Too many struggle

Rock Hill schools work to make poverty less of a threat to student success

By Jessica Schonberg - Jessica Schonberg

When 13-year old Dondre Lockhart's classmates saw him walking places with his mom, he was picked on because they didn't own a car.

Other children made fun of his large family, his behavior and his clothes, until Dondre's anger escalated and he wound up in Rebound, the alternative school for students with behavioral problems, said his mother, Kisha Lockhart.

Dondre and his siblings are among the more than 40 percent of students in Rock Hill who live in poverty.

Kisha Lockhart supports her five children with child-support payments. She never sees her income as an excuse for her children not to do well.

"I try hard for my kids to stay in school to further their education and go to college," she said. "To let them know school's important, that's the first step."

Since 2000, the percentage of students in Rock Hill on free or reduced lunch -- one of the district's measures of poverty -- has increased about 12 percent, Superintendent Lynn Moody said.

With that change came an increasing challenge. Low-income students fail to show basic proficiency on state tests at higher rates than middle-class students.

Moody has made it a top priority to find ways to bring up the scores of the district's low achievers. She has started many initiatives to make sure it happens.

No 'good excuses'

In 2006, 53.2 percent of Rock Hill's third- through eighth-grade students in poverty showed less than basic proficiency in science, compared to 21.5 percent of students who were not in poverty, according to school report cards.

Similar gaps, which range in size, exist in all four subjects on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests: English/language arts, math, science and social studies. Science is the worst.

About 40 percent of low-income students in those grades did not show proficiency in social studies in 2006. More than 30 percent did not show proficiency in math for the past four years.

The graduation rate for Rock Hill students in poverty was 54.3 percent in 2006. That's about 21 percentage points less than the graduation rate for other students.

"Failure shouldn't be an option for any student, no matter what their socioeconomic status is," Moody said. "There really aren't any good excuses, so I hope that we don't ever use the demographics of our district as an excuse for not achieving."

But working with poor students can be more challenging, Moody said.

"If a child is hungry, if a child has a medical illness, if they're sleep deprived, you can't just begin teaching. You have to first start with where they're at," she added.

In her book, "A Framework for Understanding Poverty," Ruby Payne said that schools are run based on the hidden rules of the middle class. That's an idea school district officials have latched on to.

"Every culture does not value the same things or expose their children to the same things or have the same needs," said Harriet Jaworowski, a district associate superintendent. "It's not that any of them are wrong, but we tend to teach school based on middle class values and middle class expectations. But when we have children who don't come from that background, we cannot assume that what we say or how we behave or what we find important is the same for them."

For example, Payne wrote that children in poverty are concerned with getting enough to eat, while middle class children are concerned with eating something that tastes good.

Luanne Kokolis, another associate superintendent in the district, said the local shift in demographics means teachers have to adjust strategies to ensure they teach in a way that fits the students.

The district is taking steps this year to make sure that happens.

New initiatives

Earlier this year, the school board gave Moody the go-ahead to spend more than $400,000 on initiatives aimed at helping low-achieving students and lowering the dropout rate.

Those ideas included hiring more teachers for Phoenix Academy, the district's alternative school, offering early morning English, math and science courses, revamping the summer school program and expanding a bridge program that helps rising ninth-graders transition into high school.