Words of an Uncommon Parent: Rochelle James

Zariah James, a first-grader at Leadership Preparatory Charter School, has a single mark on her otherwise pristine attendance record: one morning in late November she skipped school to eat yogurt parfait at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan. She was there to watch her mother, Rochelle James, deliver a speech that caused more than four hundred of the most influential and powerful New Yorkers to reach for their handkerchiefs. That morning, the Robin Hood Foundation held its annual “Heroes Breakfast,” which honors individuals or corporations committed to eradicating poverty.

Tom Brokaw introduced Rochelle and the organization for which she works: “During World War II, Rosie the Riveter was a symbol of America’s strength. Women proved that they could do a ‘man’s job’ and our country was the better for it.," Brokaw said. "After the war, women went back to their traditional roles and it would be more than 30 years before they started wearing hardhats again, which is when Nontraditional Employment for Women, NEW, opened its doors.” Rochelle spoke of her tumultuous life path that led her to NEW’s training program. She now works as an electrician in New York City, and her daughter, Zariah, happily attends Leadership Prep.

Rochelle cannot praise the school enough: “I’m held accountable,” she says of the school’s philosophy, “my daughter is held accountable, and they’re very caring. They know what my daughter’s personality is like, and they can customize her work. It’s almost like they’re family.”

Even as a seven-year-old, Zariah is quick to answer that her favorite thing about school is her future at college. Already decided on Columbia (though she’s a tad iffy on its location and looks pleasantly surprised to learn that if she attends, she’ll be close to her family) she has set her sights high for post-graduation: “I want to be the President, and my first act will be giving money to homeless people.”

See below for the text of Rochelle James’ speech, delivered on November 29, 2007.

 
— By Sophie Brickman

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Rochelle James: Robin Hood Foundation Heroes Breakfast Speech

I wake up every morning at 5 a.m. I put on clothes that will get covered in dirt. I break my nails. I rarely have access to bathrooms. I ache at the end of the day. And, you know what? I love it.

Being an electrician means I have financial freedom. I can pay my bills. I have a skill I can use anywhere in the world. My work is never boring. From one day to the next I never know if I’ll be pulling wire, cutting concrete or installing switches. I learn something every day. 

I always knew I wanted to work in the trades. When I was just out of high school I tried to get in a welding program. The instructor said, “Go home – you’re too pretty for this; you’ll ruin your hair.” It was my dream to have a job where I could use my hands and create something. It seemed like a simple enough dream, but sometimes life complicates things.

At 14, I met my first boyfriend and true love, Mikey. At 17, I became a teen mother and gave birth to my son, Sheldon. When Sheldon was four years old, I got a job at Brooklyn Union Gas and Mikey and I finally moved in together. The life I longed for appeared within reach. But Mikey got involved with things he shouldn’t have. And just months later, Mikey was shot and killed. Heartbroken, I moved back in with my mother, who had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I took care of her for a year before she passed away on Thanksgiving morning. 

Over the next four years, I struggled to stay employed and was in and out of jobs. I went into a deep depression after the loss of Mikey and my mother. I was very young and couldn’t cope with the heartbreak, being a single Mom and paying my Mother’s mortgage. I kept screwing up – drinking away my problems and falling asleep on the job. Eventually, I lost the house. It broke my heart to lose what had been a dream for my mother. And, my son and I became homeless.

At that time, I met a man who I thought was my savior. He said my son and I could live in the back of his hair salon. Six months later, when I got pregnant, he moved us into an apartment. My daughter Zariah was born. Not long after that, he started abusing me. It began with a push and a shove and quickly got violent. I knew the only way to escape was to get a decent job.

In 2001, when my daughter was 8 months old, I heard about NEW and went for the training. 100 girls competed for the slots. And I was one of 26 chosen. After 3 months of training, 11 of us were left. It was tough, but I enjoyed it. We had math classes. We learned to use tools. We built up our upper body strength by going up and down flights of stairs with huge water bottles on our shoulders. If you had the will, NEW gave you everything else you needed to succeed. At graduation, I received NEW’s Golden Hammer Award for leadership. 

I started my first job as an apprentice electrician for Local 3 on September 11, 2001. I heard the guys played pranks on newbies – I thought the attack was a joke. When I found out it was real, I thought, “here we go again, just when I thought my life could change.” But miraculously, they told us to come back to work the next day.

Like all apprentices, in those first few years I did grunt work and absorbed as much as I could. I loved being an electrician for Local 3.  But the better it got at work, the worse it got at home. Jealousy fueled his rages and the beatings became more violent. I had nowhere to go. I called the hotlines, but they never had a shelter available that would take a boy older than 12. I would not be separated from my son, so I stayed. 

