By Gabe Kahn
Steve Lampert got up from his chair at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn in mid-June, about two weeks before the final graduation in its history. He grabbed his cell phone and told his colleague Rachel Malabas that he was going to call a certain student. “I’m going to try to get him to graduate,” he said
Malabas warned Lampert that she’d already called and the student wouldn’t pick up. Lampert gave it a shot anyway.
Seconds later, Lampert, who, along with Malabas, acts as a supervisor and mentor of the credit-recovery program at Tilden, snapped his phone shut, smiled and admitted to his colleague that she was right. He was not particularly surprised.
In December 2006, the New York City Department of Education declared Tilden a failed school, because of its history of violence and low student achievement, and announced that it would be phased out and closed on June 30, 2010. Since then, three new mini-schools have opened within the Tilden building, with the remaining Tilden students occupying just a third of a floor.
Now, with Tilden’s demise only days away, teachers and administrators are scrambling to see that as many students as possible graduate. The staff is hoping that 60 percent of the 135 students will graduate before Tilden closes, which would be a substantial improvement from the 40 percent that graduated in 2009. (The New York City graduation rate in 2009 was 59 percent.) However, even by the school’s most optimistic calculations, at least 54 students will leave the school without a diploma. The reality is that many of those who do not finish Tilden by the end of the month likely will never graduate from high school.
Various programs have been adopted to help students make up classes, improve their grades and prepare for Regents exams. Credit-recovery is an online program that allows students to retake classes in which they’ve failed to earn credit. Tilden has also developed independent studies for students to make up work in classes in which they’ve struggled. Many Regents-prep courses are offered every week and one-on-one tutoring is arranged for students that have already failed their Regents exams.
“I think that the faculty is dedicated to getting the kids to graduate,” says Lampert. “But now that the school is closing and we’re under the gun, there are all these extra programs that they’re mounting. Everything that can be done to get them to graduate is being done.”
Previously, if a senior had not earned the requisite 44 credits needed to graduate or had not passed all of his or her New York State Regents exams by the end of the school year, he or she could retake classes during summer school or even return to school in September. But with Tilden closing later this week, that is no longer an option.
And while Tilden’s faculty and administrators strive for an upbeat tone, some of the school’s graduating students blame only their faltering classmates for the problem. “They fooled around all four years and now they’re trying to catch up,” said Rolland Martins, the class valedictorian. “They made their own choices and have to live with that. And so that is their downfall. I feel bad for some of them because I’ve known them for years and they did some work, but they didn’t do everything they need to graduate.”
However, Tilden’s dean of students, Michael Carvalhal, says that such attrition is simply the nature of the beast.
“Regardless of the school, regardless of the teachers, regardless of the structure in place, some will succeed, some will not,” says Carvalhal. “But we are doing our darndest to get them to get that mindset that it’s important for them to acquire what they need to move on.”
In recent years, credit-recovery programs and independent studies have been criticized by the United Federation of Teachers and others as being shortcuts that cheapen the meaning of diplomas. In particular, a 2008 New York Times article by Elissa Gootman and Sharona Coutts delved into many of the pros and cons of credit-recovery. Some students at Tilden showed resentment toward the practice.
“I think they’re lucky, but at some point I think it’s not right because it’s their own fault,” said Jennifer Phillip, a student who will graduate on time without the various programs. “They didn’t really need it.”
Another student, Stanley Guerrier, said that he would not have been able to graduate without credit recovery, saying that he got too distracted by regular classes.
“I do think it’s easier,” he said. “There’s no writing, just multiple choice. Overall, it’s less work than you do when you go take a class in the classroom.”
One obstacle the staff is facing is that many students seem to be ignoring their academic failures, according to Stevenson Petit, one of Tilden’s guidance counselors.
“You’ll find some kids that are not going to graduate in June, but they’re in denial that they’re not going to graduate,” Petit said.
Petit witnessed the students’ lack of understanding and urgency personally when he took a group of students who, in all likelihood, won’t graduate this month to Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day School to show them a possible landing spot. The students’ reactions were less than enthusiastic.
“I found two kids that I thought were qualified to be part of that setting, but those kids weren’t willing to leave Brooklyn to go to Manhattan to go to school,” Petit said.
Indeed, with so little time was left and so many students in danger of not graduating, few students appeared to grasp the pressure that Lampert and Petit tried to instill upon them. The room for credit recovery was only partially filled and few students stayed late at school to do make-up work.
Sakuntala Singh, a Tilden science teacher, says that although she wishes there was time for everyone to graduate the traditional way, she believes that there is value in other options and she believes that ultimately, the students are pulling for one another.
“What I see with the students here is that they try to help each other,” she said. “They want each other to graduate; they want to graduate as a group.”
Tilden’s principal, Livingstone Hilaire, who declined to be interviewed for this story but was widely praised by the teachers and staff for implementing many of these measures, is trying to have some of the remaining students placed in one of the high schools that have opened in the Tilden building. The school is also making contingency plans for those who aren’t expected to graduate at all by teaching job-readiness, helping them prepare resumes and even setting them up with jobs at local fast-food restaurants.
The awkward part is that these students won’t be the only ones looking for jobs; most of the staff members at Tilden don’t know where they’re going to be next year, either. The school social worker, Matthew Nathenson, said that he has had to counsel the teachers who are depressed over the prospect of not knowing where they will be working in September — although the Department of Education is required to place the teachers somewhere. Nathenson said that the staff’s low morale has had a “trickle-down effect on the students,” who in turn feel that their situations are even more hopeless.
But right now, as Carvalhal says, it’s all about the students.
“There’s no 10th inning here,” he puts it. “This is it.”
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