Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer

BRIDGEPORT — After less than two weeks into the new school year, a group in charge of restarting Harding High School have clustered ninth graders into one section of the school, limiting their exposure to the rest of the student body and displacing some veteran teachers from long-held classrooms in the progress.

All students have started getting a daily 30-minute “advisory” period with an adult in the building, a practice some are still feeling their way through.

Tardy sweeps have begun to lessen loitering in the hallways.

There is still no signed contract with the district. The educational change leader promised has not yet been hired. Work to find a new principal to replace Carol Birks is ongoing. (more…)

$12.6 million to be used to help turn around six struggling schools.

Written by Gayle Perez

Pueblo City Schools will receive more than $12.6 million in federal turnaround grants to help improve the achievement at six low-performing schools in the district.

The Colorado Department of Education approved the turnaround plans for 19 schools in the state.

As part of that approval, the schools were awarded three-year federal grants to help implement improvement plans and restructure low-performing schools.

“This is a strong commitment by the state of Colorado to turn these schools around,” said Joseph Garcia, senior vice president of district and school services for Global Partnerships. (more…)

Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer

BRIDGEPORT — If Toniann Thompson, 14, hadn’t known better she would have sworn she was still in Jamaica.

Instead, the Bassick High School freshman was stuck Thursday within the hot brick confines of her school, which is not air conditioned, until the early dismissal bell rang at 12:27 p.m.

Chelsea Gonzalez, a Bassick senior, used words like suffocating to describe the conditions on the upper floors of the school. She is grateful the district decided to shorten the school day, just a week into the new school year. (more…)

Garrison Middle School

Garrison Middle School Needs Help

BALTIMORE — Baltimore city has hired an outside company to help turn around one of its most troubled middle schools.

A company called Global Partnership Schools, which was launched by two former superintendents, said it believes it has the tools to fix struggling Garrison Middle School. Even though work crews have spent the summer doing renovations, the changes to the school aren’t just cosmetic. There’s a new principal, staff and teachers, some of whom chose to return to help with the turnaround.

“I just have a love for the subject area that I teach. I am a social studies teacher, and I love children, and I want to see them achieve,” said teacher Brenda Tilghman.

Global Partnership Schools has pledged to help staff and students to try to make lasting improvements (more…)

Harding principal resigns to join management group

Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer

BRIDGEPORT — Harding High School Principal Carol Birks has resigned, effective Wednesday, to take a job with Global Partnership Schools, the New York City-based group hired to restart the troubled high school.

Birks, a 1986 Harding graduate, has been its principal since 2007. She said the offer to work and be mentored by Global Partnership was made Monday and took her by surprise. She was given a night to sleep on it and accepted Tuesday.

In a three-paragraph letter the Harding community will receive on opening day, Birks called the chance to work at Global Partnership a unique opportunity to further her knowledge and learn from what she called “major intellectual giants in education.” (more…)

City gets $6.3 million in federal funds to fix failing schools

Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer

BRIDGEPORT — The $6.3 million federal School Improvement Grant that will be spent at three city schools starting this fall may prove there is more than one way to fix a failing school.

All schools receiving “SIG” funds must chose from among four tightly scripted models prescribed by the U.S. Department of Education.

Barnum and Bassick will both use the “transformation” model, which requires them to change their principal. Both will use the University of Connecticut’s CommPact School program to help improve. Barnum has already been a CommPact School — which stands for an alliance of community, parents, administrators, children and teachers — for two years. The new $500,000 a year grant to Barnum will be used to continue that work and add extra reading support, officials said. Bassick, which will get $2.1 million over three years, will be UConn’s first high school CommPact school. (more…)

August 9, 2010, WASHINGTON (UPI) — Education experts are warning that a lot of companies with little experience are gunning for a piece of the U.S. government’s school overhaul program.

The Obama administration has increased education funding by $3.5 billion this year alone, and experts tell The New York Times that has a lot of companies fluffing up their limited or dubious credentials.

“This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans,” said education consultant Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor.

Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, told the Times that a lot of the companies looking for contracts have little real experience in overhauling failing schools. “Many of these companies clearly just smell the money,” he said. (more…)