What finally motivated me to call the police was that he picked up my Golden Hammer Award from NEW to strike me with it. That award was a symbol of how NEW empowered women, and it had once made me so proud.

A detective encouraged me to attend a domestic violence seminar at the precinct. There I met organizations helping victims of domestic violence and started counseling. The police installed a box in my apartment that went right to the precinct. He was then arrested seven times for defying the order of protection. The last arrest allowed me the time to get away because an apartment in a complex for families escaping domestic violence had been found for us.

For the first time in my adult life I had a good job and a safe home for my family. With that solid foundation in place I turned my attention to education.  Local 3 had sent me to college and I now understood the importance of education. I looked into taking a second job so I could send my daughter to a good school. Then I heard about the elementary charter school called LEADERSHIP PREP (which is part of Uncommon Schools). Zariah didn’t get into the lottery and was placed on a waiting list – but just a couple weeks before the first day of school, I got a call that there was a place for her. I screamed! When I received this award, I learned that Leadership Prep is one of the schools supported by the Robin Hood Foundation. So now, I’m not only grateful for your support of NEW, but also for this wonderful school. 

June 2006 was a special month for my family. I received my associate’s degree in labor studies. My son graduated high school and my daughter graduated kindergarten.

Here’s the clincher to my long story. Thanks to NEW, just last month, after six years as an apprentice electrician, I became a journeywoman – making $47 dollars an hour. My son is hoping to follow my footsteps and become a member of Local 3. I feel blessed.

I am humbled to accept this award on behalf of NEW and all the women who work in the trades helping to build New York, while making a decent living for themselves and their families. I’m grateful that my wonderful children Sheldon and Zariah can see me receive this honor. And, I’m personally proud, that I’ve reached a place in my life where no one will use this award as a weapon against me, and instead, it will remain a symbol of strength and accomplishment.

Twenty-one months ago, a tall man wearing a suit and a fedora walked into what would become the new Leadership Preparatory Charter School on registration day.  With a mixture of smiles and hand gestures, he indicated that he’d come to register his daughter for kindergarten.

Over the next hour, a few things became apparent. He was a cab driver, and the day before, had dropped off a passenger at the school who had raved about it. Now he was determined to have his daughter enrolled. But he could barely speak English and had no concept of the enrollment process. His daughter had not been accepted in the lottery; in fact, she had not even entered. He managed to charm Tara Marlovits, the school’s Chief Operating Officer, into filling out the application with him – not just for Leadership Prep, but for several other schools as well. When he left the building, the staff wished him luck, but assumed that would be the last they heard from him.

Mr. Ballamoussa arrived in America three weeks after September 11th, 2001. He had spent nearly twenty years in the Senegalese military as a trained mechanical engineer, and immigrated, alone, to New York City, seeking a better education for his four children. Comfortable with cars, and unable to be hired at many places because of the language barrier, he started driving a gypsy cab around Brooklyn, saving up enough money so that his family could join him.

Parked outside the school sitting in his black Crown Victoria, on a freezing day in December, he gestures to the school building.

“When I dropped off a customer here, at this school, he told me it was the best school in the city. I went inside, and I knew immediately. It was the full best. Even more than the highest!” He laughs. “The people here? They have the same mind about education, like my mind. My parents made sure I got a good education, and now I make sure my children get a good education.”

In those early months, Mr. Ballamoussa went with his gut. Convinced of the power of Leadership Prep based on word-of-mouth and the few interactions he’d had with the staff, he spent twelve months badgering Brendalyn King, the office manager. He’d show up, unannounced, and plead.

Mr. Ballamoussa painfully relives those moments when he fought for his daughter’s education: “I’m crying, saying ‘No, no, no! This is the best school!’ But King says ‘There is no place!’ Then, a year later, God blessed me.” 

Then this past August, just 13 days before school opened for its second year, his daughter ’s name came next on the waiting list, and King called the Ballamoussa household.

“Once I got the call, I got so excited I ran out without my car keys!” Mr. Ballamoussa remembers, waving his hands and laughing.

He showed up two hours early for the appointment. Principal Max Koltuv came out of his office to encounter a sprawling Ballamoussa family, eight in all, crowding him and thanking him, praising that moment as a blessing.

His daughter is now a first grader at Leadership Prep, and a combination of chance and her father’s commitment to his original gut feeling has landed her a spot in a school, which has a waiting list of more than 150 children. At the district school she attended last year, she barely spoke a word of English. Now, due to the attention of her teachers, of Koltuv (who makes sure to speak with her every day), and of Corey Lerman, the learning support coordinator who reads with her, she is speaking, reading, and writing English.

She will be the first in her family to do so. 

“Now, because of this school, my daughter teaches me English,” Mr. Ballamoussa says. “Because of her, I speak better. You know what else?” He leans over the arm rest. “She wants to be a doctor.”

