BY RICK FORGIONE
forgioner@gnnewspaper.com
Tears begin trickling down Roberta Cicero’s cheeks as she looks over her grandson’s second-grade test scores. In the past few years, she’s spent countless moments crying about his lack of academic achievement.
But this time is different.
“These are tears of joy,” Cicero said Tuesday, wiping her face and smiling. “What’s happened with my grandson is like we’ve gone from black to white.”
Her grandson, Robert Cicero Jr., is one of more than 250 students who transferred from the traditional public school system to attend Niagara Charter School. Since opening two months ago, charter officials have been testing each student in English language arts and related skills in an attempt to pinpoint areas in need of remediation.
About half of the students meet or exceed state standards for their grade level, while the other half are below that benchmark. That’s a common breakdown for charter schools, which normally attract students who were having academic problems in other school systems.
“We certainly didn’t expect to have everybody above standard, and we didn’t expect everybody below standard,” Principal Karen Brown said.
Since opening Aug. 21 and becoming the county’s first free alternative public school, Niagara Charter officials have promoted numerous academic turnarounds and student success stories.
Cicero’s grandson may be the most amazing.
A special needs student, Robert never received the additional attention and support he deserved while attending the Niagara Falls School District, according to his grandmother. As a result, she has a file full of disciplinary notes from teachers and copies of failed spelling, grammar and math exams that date as far back as kindergarten.
Cicero said Robert was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder, a condition where he has trouble processing the correct information from his ear to his brain. Despite the disability, and suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Robert wasn’t tagged as a special education student until the end of last school year, Cicero said.
By then, she had filled out an application to Niagara Charter School.
At first, the failing marks followed him to the new school. As the weeks went on, however, Cicero noticed a marked improvement in not only her grandson’s attitude, but also his test scores. Now, the student who had failed academically for most of his life is bringing home exams with perfect scores for his grandmother’s file.
“I knew my grandson had it in him; they took the time to find out how to bring it out,” said Cicero, reaching for a box of tissues to wipe the tears away. “If I were to die tomorrow, I would know he’s not going to slip through the cracks at this school.”
Brown, also overcome with emotion when she heard of Cicero’s story, insists the second-grader didn’t get any different support that isn’t provided to every Niagara Charter School student.
“We give them a little more time and patience; they need someone who is going to care for them when their parents aren’t around,” said Brown, noting that Robert’s teacher, Karen Gantz, deserves a lot of credit for his turnaround. “She is a wonderful, caring and nurturing person.”
The personal attention doesn’t just stop in the classroom. Brown often writes little notes to send home with students.
“Just a little something saying their child had a great day at school or something like that,” she said. “They take 10 seconds to do.”
But they’ve had a tremendous impact on parents not used to receiving a lot of positive feedback about their children.
“I am overwhelmed by the amount of parents coming in to see me and saying ‘thank you’ for what our school is doing for their child,” Brown said.
While special needs students and those below standards do receive more small-group attention and remediation, the entire enrollment benefits from enrichment activities, a hands-on learning curriculum and educational field trips, including recent visits to the Toronto Zoo, Niagara County Board of Elections and a Native American museum.
At the start of the year, each student was given a nationally accredited exam focusing mainly on English language arts skills to determine his or her academic level. The school’s extended day allows for an additional 45 minutes of reading enrichment each day for all students. As the months go on, that time slot also will include math, science and social studies.
“We’re starting with English language arts basically because you can’t do anything unless you can read,” said Brown, adding that the students have responded positively to what’s being taught. “We have a lot of kids excited about being in school. I think that’s a beautiful thing.”
And while charter teachers are preparing students for academic benchmarks, the school has its first major test of its own coming up in a few months. Third- and fourth-graders will take the state’s English language arts and math exams in January, which will provide a barometer of how the charter school stacks up against students at traditional public schools.
“If we’re doing our job and teaching up to the standards, it will show on the tests,” Brown said.
However, she points out that this year’s results will not be entirely reflective of the charter school’s progress since the exam is based mostly on material students should have learned in the previous year. Niagara Charter has only had the students for a couple of months.
“What will really tell what’s going on is when we can compare this year’s results to next year’s results,” Brown said.
Meanwhile, charter school parents don’t have to wait long to find out how their children are performing in the classroom. Each day, a “communicator” write-up is sent home by the teacher including any test results, personal comments, homework assignments and how the student behaved. The parents then sign the correspondence to prove they’ve reviewed it.
It’s that type of communication that convinced Norma Nelson that enrolling her third-grade daughter Kayla at Niagara Charter was the correct choice.
“Her former school was good, but communication with her teacher was a huge problem,” Nelson said. “I do believe that education is a team effort. We have to be on the same team.”
Kayla has never had a problem academically, but is shy and often didn’t want to attend school last year.
“She’s a completely different child than she was last year,” Nelson said, adding the staff at Niagara Charter is responsible. “I tell everybody about this school and how great it is.”
