators after several unsuccessful attempts to collaborate with the beleaguered Chester-Upland School District, said Widener University President James T. Harris.

Students at the school - in the former University Technology Park Building at Edgmont Avenue and West 15th Street - mature both in the classroom and on the streets of their hardscrabble city.

"We get questions about people being shot and drug dealers," said Principal Annette Anderson. "We try to talk explicitly about all these things so they know we're not going to gloss over them. These things are here and they're real. We teach them how to navigate in a world that has some issues."

The school, which finishes its second year today, serves 150 students in kindergarten through second grade.

It will add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011, said Steven Wilhite, associate provost for graduate studies at Widener and chair of the charter school's board of trustees.

Marred by a history of poor academic performance and inconsistent leadership, the Chester-Upland School District is no longer an option for some parents like Mays, whose 7-year-old son Paul attends the charter school.

"I was terrified from the moment I knew I was having my son," she said. "I would never send him to Chester-Upland. I think it's sad because there are people who do send their kids there and they love them just as much as I love my child."

Mays said that she looked to Chester's charter schools as her next best hope, unable to afford private-schooling or a big move.

"Just because a child is smart doesn't mean they have the same opportunities," she said. "I can't afford to move to Swarthmore or the Main Line. What I did is find the best school I could."

For Mays, that was the charter school, where students receive an education that includes music, art and Spanish. The school also gives students and their families social-services support from "interdisciplinary resource teams" of Widener professors and grad students in clinical psychology, education, social work, nursing and physical therapy.

"They feel like their school is a safe haven for them," Mays said. "When you think about what some of these children may be going home to, they need that."

Heidi Wood-Tucker, whose son Corey is a second-grader at the charter school, said that she's impressed by the promises the school has kept - from class sizes of no more than 17 to teaching her son to read by the end of first grade.

"One of the things we often get hit with is: 'Oh, you have all the good kids,' " she said. "I'd like to say that's true. What happens is, we have the same makeup as the rest of the school district, but at Widener, no child is worth more than any other, every kid gets an education and problems are taken care of in a timely manner."

Although most of the school's funding comes from the per-pupil allocation provided for each student by the school district, that income is supplemented by grant applications and fundraisers done in conjunction with the university.

During any one semester, four to 10 graduate students work in the school with a team of professors from Widener's School of Human Service Professions, Wilhite said.

"It's a great exchange between our school and the university," Anderson said. "It's almost like a learning laboratory for the university students, and it's an opportunity for our students to see college as an eventuality, and not a possibility."

As school officials gain the trust of parents and students, they also gain the ability to get to root problems, Anderson said.

Some girls wouldn't eat chocolate cookies because they were afraid they would only make them darker. Some boys wouldn't talk to one another because they were from opposite ends of town, she said.

"It was important to squash that and let them know we were not going to let one seed of that germinate here," she said. "We talked about how gang wars started and told them it was important to come together from our school identity, not our street identity."

Now, those same students are speaking Spanish, creating pointillist paintings and discussing emotional competence.

Harris said that he hopes that Widener graduate students working at the charter school experience similar transformations.

"If our students have the experience of working in one of the toughest school systems in America, they'll be prepared to address these issues upon graduation," he said.

Mays, the Widener charter-school parent, said that she was impressed when she learned that Anderson, its principal, had moved to Chester even though she didn't have to.

"I find that wonderful," she said. "The inner-city schools may have great teachers, but they don't live where they teach. How can they understand where these kids are coming from if they don't hear the gunfire at night?"

Mays and Wood-Tucker now worry about the day when their boys will graduate from fifth grade and leave the school. Both hope the charter school will grow to accommodate middle- and high-school students, but administrators said that that's not likely.

"It's like, 'OK, you're going to give our kids this great education and then turn them over to the Chester-Upland School District?' " Mays said. "That is not an option."

Harris, Widener's president, said that he doesn't think that it's the university's responsibility "at this time" to replicate what's going on at the charter school on a higher level.

"The research is overwhelming that the best thing you can do for children is to have a robust learning experience at an early age," he said. "Therefore, we believe if they only spend five years with us and go back into the public-school system, that will only make the public-school system even better."

Meanwhile, other colleges and universities also are investing in Chester's youth, with the same goals.

The Chester Higher Education Council - composed of leaders from Widener, Swarthmore College, Cheyney University, Delaware County Community College, Penn State Brandywine, in Media, and Neumann College - meets three or four times a year to discuss how the institutions can work together to help the school district, Harris said.

Neumann College, in nearby Aston, cosponsors Chester's only Catholic school - Drexel Neumann Academy - along with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, St. Katharine Drexel Parish and the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.

Drexel Neumann, which opened last year, is a private, independently owned school that serves Chester children in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

The school's president, Sister Maggie Gannon, said Neumann plays a "huge role" in the school, providing everything from student teachers to sports clinics to technology assistance.

"Whenever we need something for anything, there's someone at Neumann College who helps us out," Gannon said.

Neumann College President Rosalie Mirenda said that it's all about "giving hope and optimism" to Chester's children.

"I think that we should be an asset to the community that we are in," she said. "Education is our business, our gift, our asset, so sharing it with others is a reasonable thing to do."