The Savannah-Chatham Public Schools look different today than they did just seven years ago, and it’s not just because of new facilities funded by an education sales tax.
The penny sales tax for school improvements, called ESPLOST, has changed the face of the public school system by funding campuses in growth areas and replacing decades-old school buildings across the county, but for the last seven years, officials also have been working to change the heart of local public education.
Turnaround grants, K-8 schools, specialty programs, Twilight School and career pathways have transformed the way students learn, and reforms have won over hundreds of skeptical families who were headed for private schools.
Although the years of reform have not cured all of the public school system’s academic ills, they have made noticeable change.
“They are returning some of the programs that teach students skills to make a living after high school, and I am pleased that there are more specialty programs in the elementary schools,” said Jessie Collier DeLoach, a retired school board member who spent 50 years in public education.
She left the board just as Superintendent Thomas Lockamy was hired to develop plans for local academic reform.
“Some of it is coming together, and I’d like to see more,” she said.
Lockamy’s Passport to Excellence reforms were designed to create new academic opportunities, raise rigor, increase relevance for students and create environments in which all students are prepared for productive futures. He said he is most pleased with results at Spencer Elementary, Woodville-Tompkins High School, the K-8 Schools, Garrison Arts K-8 and Beach High School.
“Each of these represents the philosophy of all means all,” Lockamy said. “As a result, the perception of the (school) system has risen to an all-time high, and more families are choosing these schools as a school of choice for educating their child.”
Lockamy expects the upcoming Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Academy at Bartlett to be the district’s next big success.
Here are some of Savannah-Chatham’s most successful public school reforms:
Spencer Elementary
In 2007, Spencer was the poorest-performing elementary school in Chatham County and arguably among the worst in the state, with more than half of the student body performing below state standards.
Lockamy made it his model for district reform.
He appointed dynamic principal Andrea Williams and required the entire staff to reapply for their jobs. Within two years, the reconstituted staff was able to get the same poor-performing, 97 percent disadvantaged student population to meet state standards.
Four years later, Spencer has become a Title I Distinguished school that touts some of the district’s highest reading scores, championship Quiz Bowl teams and an internationally recognized positive behavior implementation program.
Beach High
Beach High was facing state takeover for failure to meet state academic standards for more than seven years. Lockamy chose to bring in successful young principal Derrick Muhammad, replace the entire faculty and staff and use a $6 million turnaround grant from the Obama administration to implement a three-year reform plan beginning in 2010.
In the first year, Beach was able to muster enough graduates and successfully retest enough students to meet state standards. In the second year, the school’s end-of-course test-pass rates, which measure how much students have learned, were above the state average in Math II and above the district average in Economics and U.S. History.
It was the only local school to improve its pass rates on all nine end-of-course tests.
K-8 Schools
In 2008, district officials converted popular, high-performing Hesse Elementary into a K-8 school, and suddenly it seemed as if every suburban community wanted a K-8 school where their middle grades children could be nurtured.
The successful K-8 school at Hesse proved Lockamy’s theory that parents who are leery of public middle schools are more than happy to keep them at high-performing elementary schools for another three years. The district followed up by creating K-8 programs at Georgetown Elementary and Isle of Hope schools.
And when they opened the new ESPLOST-funded Godley Station School and the performing arts school at Garrison, those schools served grades K-8 as well.
Godley Station attracted hundreds more students than anticipated, and so many Pooler-area families were clamoring to get into the school that the pre-kindergarten classes had to be moved out and portable classrooms had to be moved in to accommodate the overflow.
Garrison’s visual and performing arts programs were so appealing to families that many left private schools and gave up spots at other highly successful schools and specialty programs to attend.
Because of K-8 schools, the district has been able to stop the steady decline in middle grades enrollment that plagued the district from 2005 to 2008. In 2007 alone, middle grades enrollment dropped by 411 students. But middle grades enrollment has increased by about 200 a year in the years since Hesse began its K-8 conversion.
Hubert Middle
Hubert Middle School struggled with behavior and academics for years until the district began its reform effort and brought dynamic leadership into the school. Over the last several years, Principal Gequetta Jenkins and her staff have zeroed in on teaching and learning.
Hubert has earned Title I distinguished school status and was named a High Progress School by State Superintendent John Barge for being among the top 10 percent of Georgia schools with the greatest academic improvement.
Twilight School
Officials developed a Twilight School where overachievers, square pegs and slackers could get more work done than ever before.
In the first year that Savannah-Chatham used $12.7 million from Georgia’s Race To The Top grant to set up a computer-based evening school, more than 1,500 students earned credits that either helped them graduate on time or graduate early.
The program was ideal for students who wanted to take a few classes after school so they could pack their transcripts with advanced placement courses or make up credits.
It also proved to be appealing to students who wanted to go to school full-time in the evening because they preferred a less structured setting or had health, financial or family issues that made it difficult for them to attend regular school. The program was so popular and effective it was expanded to all high schools last year.
Woodville Tompkins
Tompkins Middle School struggled to meet state standards for years. Then, in 2007, the district closed the school and turned it into a career and technical center where high school juniors and seniors could take high-tech, career-oriented classes and learn everything from robotics and computer programming to nursing and hotel management.
The program’s success prompted the district to convert the center into a full-time high school. Now in its second year, Woodville Tompkins High earns some of the highest end-of-course test scores in the district, second only to nationally ranked Savannah Arts Academy.