(Vol. 3, No. 2 - Fall 1999)

Putting the Community Back
into Neighborhood Schools

Thanks to an innovative "community schools" program, the doors at Meyzeek and Farnsley Middle Schools are open late into the evening for students, families, and other neighbors. What the new community schools can do for young people and adults is bounded only by imagination -- and money


by Anne C. Lewis

By mid-afternoon on weekdays, almost everyone leaves some of the most commodious and accessible real estate in Jefferson County. The lights go out, the halls become silent, and the doors are closed for 15 hours or more. The gyms and auditoriums and computer labs stand idle, disturbed only by the occasional rustle of a maintenance worker's bag and broom.

When these vast public buildings reopen the next morning, thousands of children stream through entranceways and into classrooms for another day of schoolwork. When the last bell rings and the work is done, the doors are locked behind the students once again - and many must search for a decent place to hang out, or settle for loneliness at home or the uncertainty of the streets.

What a missed opportunity, thought those working with the Youth Initiative out of the Louisville mayor's office. Not only for kids, but for the entire community.

Those thoughts led to conversations among school district officials, the mayor, and the city parks department. And over time, those conversations led to a joint JCPS-Metro community schools initiative, now in its second full year.
The effort involves three JCPS middle schools - Frost, Meyzeek, and Farnsley. The Frost program is just starting up, but the programs at the venerable Meyzeek complex and the brand-spanking new Farnsley site are well underway, keeping the schoolhouse doors open until late into the night for students, families, and other folks in nearby neighborhoods.

Each school, in its own way, is beginning to generate a sense of ownership in its surrounding community. In some respects, they stand in contrast to the norm in Jefferson County, where the widespread use of magnets, special programs, and busing has taken its toll on the concept of "neighborhood schools."

At Meyzeek, the story is about how the community schools initiative is "giving the school back" to its downtown community. To the south, Farnsley has a different story to tell. There, local leaders say, the initiative is creating community where little existed before.

Stronger Bonds Between Families and Schools

In both locations the community school idea is generating a high level of excitement and creativity. What community schools can do for young people and adults, advocates say, is bounded only by imagination (and money). Principals are intrigued with their potential, teachers are becoming involved, and those responsible for tracking their evolution anticipate that the stronger bonds developing between the schools and the families they serve will have a positive impact on student engagement in learning.

When the project began, the school system's goals for the initiative were modest, says JCPS coordinator Melissa Barman - who includes the community schools among several responsibilities she juggles at the district office. District leaders hoped the initiative could help reduce crime in the areas around the schools and believed a diverse menu of program offerings would attract a significant number of students and adults to each location.

Barman says the district anticipated at least four activities per night involving a total of at least 100 people. While the attendance figures "are not quite there yet," the programs are new, and the schools' coordinators continue to experiment with different offerings in an effort to gauge what each community wants and needs most.

The variety is certainly in place: recreational programs for kids; a smorgasbord of classes for adults; and new spaces for community-sponsored events. Both schools also support Youth Services Centers, and Farnsley has a "Neighborhood Place" - a one-stop center for social services - next door. All told, it's hard to imagine a need that is not being met at one of the two sites.

At both Meyzeek and Farnsley, responsibility for community school activities is shared between a community school coordinator paid by the school district and a recreation programs supervisor supported by the parks department. The schools provide the space, and the program provides an additional security person for the building. The community school staffs work closely with principals, who have ultimate responsibility for their building's safe and secure operation.

Meyzeek: Inviting the Neighborhood Back In

Located near Smoketown, Shelby Park, and other inner-city neighborhoods, Meyzeek for years seemed "out of sorts" with the community around it. A popular magnet school, it draws students from a wide area and until recently operated almost as two schools, one for magnet students and one for the "resides." Under the leadership of long-time principal Debbie Baker, Meyzeek's instructional program has become more integrated over the past five years, as Baker began to reassign teachers in ways that assured everyone would work with neighborhood kids.

