The Edmonds mindset: Through good teaching & student desire, E. Mount Airy school excels

TO LOOK AT it from Thouron Avenue, Franklin S. Edmonds School appears decidedly typical, by Philadelphia standards.

No shiny edifice, the two-story brick building dates to 1948.

More than 99 percent of the 630 students are African-American. Nearly 70 percent of the pre-kindergarten through 6th-graders qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The number who live in foster care is on the rise.

Walk through the front door, though, and meet Principal Sharen Finzimer, her teachers, parent volunteer Kim Clark and students like Eugenia Haynes, and you'll soon realize that "typical" is not the word to describe Edmonds.

For starters, the East Mount Airy school has done what schools across the city - and school systems across the nation - have struggled in vain to do for decades: Edmonds has closed the so-called achievement gap.

The school has, in fact, turned the gap upside down.

On the last Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exam, 89.3 percent of Edmonds' students were advanced or proficient in math and 80.4 percent reading, making it the district's highest-performing elementary school with a majority African-American student population.

Districtwide, by comparison, 67.8 percent of white students were advanced or proficient in math, 63 percent in reading. For black students, it was 43 percent in math, 40.3 percent in reading.

"What did we do at Edmonds?" Finzimer, 58, pondered when asked to explain her school's success.

"The mind-set," she finally offered. "We have a mind-set at Edmonds that we won't stop. We will overcome any dilemma that you're coming from to make it work for you."

Finzimer, who has been with the district for 25 years, arrived at Edmonds in 2001 when state test scores were much lower. Back then, she recalled, about 48 percent of her students were not on grade level in reading and 56 percent were failing in math.

In addition to mind-set over matter, Finzimer said that what has turned things around is a combination of school-district reforms, such as the core curriculum, and reforms of her own, including Saturday school for struggling third-graders. This fall she's even added twice-weekly mandatory French lessons for all of her students.

"Mrs. Finzimer has made an extra effort to make the children realize how important education is to their futures," said Ellen Mesure, who has taught science at Edmonds for 22 years.

"It's driven home every day: the word of the day, the math problem of the day. Then, there are treats and rewards that are used. It's just a constant drilling and reinforcement."

Ironically, Edmonds does not have an established Home and School Association, a given at most successful schools.

Kim Clark, who has had two children graduate from Edmonds and a granddaughter who is now enrolled, is one parent who maintains a daily presence at the school. She works part-time in the morning and volunteers in the afternoon.

Clark, 46, said she will continue to try to establish a parents' group, but, in the meantime, she is more than grateful that all of Edmonds' teachers are "highly qualified," meaning they are certified to teach their subjects.

That is not the case at every district school, though all teachers are supposed to be highly qualified under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"The teachers just do what they're supposed to do," Clark said. "They have a commitment to wanting our children to succeed."

Speaking for themselves at recess one day last week, a number of the children said that they are aware of their school's academic standing, and are glad to be Edmonds students.

"Comment allez-vous? [How are you?] Je vais bien [I'm doing well]," Janet Porter, 10, said, demonstrating a little of the French that she has learned.

"We learn because we listen to our teachers," said fifth-grader Tanaeya Wells, 10, who last year attended school in Kansas City, Mo. "And when they tell us to do something, we do it and we get it done fast."

"People don't bully here," insisted Desjohna Marshall, 11, a fifth-grader. "If people bully they will go to the accommodation room or they will get suspended. There is no fighting in this school."

"When I was at my old school, kids used to call me names and I didn't like that - so that's why when I came here I really liked it a lot because we don't have bullies here," concurred Eugenia Haynes, 11, a fifth-grader, whose favorite subject is science.

Edmonds is, in fact, among a growing number of neighborhood grade-schools with similar demographics that have seen state test scores rise since the district implemented its core curriculum, which has made teaching and learning across the city more uniform.

At Anna L. Lingelbach School, in Germantown, where the majority of the students are African-American, 73.9 percent in math and 67.8 percent in reading scored at the proficient or advanced levels on the last PSSA exam. At John Welsh School, in West Kensington, where the majority of the students are Latino, 80.7 percent in math and 72.1 percent in reading reached those levels.

Maria Pitre, the district's new chief academic officer, said that a strategic-planning process that will be implemented this school year calls for using successful schools as models to improve schools that are in need of help.

"Looking at model schools and seeing what best practices they have going on, and really looking at how some of those skills can be brought into other schools, of course, is part of the journey," Pitre said Monday, during a visit to a successful small high school in the Bronx, New York.

At Edmonds, Finzimer said that helping to improve her school also has been the use of district programs including Read 180, Fast ForWord and Power Hour; her purchasing of First in Math, a nationally recognized on-line game; a math and science tutoring program for second and third graders staffed by Arcadia University students; and her own "highly seasoned" teachers who rarely call in sick.

"The communication in this building is primo," Finzimer said. "There's a lot of e-mails back and forth, day and night.

"I write my teachers and counselors all night because I don't have enough time in the day to tell them all the things I need to tell them - and they write me back," she added, sounding surprised.

"As much as I say, 'The teaching, the teaching, the teaching is good here,' I have to go back to the mind-set. Everybody takes everything super seriously. And if you don't, boy, I'm going to tell you why you have to." *