Monica Yant Kinney: A public-school success
The Cook school in Roxborough offers excellence and diversity.
So Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman wants to shutter 35 of the worst schools in town and start fresh. Sounds intriguing, presuming she studies what's working at the best of the rest.
Take the economically and racially diverse Cook-Wissahickon Elementary in Roxborough.
The school is one of only a handful in Philadelphia without a racial achievement gap. At Cook, black students and white students post similarly high marks on the all-important standardized tests.
Cook boasts a longtime relationship with a local philanthropist who funds its after-school program and provides mentors. Cook students peddle produce from the Food Trust for a fresh fund-raiser. Children learn painting and drawing through a partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Parents are intimately involved in the Valentine's Day goodie sale (featuring brownies and berries) and a $1.5 million plan to remake Cook as a "green campus."
And to think, only a few years ago the same parents - who could afford private or parochial education - avoided Cook at all costs.
What happened to make the school desirable and successful? And how can other city schools replicate its accomplishment?
A schooling on a school
Lisa Lobitz remembers the night vividly: At a community meeting a few years ago, she complained about the perception that Cook "was anything but a neighborhood school" because so many children were bused in from around the city.
As a result, parents like Lobitz "never considered Cook." Never mind that most of them hated the cost and commute of educating their children elsewhere.
In the audience, Anna Jenkins gasped. Cook's new principal couldn't understand the sweeping stereotypes held by people "who'd never even been in the building."
So she invited critics to visit.
"People think our students are hanging from the chandelier because it's a public school," says Jenkins, Cook's candid, enthusiastic champion, "but our kids are wonderful and really hardworking."
After touring, analyzing test scores, and interviewing happy parents, Lobitz, a teacher in Media, decided to pull son Jake from Catholic school in Chestnut Hill and "try" Cook for a year.
That was 2007. The third grader is still there. As is daughter Madeline, a kindergartner.
Last year, Lobitz helped organize a kaffeeklatsch info night to convince other parents in Manayunk and Roxborough to give Cook a look. Earlier this month, she hosted another event at her home.
The standing-room-only presentation drew a doctor, a lawyer, a Democratic committeeman, and a police officer - folks who may love the city but loathe its schools.
Parents were so busy taking notes about Cook's honors program, tennis lessons, and music classes - all free! - they barely touched the cheese plate.
Locals wanted
At the meeting, Lobitz confided that she was initially turned off by the 40-year-old school's "concrete institutional" exterior, but wowed by the creative learning that takes place inside. (Cook's first impression may change if the "green" dream becomes reality.)
Kelly Phillips Erb, an attorney and public-school convert, said her first grader Katie adored Cook - from wearing polka-dot tights with her uniform to stopping at "Dairyland the custard stand" on the walk home.
There was a time when 13 buses took Cook students to homes all over Philadelphia. Today, just six do.
Locals have first dibs. By luring back neighborhood families, Jenkins created a more invested, tight-knit school community.
Today, Cook's 345-student body reflects the shift: 46 percent white, 44 percent black, 6 percent Latino, and 1 percent Asian.
"We have the diversity," Jenkins said proudly, that other schools lack and parents say they desire.
Evangeline Grover Okorodudu left the meeting intrigued.
The Penn-educated pediatrician was prepared to spend $15,000 in tuition for son Kai's kindergarten, "but with the economy . . . that might not make financial sense."
She visited Germantown Friends, Green Woods Charter, and Cook.
"I loved the warmth I felt at Cook," Okorodudu told me yesterday. "I'm pretty convinced it's our number-one choice."