But while Baker says she has always believed that schools need to be open to their physical communities, she admits that "it wasn't until the community schools initiative came along that we found the kind of structure we needed to do effectively."

Baker's efforts to create connections began years ago with the families of neighborhood children. Many parents and guardians in the community attended Meyzeek when it was the neighborhood Jackson Junior High School. Their affinity for the familiar three-story structure was lost with the school's transformation into a math-and-science magnet. Restoring the old feeling of ownership has been a slow process, with plenty of suspicion on both sides of the school fence.

"When I first came," Baker says, "the attitude within the school was that this is a magnet, but we would 'let' those kids across the street come in." Ann Ames, a former security guard at the school and now a parent coordinator, confirms this observation. A neighborhood resident, Ames often used to hear the complaint, "that's not our school anymore." And in many ways, it wasn't. As middle-class kids from outside the community - and their parents - came to dominate the population, the school staff found itself with two constituencies. One was well-educated and politically influential; the other less well-to-do and less savvy about the ins and outs of public institutions. Local parents and community folk began to feel disenfranchised.

Ames credits Baker with slowly changing that attitude. Over the years, Baker - a 12-year veteran of the school - began to seek out relationships with local leaders, visited the director of the nearby Presbyterian community center regularly, and joined local service boards. She found ways to provide needy students with clothes and eyeglasses and housing for their families - tasks that now belong to the Youth Services Center. "I don't know how we did it before the center," she says. Skilled in social work and community relations, the YSC's staff helped Baker and Meyzeek reach deeper into the surrounding neighborhoods and further reduce the wariness and skepticism.

A federally funded "Weed and Seed" program, promoting neighborhood development, grew out of the continuing work of Baker and community leaders. When the community school emerged, say Baker and Ames, it was a logical extension of efforts already underway to rebuild community resources and restore pride in the historic neighborhoods served by Meyzeek.

Doing It for the Kids

From a small desk she found at a second-hand store for $25, Vickie Gaddie runs activities that fill up a wing of Meyzeek "and could keep 10 more auditoriums busy."

It might be a Global Wellness Day, or a Father-Daughter Appreciation Day sponsored by the Eastern Star, or an awards ceremony on Sunday scheduled by the Presbyterian Center. Twice a week there is a GED class late in the day, an Arts Reach program takes up one of the classrooms, and parents take part in a family aerobics class during Teen Time (this appeals to magnet school mothers who pick their children up at school).

Almost 20 young girls signed up for a cheerleading clinic, and 50 adults came out to watch their exhibition. A martial arts class "thrilled" Baker because it attracted young people from a cross-section of racial groups.
"If folks want it, we'll sure try to get it," says Gaddie, whose own children attended JCPS middle schools. A former "parent support coordinator" in a JCPS middle grades program supported by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Gaddie brings a practical knowledge of parent concerns and community needs to her work.

Gaddie and her parks department colleague meet regularly with Baker and Meyzeek's Youth Services Center director to discuss the school's auxiliary programs - even though the only person directly under the principal's supervision is community school's security guard.Good communication and a shared sense that "we're doing this for the kids" among the professional staff and community volunteers makes the system work.

For example, Gaddie enlisted participants in a night-time men's basketball program to serve as mentors for young boys. Family Court Judge Joan Byer, who has close ties to Meyzeek because she holds truancy court in the school auditorium, has ordered some parents to attend the community school's GED classes. The school's urban 4-H Club is now on the community school's roster of activities, and some teachers play basketball with adults from the community. A Homework Club and Pen Pal Club encourage students to use academic skills.

The community school program fills up the days during vacation times, offering computer classes to adults, and basketball as well as aerobics and karioke. During the school's first year, a summer camp for kids ended with a "lock in," an all-night affair with food, games, and videos.

