Studer Community Institute

Poverty is no excuse for failure at South Heights

July 1, 2015
/ Reggie Dogan
/ education

The pounding beat of Bruno Mars' “Uptown Funk” rattled the walls and spilled into the crowded hallway. Dozens of people rocked, shook and waved their hands in an impromptu dance contest in the front of the cavernous conference room at the Marriott Marquis. The team from Kentucky’s South Heights Elementary turned it up hard and heavy to its Model Schools session and celebrate an 18-year track record of innovation and success in education. “We create a vision that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning,” said Principal Rob Carroll. “Our school symbolizes change and fights against the status quo.” Carroll is the front man for the dream team of high-performing leaders in education from the Bluegrass State. Decked out in matching gray T-shirts emblazoned with the number 1199 (the school’s street address), the team took turns in sharing highlights of their success story with hundreds of people at the Model Schools Conference in Atlanta. The raucous opening act set the stage for educators from around the country to find out what it takes to climb from the abyss of failure to the height of success as a high-performing model school. “It’s a culture, and we all have similar beliefs,” said Laura Kopshever, a second-grade math teacher who couldn’t stop dancing even after the music stopped. “We hire people who believe it. You can teach people to teach but you can’t change their personality.” South Heights exudes personality and panache, and the culture of excellence and exemplary teaching breeds success. A high-poverty school, mired in a crisis of low expectations and abysmal test scores, South Heights rose from the bottom 25 to among the top 20 in state and the best in its school district. With a collaborative combination of vision, culture and action, South Heights has transformed and invented its own future with innovation, inspiration and no excuses every year for nearly two decades. A small school in northern Kentucky just across the Indiana border, South Heights doesn’t whine about a poverty level in which 93 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced meals. They don’t complain about the 24 percent in the Individualized Education Program, or IEP. There’s no time to feel pity about the 10 percent of students who are considered homeless. “We’re 100 percent incredible,” said Kaylen Winter, a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. “We have people visit our school weekly to see what we’re doing.” And what they do daily is focus on the three principles that set them on the course to success: vision, culture and action. They envisioned a school of high performance and put in place the leadership and teachers who believed nothing was impossible. They empowered the school’s entire staff from the principal to the custodian to create a culture of teamwork, hard work and a stride for excellence. Every person is a stakeholder. Everyone is accountable to education and has ideas that the school can put into action. “It’s a whole team, not just a group of people,” said assistant Principal Chris Powers. A five-time Model School, South Heights is a model of collaborative leadership, creativity, empowerment and high expectations. “We have to create dynamics in our school,” Carroll said, pacing up and down the isle, drawing laughter and applause from the audience. “We’re like superheroes.” It takes a process of productivity that filters through the leadership team and throughout the school and the community. They got input for improvement from kindergartners to college students. “Everyone has vision and ideas,” Carroll said. Collecting, analyzing and using data is a must, but you can’t overlook the nuts and bolts of education, you need a little bit of it all, he said. The team of teachers meet regularly to develop lesson plans, talk about student performance and share good practices for improvement. They use clusters and differentiation. In some cases, pupils spend three years with the same teacher so they get to know the pupils’ problems and possibilities. Writing teachers teach writing. Math teachers specialize in math. Art isn’t just an extra-curriculum class, it’s an essential part of the learning process. Principals rarely sit in their office. One of them is always in a classroom. Another roams the hallway on a scooter, keeping tabs on who’s teaching what and who’s learning and who’s not. “It helps build culture,” Kopshever said. “We know they got our back.” Creating a culture of high expectations and excellence starts early, before birth at conception, Carroll believes. “We’re creating our version of the Harlem Children’s Zone,” said Carroll, referencing the national award-winning cradle to career initiative in New York that aims to ends child poverty through innovative education program. South Heights is a long way from Harlem, but the level of poverty and their educational challenges are similar and far-reaching. “Our kids come from rough circumstances and when you see them succeed, it’s a great feeling,” Winter said. “At South Heights, we say you can do anything if you believe, and we believe in our students and they believe in us.” South Heights Elementary takes their belief in education to heart, body and soul. The principal believes so much in his school that he got a permanent mark to prove it. Carroll took one for the team and got the number “1199” tattooed on his ankle. It was a painful but important way to show his staff and students how much he cared about them and how much he appreciated their hard work and commitment to become a five-time nationally recognized Model School. “I’m not saying you should get a tattoo,” said Carroll, rolling down his socks to reveal the mark. “I just want you to create a culture where you at least consider it.”

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Poverty is no excuse for failure at South Heights

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