Arthur Harris, Action Team Chair; Dawn Downing, Principal (Baltimore City Public School System)
Joseph Schwarzmann, Brenda Thomas (NNPS Key Contact), Arthur Harris (ATP Chair), Nettie Holley, Danny McCoy, Dawn Downing (Principal), Phyllis Mitchell, Sgt. Ron Jones, Irwin Dorsey, and Roderick Willis. Not Pictured: Marvin Collins, Joi Ford, and Gregory Kirk.
Baltimore City’s Detention Center School #370 for juvenile offenders is housed inside a prison. The principal, warden, detention center staff, parents, students, community partners, and a district-level facilitator are working together to plan partnership activities that will help more students succeed when they leave this particular school. This is a school-wide Title I program.
The Action Team at the Detention Center School is part of the School Improvement Team, and all family and community involvement activities are linked to school improvement goals. One major goal is to encourage students and parents to think about positive career paths for students. With the help of many educators, parents, and community leaders, the Action Team organized a Lecture Series and InReach Field Trip Program with inspiring and effective speakers for parents and students every other month, including a city Councilman, minister, and an entertainment group as honored lecturers. Some lectures were videotaped so that they can be viewed in the future.
Another activity placed students at the center of attention in an essay content on the topic: “Something Inside So Strong – I Can Make It!” Monetary awards and public acclaim went to four winners. The Action Team also started a school choir, which performs for parents and other audiences. A Parents Organization was initiated to bring the voices of the families of incarcerated students to the school’s attention. Ironically, parents reported that they were happy that their children were attending school regularly, as attendance was often a problem in their regular schools. Students reported that they feel more successful in school. This year, four students graduated from high school, with the Mayor attending the ceremony inside the jail.
The school's partnership program will continue to improve with the help of the principal, parents, community partners, district facilitator for partnerships, teachers, other staff, the chaplain of the detention center, chief of security, assist wardens for operations and for programs, and the commissioner of the facility. The team notes the tremendous progress it made from 1999 to 2000, and recognizes the challenges it faces in order to sustain and extend the program.
“The partnership approach showed us that the students here are proud to share their accomplishments with their parents, and parents begin to understand how much their children can accomplish when they attend school every day. Teachers now understand the importance of family involvement, even for students that have had serious problems in and out of school in the past. We use the National Network’s Handbook to serve as our “bible” for developing a partnership program, but if there are questions we can just call the Network staff a phone call, e-mail, or a smile away.”
--Arthur Harris and Dawn Downing, Baltimore City Detention Center School #370