Helping Families Help Themselves

The other person who is helping to create a renewed sense of community in the Meyzeek neighborhood is Stephon Gilkey, the bold and spirited director of the Youth Services Center. His leadership and his programs mesh with those of the community school initiative. Previously a social worker, he had knocked on many doors in Smoketown and the surrounding area as a family assessor for child protection services. Six years ago he moved to his present post, "where I am empowering families to do things instead of telling them what to do."

Gilkey coordinates a host of different health, social, and other support programs. His bungalow office, just steps away from Gaddie's office window, overflows with kids and adults who find it a comfortable place to talk about problems, meet for counseling in small groups, or help plan activities. He estimates the center serves more than 500 students a month. "Baby, Think It Over" is a teen pregnancy prevention group. The Mania Group meets twice
a week to catch students showing signs of truancy at Meyzeek.

The Safe Harbor program trained a core of teachers at the school who, in turn, trained all teachers to work with students who are affected by severe behavior problems - both victims and those who harm them. The center's Safe Harbor room is a stopping off place for those who have been suspended. "We ask them what could have been done to prevent what happened, and try to get to the bottom of the problem," explains Gilkey. "We want the kids to be ready to move on past what they've done and not take it out into the community."

CHOICE (Children Have Options In Choosing Experiences), a drug prevention program funded out of public housing monies, offers workshops, mentoring, and field trips. One group of Meyzeek students wrote and acted in a play about drug prevention which they performed for younger students. The program, now at eight schools in the county, ends with an awards ceremony for students and parents every year where graduates, going on to high school, are feted.

The center is also a stopping off place for parents, according to Gilkey. "When they were upset, they used to go in and holler at the school people," he says. "Now, they come here first and we talk about the problem, and when they get to the school office, they say what they want to in a calmer way." He has seen a transformation in parent attitudes because of Baker's decision "that all teachers will teach all kids." Meyzeek "is a better school because of that." And because it stands stronger in the community, the neighborhoods around it are becoming stronger and able to collaborate on funding requests. "We are now a good community," says Gilkey.

The Farnsley Story: Building Community

Miles from the inner-city density of buildings and people around Meyzeek, the Farnsley Middle School complex occupies a space that was a farm field not long ago.The new school, completed in early 1998, is as up-to-date as any school building could be. Once landscaping gives it character, Farnsley will have a feeling of physical permanence. Building a sense of community in an area without a strong neighborhood identity will take longer.

Fortunately, Farnsley has business partners who are committed to community-building in the rapidly developing area. The school also has an "ace in the hole" - community school liaison Donna Quiggins.

A resident of the area since 1964, Quiggins has always been a take-charge person in a pleasant way, investing herself in whatever she decided to do. While working at St. Joseph's Children's Home, she became a foster parent to help young people who were floundering. She can count some successes and many adventures. She helped one youngster find his Native American roots and has been taking clothes and other supplies to reservations in the Dakotas every year since. She took the coordinator's job, even though it meant less time for one-on-one help, because she knew "who was who" around the school and what services they needed.

As at Meyzeek, Quiggins and a recreation supervisor who works with the program conducted surveys to find out what people around the school wanted. An advisory board that is broadly representative of the area helps make decisions. The coordinators get the word out through flyers, at meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and churches.

Within a few months of taking the job, Quiggins had put "the ideas that just pop into my head" into action, including:

Quiggins is also pursuing a reading club; and a 10-week course for senior citizens on such topics as Alzheimer's disease, death, living alone, and what to expect from a hospital stay. "Some adults around here have never been in a hospital," she explains. This kind of outreach fulfills one of the original goals of the community schools program, according to JCPS coordinator Melissa Barman, by building linkages to seniors and others who do not have school-age children.

Farnsley's Strong Business Alliances

Farnsley's already strong business alliances blend in well with the community schools initiative. In its earlier existence as Williams Middle, the school developed a unique relationship with United Parcel Service, a major employer in Louisville. UPS employees mentored middle graders, involved them in job-shadowing, and gave them opportunities to develop problem-
solving and public-speaking skills.