He pauses for a moment, and then starts to clap for his daughter who cannot hear him, who is now just about to start her first reading period of the day three stories above him, and cries happily, “Brava!”

   
— By Sophie Brickman

“Decimals!” “Fractions!” “Variables! Ooo, how I love variables!”

They are proud braniacs, the eight seventh graders who form the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (WCCS) Mathletes team. When asked for their favorite math topic, it’s no surprise that this group, praised by teachers for their talent, commitment, and energy, answer enthusiastically.

Last year, with hardly any preparation time, a WCCS student brought home first place in the solo contest of the charter school math competition. Andrew Johnstone, a seventh grade math teacher, meets with the current Mathletes every Thursday at lunch time, in addition to their daily two hour class, to hone their math skills and build teamwork. This year, the group took home first place awards in both the solo and group competitions, beating out the six other participating schools.

“The night before, I was hysterically nervous,” Justin Colon says, grinning, over lunch with his fellow Mathletes.

Between bites, he confides, “I thought, from the very beginning, that I would come in last.” He raises an eyebrow. “I hardly slept at all.” His teammates chuckle; he’s fooling no one. Colon came in first in the solo competition. Two of his WCCS teammates, Anthony Rodriguez and Jonas Diaz, came in 2nd and 3rd, respectively, out of more than fifty students.

Yet it’s not just the WCCS Mathletes who are bringing home the bacon. Last year, 92% of fifth graders and 100% of sixth graders passed the New York State math test. And on the Department of Education’s recent “report card,” Williamsburg Collegiate had the highest overall score among all 1,200 of the city’s schools.

What, then, is taking place inside these classrooms that pushes WCCS students over the top?

Principal Julie Trott attributes the success of her students to three distinct components: first, smart math teachers; second, teachers committed to helping students tackle precisely those elements that they do not know; and third, the ability of each teacher to make math fun. All three revolve around a single element: the teachers themselves.

Eric Green, a sixth grade math teacher, cites the three hours spent on math each day (which is at least double the time in typical schools) and the emphasis on review. Johnstone notes that “we force the students to think conceptually for three years, so they always know what they’re doing when they’re doing it.” Stephanie Ely, Dean of Curriculum, takes a broader view, stating that while the success in math certainly “stems from great planning in classrooms and a great scope and sequence, it ultimately comes from a really well planned school system.”

Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, Managing Director of the North Star Network, pinpoints yet another practice present in all Uncommon Schools’ classrooms in his article “Data in the Driver’s Seat,” published in the most recent issue of Educational Leadership: the proper use of interim assessments (Click here for full article). Writes Bambrick-Santoyo, “with the proper interplay among interim assessments, analysis, action and data-driven culture, schools can be transformed, and a new standard can be set for student learning.”

Ultimately, the mission of WCCS is to prepare students for college. Lynn Arthur Steen, professor of mathematics, delivers shocking news in a recent essay “How Mathematics Counts”: Not only must one in three students who enter college “remediate major parts of high school mathematics as a prerequisite to taking such courses as College Algebra or Elementary Statistics,” but also mathematics is the academic subject students most often fail, which in turn causes students to drop out of high school and never even attempt to enroll in college.

In the current debate about mathematics, educators and academics often highlight similar elements important for success in the classroom: encouraging understanding, stressing proper review, making sure students verbalize math procedures, and building upon prior knowledge. The well-known educator Marilyn Burns cites more specific solutions, including vocabulary instruction, practice, mental calculations, and student interaction, or group work – the very elements ever present across Uncommon Schools’ classrooms.

In Johnstone’s seventh grade math class, one wall has been designated the “Word Wall,” to which students can refer if they forget the word for “integer” or “monomial” or “additive entity.” (Vocabulary, check.) After a do-now, the first of multiple problem sets the students complete on their own, (practice, check), Johnstone has all the students stand up and asks them rapid fire square root questions. (Mental calculations, check.) Later on, he divides them into groups of four or five and has them work together to complete a worksheet. (Student interaction, check.)  

There is, of course, a more elusive component of classroom instruction that cannot be simply replicated and applied as a “solution”: the ability to foster a genuine joy of learning.

Each day, at the beginning of his two hour class, Johnstone has his seventh graders rise and recite words often attributed to Nelson Mandela but originally written by Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” They look around the room, some smiling, seeming to understand that the words they speak are weighted with dramatic – almost melodramatic –importance. Yet they are willing, even anxious, to bask in them. They continue on, asking each other: “Actually who are you not to be?”

At the start of the year, Johnstone had the verse printed on the wall. At some point, it was covered over – but that didn’t matter. After having recited the verse every day, the students – all eight Mathletes and their classmates – already knew it by heart.

— By Sophie Brickman