Harlem Charter School
Charts a Road to Success
by Tom Kertes
Chancellor Joel Klein says he hopes to create an atmosphere
more congenial to the creation of charter schools in New York
City. One can only hope he succeeds because charters, far more
often than not, have been a resounding success. And because,
in spite of that success, the atmosphere for their creation
in New York is anything but congenial right now, according
to David Esselman, the Deputy Director of Harbor Arts and Sciences
Charter School in Manhattan.
“I’ve found the process far friendlier in California,” said
the youthfully enthusiastic Esselman, who hails from the Left
Coast. “The New York process for approval was far more
laborious and intensive, including a required 1200-page application,
as opposed to 2-400 pages in L.A.”
Still, in the end, the application
for a five-year provisional charter was approved by SUNY.
And a good thing, too: Harbor, which replaced a failing P.S.
50, has been a happy plus by whatever measurement one applies. “We are only in our
third year right now, and we’ve already raised our ELA
and math test scores by double-digit percentages,” Esselman
said.
“In the first two years, the focus was strictly on the
sciences and the arts,” added Esselman, who joined the
Harbor Charter School, along with new director Noemi Donoso,
just last year. “And it was very successful, at least
as far as test scores were concerned. But it wasn’t very
creative and the teachers were burnt out. I think that Noemi
and myself brought in a different, more creative atmosphere,
and it’s been working great. Our teachers—and as
you may know, the biggest problem for charters is to find and
keep highly qualified and experienced teachers—have been
extremely loyal and enthusiastic.” That’s in spite
of the fact that, after the first few years of a teacher’s
career, charter schools are not able to quite keep up salarywise
with “regular” public schools.
And that’s been far from the only obstacle to success. “It
is an ongoing myth that charter schools draw only outstanding
students,” said Esselman. “We get our students
from anywhere in New York City, through a strict lottery system
required by law. The fact is that we serve a population with
a lot of needs. We have a higher preponderance of ADD and ADHD
students and many of our kids have been failed by other public
schools. The majority of our students in the upper grades that
came in were under grade level.”
Donoso, a superstar teacher, has
provided extensive professional development—which occurs primarily after school, including
late-night classes—to make sure that the teachers don’t
feel that they’re lost. “We’ve managed to
develop a strong community among our teachers,” Esselman
said. “They are all coming back next year.” The
class sizes at Harbor are small, averaging 13 students per
teacher, and the curricula are extremely free flowing and creative,
including a novel-based approach to language arts. “In
addition to our flexibility in instruction—we can go
with the flow and find what WORKS—all the great aspects
of this place come from the fact that we’re a small school,” said
Esselman. “We are like a large family. Much individual
attention is being paid to each student and we are able to
quickly react to unique individual needs. Which may be changing
all the time, by the way.”
“And, as all science shows,
that is the key to a superior education.”
The charter school, serving primarily
East Harlem and the South Bronx, derives extreme benefit—including after-school
programs, a health center, and free crisis counselors—from
The Boys and Girls Harbor, a well-known $5-million a year social
service organization housed in the same building. “It’s
a unique arrangement,” Esselman said. “We are so
fortunate to have Harbor in the house and Central Park across
the street. It’s been nothing less than wonderful for
us.”
The Harbor Arts and Sciences Charter
School hopes to expand in the future. “We’d like to start another building
here in the community, add a class per grade, and go to 300
students,” Esselman said. “Right now we have 176.
But we will not defeat our own purpose—the class sizes
will be the same. We certainly shall not compromise anything
that makes us special.”#