The payoff has been two-way, according to Farnsley principal Jan Calvert. At a spring program for the 180 eighth-grade "graduates," held at UPS offices, employees involved were emotionally moved by the conduct of the students. "Here were students whom they thought of as disengaged who got up and performed well," she says. "The adults realized they had been role models."

Other businesses made it possible for Farnsley to become a community school. The Cove Run Business Association (Calvert is a member) realized that with no park and no community center, many low-income children in the area had nothing to do. They began to help by supporting a summer program in local elementary schools. Then the county identified the area as lacking in services. The school board made land behind Farnsley and the Neighborhood Place center next door available for a park that will include baseball and soccer fields.

As a result of these actions, the momentum for community-building began, Calvert says - although she adds that folks in the area have yet to reach agreement on what the burgeoning suburban area should be called. Perhaps "Farnsley" would do.
When the mayor's Youth Initiative began the push for community schools, Farnsley's business friends helped to lobby for a site at the school. The Rohm-Haas company, located down the road from the school, provided a $30,000 grant to Farnsley and Cove Run Elementary School to supplement the community school activities. Another big supporter is Joyce Korphage-Rhea, a pharmacist and member of the business association, who became a persistent advocate for the school's park development (see sidebar).

Farnsley students benefited from the spin-off of a grant made to Western High School to develop a middle school unit on robotics. A group of Farnsley students - with costs underwritten by General Electric - went to Michigan to study automated manufacturing.

Business leadership, Calvert is quick to say, "has been key to the transformation of our school." And, she adds, "our potential is only going to get bigger.When we were Williams Middle School (a few miles away in an old building), we didn't have much of a chance to form a community around the school. But a lot of ownership is beginning to build here."

Through various grants, the students at Farnsley are conducting an archaeological dig at an 1805 farmhouse on the school property. A community gardening group is helping them start an heirloom garden, and area artisans have agreed
to donate time to help the students learn to play dulcimers and spin cloth. "I can see our kids as docents for a pioneer village here," says Calvert.

The students also helped design the parkland, putting in a walking trail and plantings to attract butterflies. The school recently received an Environmental Protection Agency grant to monitor air quality, and the students will create a web site to share the information with residents. Calvert envisioned using woodlands on the far side of the park for trails also, but it turned out to be a less desirable community contribution - a toxic dump. It will be added to the air quality project.

Despite its promising prospects, Farnsley faces the threat of a division within the school itself. As one of the district's three math-science magnets, it will attract a growing number of students from outside the immediate area. Without constant vigilance, it could find its emerging bonds of community threatened by many of the same factors that damaged Meyzeek's neighborhood relationships - a group of "haves" and a group of "have-nots." But Calvert plans to hold academic tracking
to a minimum, integrating all classes other than math and science. She looks forward to greater diversity at the school and believes that over time it will boost the achievement of all students. And Donna Quiggins, no doubt, will find ideas "popping into her head" that will help Farnsley's community school serve all of its students and families.

Beg, Borrow or Negotiate

The early progress of the community schools at Meyzeek and Farnsley is encouraging. The many individuals inside and outside the schools who believe that strong school-community ties are a critical part of school reform are working hard to prove they're right.

But the survival of the community school movement in Jefferson County is no sure bet.

The district has been slow to extend the program to more schools. Insiders say the school district has yet to make a full-fledged commitment to the concept, and point to the fact that the district pays salaries but does not provide operating expenses as proof.

"We have to beg, borrow, or negotiate everything for our programs," says one. "We're operating on a shoestring, and while that does force us to go out into the community for help, there's so much more we could do with more core support from the district."

Perhaps the real test of the community school concept's efficacy will be whether the payoff for Meyzeek, Farnsley, and Frost is so great that other Louisville neighborhoods begin demanding programs of their own. It's an article of faith among hard-pressed public educators that "we can't be all things to all people." But as public schools find themselves under greater and greater pressure to make sure all students achieve more - and as teachers and principals look increasingly to parents and community members for help - that faith could be challenged.

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