Thursday's ceremony was more than a rite of passage for students and families marking the transition to ninth grade at the former Shoemaker Middle School. The event was a rousing finale to a year that saw the successful makeover of one of the Philadelphia School District's most troubled schools into a model charter school.
"I present to you the first freshman class of Mastery Charter School at Shoemaker," principal Robert Lewis announced, with a sweeping gesture toward the eighth graders. "Some people don't want to admit it," he said, "but these students here and the seventh graders in the back are one of the biggest success stories this city has had this year."
The school's testing showed students had gained one and a half to two years in reading and math. Discipline has improved dramatically at a school that had one of the highest assault rates in the district a year earlier. Students say their attitudes toward school have been transformed, and administrators say the change is visible in students' faces.
"When I first got here, they were so angry," recalled Jerel Brooks, dean of students. "They were really hard. Some kids just didn't smile at all."
He recalled the student who told him he had "survived" earlier grades.
"I said, 'You don't survive school. You learn from school,' " Brooks said.
Now, he said, he is surrounded by beaming faces.
"Just looking at them smile is great," Brooks said.
Mastery's approach aims to prepare students for college and beyond by enforcing a strict behavior code, offering a rigorous curriculum, and developing personal responsibility and interpersonal skills.
And while Mastery enforces rules firmly, it rewards good behavior and improved academics with pizza parties, no-uniform days and trips.
