In 2007, a pastor with broad vision and indefatigable will named
Ruby Eldridge dreamed of a model school for the underprivileged
community near her small church in Prichard, the impoverished
(indeed, municipally bankrupt), nearly all-black city bordering
Mobile, Alabama.
“Miss Ruby” had a grandson who had graduated from UMS-Wright, an
elite, largely white, private school in Mobile, with financial aid.
So she approached businessman Sandy Stimpson, former board chairman
of UMS-Wright. The pastor had a persuasive manner. “These children
[in Prichard] are smart,” she told Stimpson. “They really are. I’m
going to build a UMS out here in Prichard. All they need is a
better chance.”
Stimpson helped find financial support, and eventually even the
Mobile County public school superintendent gave encouragement and
the city of Prichard helped them find a usable property. Prichard
Preparatory School (pre-K through fifth grade) opened its doors in
the fall of 2008.
At about the same, a first grader named Kyland Camp was having
trouble at a nearby, well-regarded public school called Indian
Springs. He had been expelled in pre-K for bad behavior, and
suspended at least twice from kindergarten and first grade. Two
years and yet another (intervening) school later, Kyland’s mother
discovered that Prichard Prep had hired a number of staffers she
liked from Indian Springs, and she begged them to give Kyland a
chance in the new school’s different atmosphere.
Kyland entered Prichard Prep at the beginning of fourth grade,
and still misbehaved for the first few weeks. But by the year’s
end, he was participating in a countywide spelling bee against
competitors from public, parochial, and private schools, from
grades four through eight all vying together, not by
specific age group. Kyland finished in third place. In the whole
county. The top two finishers were eighth graders, four years older
than him. Kyland beat everybody else—fifth graders, sixth graders,
seventh graders, eighth graders.
In May, with his behavioral problems long behind him, Kyland
graduated from Prichard Prep’s fifth grade. In August, he will
enroll at…yes, UMS-Wright.
Kyland Camp is just one of the many success stories in the young
life of Prichard Preparatory. The school stands as testament to the
potential inherent in educating children in an atmosphere freed
from the bureaucratic demands—not to mention the unionized,
anti-reformist zeal—of most public schools, even good ones like the
aforementioned Indian Springs.
Every student at Prichard Preparatory is black. More than 60
percent are from single-parent homes, and a large majority are
federal-free-lunch eligible. Most initially test at average
intelligence. But in the small classes (14 per grade level), with
individualized attention, with firm discipline matched by generous
nurturing, with high academic expectations and an emphasis on
character development, and with a gently non-denominational
Christian orientation, almost all the students thrive.
The school provides a computer-assisted learning program called
Accelerated Reader, along with interactive “Smart Boards,” daily
music and phys-ed classes, plus both art and Bible classes twice
weekly. It even offers a new violin program for an extra $110. It
fits this broad curriculum into a lengthened school day from 7:30
a.m. to 3:30 p.m. And it does it all for about $8,500 per student
per year, compared to the per-pupil public school average in
Alabama (in 2009, so it’s probably higher now) of $9,636.
About 80 percent of funds come from grants and charitable
donations. But here’s a twist: With very rare exceptions, each
student’s family contributes $50 per week ($2,000 per year) toward
tuition. This was at the insistence of Miss Ruby, the founder who
still serves on the board, whose theory was that parents will value
their children’s education far more if they actually have a “stake”
in it, even if that requires a bit of a sacrifice.
“Miss Ruby knows we must educate mind, body, and spirit,”
Stimpson said. “How they act and what they do is as important as
what they know. Because our expectations are high, the students are
high achievers and in some cases over-achievers.”
Kyland’s mother, 33-year-old Kanecka James, smilingly (and
proudly) says the philosophy works like a charm.
“Kyland used to be like a little terror,” said James, a single
mom who is assistant director of security at a Mobile shopping
mall. “But he wasn’t being challenged. This is a different setting.
It’s a private, Christian environment. It’s like a family-type
feeling. Everybody knows everybody. I can show up at any time and
they are glad to see me. They really care. And they’ll
stay on top of Kyland to make sure he stays busy, occupied, which
also means less likely to get into any trouble.”
Kyland—not just a good speller, but a well-rounded child and
athlete who loves football and baseball—reciprocates. On
“administrative assistant day,” a number of the children wrote
notes to the school’s do-everything bookkeeper, nurse, and traffic
director, Angie Hannah. Hannah is one of several faculty who
followed principal Rosalie Howley from Indian Springs, so she has
known (and doted on) Kyland in both of his manifestations. After a
beautifully written note to her, he added a post-script that made
her melt: “P.S. You will always have the key to my heart.”
The thing is, Kyland’s impressiveness is matched by that of
almost every child a visitor to Prichard Preparatory encounters.
The children wear bright uniforms: Even the four-year old boys wear
ties. And every kindergartner already is reading—some at a second
grade level. Kids of all ages smile and wave at anybody walking
past. Look into the classroom windows and you see every child
appearing at rapt attention. Enter the rooms and they’ll eagerly,
without extra prompting, show off their skills in reading or math.
There’s not an unhappy or uninterested face around.
Clearly, the principles insisted upon by Stimpson and Eldridge
work. But, as numerous studies of educational success have shown,
even the best principles also require a great principal. Rosalie
Howley brought 30 years of public school experience when she came
to Prichard Preparatory in January of 2010, and her staff adores
her. She speaks not just of what her full-time faculty of 12 does
for the kids, but of what the children do for them:
“I think we all have learned and grown personally and
spiritually, and it’s been a great experience. It’s great to be
part of this opportunity for these children to go as far as they
are capable of going and as high as they are capable of going.”
PERHAPS BY THIS POINT a reporter realizes his own story is
starting to sound sugarcoated, or even saccharine. But it’s an
impression even the most hard-bitten chronicler really can’t avoid:
Without any advance warning of his visit, without any special
effort on the staff’s part to impress him, without a single note or
picture that sounded or looked the slightest bit false, Prichard
Preparatory appeared as idyllic as any collection of 80 children
could.
“When they arrive in the morning,” said Rosa Monteiro, a
longtime public school P.E. teacher who now runs the technology,
media, and library programs at Prichard Preparatory, “they all pile
out of their cars smiling. They want to be here.”
Somewhere there’s a lesson that this school can teach not its
students, but the rest of us. Non-partisan reformer Philip K.
Howard, best-selling author of The Death of Common Sense
and The Collapse of the Common Good, is one of those who
has amassed significant evidence that good schools emerge from a
principled jettisoning of excess bureaucracy. “Successful teaching
and good school cultures don’t have a formula,” he wrote in April
in the Atlantic, “but they have a necessary condition:
Teachers and principals must feel free to act on their best
instincts. Minute by minute, as they respond to students and each
other, their focus must be on doing what’s right.”
Prichard Preparatory is doing a whole lot of things right. Other
schools, public and private, should learn from it.
