Inside an 'F' school

Revisit the in-depth series about Hawthorne, “Inside an ‘F’ School,” including stories, graphics and videos.

Estella Bitson thought things would be much different by now.

Now in her fourth year as principal at one of the city’s most at-risk schools, Bitson says she is beginning to accept that Hawthorne Elementary School’s reality is one of relentless challenge.

Some, like the extreme poverty and high-crime neighborhoods in which students live, are beyond the school system’s control. But Bitson says other challenges are not.

“The same is not equal,” is the phrase she uses repeatedly when she discusses her frustrations about staffing levels and extreme barriers to recruiting and retaining teachers in at-risk schools like hers.

“There are 50 elementary schools in the district, so you’re competing with 50 schools for applicants. They need to make sure our at-risk schools have a pool allotted just for them because they need high-quality teachers,” Bitson said.

Hawthorne Elementary School Principal Estella Bitson (left) talks with her newest teacher, fifth-grade instructor Stephanie Fadness. Fadness is a December graduate of a small college in Iowa who moved to Tulsa to take the job at Hawthorne only a month ago. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

“And just because we have 300 students and a school over there has 300 students does not mean we’re the same,” she said. “One of my kids equals two — the same is not equal. The obstacles and needs are much different.”

Stephanie Fadness, a February hire fresh off her December graduation from a small college in Iowa, said she was leery of Hawthorne’s “F” rating from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“When I first heard the ‘F’ thing, it did scare me,” Fadness said. “To hang that kind of blanket statement over the school, I think hurts the school’s climate overall.”

Just like every other year since Bitson arrived, inexperienced new hires coupled with mid-year teacher resignations have continued to plague her faculty and poke holes in her school’s climate of academic focus and strict rules for student behavior.

Fifth-grader Cameron Brooks gets a high five from his teacher Misty Moore as he worked his way through a problem during class at Hawthone Elementary School earlier this month. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

“We get too many fresh-out-of-college teachers. That’s not always good for at-risk kids,” she said. “I never get ahead — I feel like I’m fighting the same battle over and over.”

Another year of constant turnover

Hawthorne began 2014-15 short one third-grade teacher because Bitson simply couldn’t find enough applicants willing to work at an “F” school. The result is much larger class sizes for the two third-grade teachers she does have.

“Some people just can’t deal with the kids,” said Karesha Solomon, the lead third-grade teacher who attended Hawthorne as a child. She is one of only seven teachers who have worked there since Bitson arrived four years ago. “We’ve been short a third-grade teacher since January of last year. The people who take the biggest hit are the students who are on grade level.”

Fifth-grade teacher Stephanie Fadness works with student J'Shone Williams during class earlier this month. Fadness and another fellow December college graduate were hired to replace two fifth-grade teachers who left Hawthorne Elementary during the fall semester. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

For the second year in a row, Solomon finds herself leading all third-graders in preparation for the upcoming state-mandated tests. The stakes for these students are particularly high because state law requires third-graders to pass the reading test or face being held back.

When the number of teacher positions allocated to each school site was readjusted across the city after the second week of school, Hawthorne lost two positions.

And a new teacher recruited to Tulsa by Teach for America “couldn’t handle the kids” in one of Hawthorne’s sixth-grade classes, in Bitson’s words, so she began the year by finding that teacher another placement in the school district and shifted teacher assignments within the building.

According to data from the TPS Human Capital office, Hawthorne turned over one-third of its faculty in 2013-14. That was a slight decrease from the 40 percent turnover rate the previous year.

Third-grade teacher Karesha Solomon watches as her students line up in the hallway recently before entering the classroom. Hawthorne is one of 49 Tulsa Public Schools rated with an "F" by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

The constant churn is unsettling for parents, too, as evidenced by Hawthorne’s student enrollment, which fell from 386 at this time last year to 318 currently.

Among the spring 2014 departures were both fifth-grade teachers. Bitson said that cost her some of her school’s highest-achieving students.

“Some parents took their students to KIPP (a college preparatory charter school) or south-side schools because I couldn’t ‘assure’ them of who my fifth-grade teachers were going to be,” Bitson said. “These were the leaders of our school. They balance out our student body. But, if it was my kid, I would be asking the same questions — and here we go, I didn’t have that consistency.”

She concedes that the gamble paid off for those parents and their children.

Fifth-grader Cameron Steed (right) participates in a class chant at Hawthorne Elementary School. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

By October, the first of the two newly hired fifth-grade teachers quit. The second one followed suit at the end of the first semester.

Mid-year triage

Bitson pounded the pavement over winter break, tracking down December graduates from teacher colleges. A Northeastern State University grad began in late January, and another recent grad, from a small college in Iowa, arrived in early February.

But that meant weeks on end of substitute teachers for Hawthorne’s fifth-graders.

PTA President Thomas Henderson helps a student navigate an icy patch in the parking lot earlier this month as he greets children and their parents in front of Hawthorne Elementary School. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Even a 10-year-old understands the implications of all of that coming and going — and the toll it exacts on student achievement.

“It happened before. In third grade, I had like eight teachers. Some had family problems, I think some just make excuses. It was confusing. We kept calling them the wrong name,” said fifth-grader Cameron Steed. “They don’t like us as much … I think we’re behind.

“Other kids have one teacher, and they get to learn and they get used to that one teacher,” he said.

Fadness, the new fifth-grade teacher from a tiny town in Iowa, said she wanted to work in a school in an urban setting and try to make a difference for students with the greatest academic needs.

Estella Bitson, the principal at Hawthorne Elementary School, leads TPS superintendent-designee Deborah Gist on a tour of the building on Feb. 27. Hawthorne Elementary School is one of Tulsa Public Schools' 49 "F" Schools. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Even with that sense of motivation and purpose, Fadness admits her first month at Hawthorne has been more difficult than she could have imagined.

She and her new counterpart, Misty Moore, smile and laugh nervously when asked whether they will return next year.

“I don’t think I knew what I was getting into,” Fadness said. “There is a lot more focus on the state test than where I did my student teaching because the goal is to no longer be an ‘F’ school.

“So much of the discipline is about trust and attention-seeking. I feel like every single one of my kids needs my attention all day. At the same time, they want to know if I’m going to stay,” she said.

“One of my kids said, ‘Pinky-promise me that you’re going to stay until the end of the year.’ ”

Fifth-grade students Jahlah Smith (second from left) and Tamauria Dixon read along in their textbooks while behind them, Hawthorne Principal Estella Bitson, reading consultant Jeannine Simon and Cindy Kearney evaluate the reading instruction of the school's newest teacher, Stephanie Fadness (foreground). Fadness started about a month ago. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

A few bright spots

On Bitson’s wish list a year ago was an assistant principal to help with instructional leadership and student discipline issues, plus a second counselor to help support students with personal and home life challenges.

Hawthorne still has no secondary administrator, but officials at Family & Children’s Services saw the Tulsa World series and offered new assistance in the form of two therapists who provide on-site counseling to students, parents and even teachers.

Bitson has also been getting some reinforcement with chronic truancy issues in the form of home visits by an officer with the Tulsa Public Schools Campus Police.

Hawthorne’s student mobility rate rose from 108 percent to 110 percent in 2013-14, primarily because of students being dropped from the rolls for excessive absences — sometimes multiple times throughout the year. By comparison, the rate for the entire Tulsa school district was 87 percent, and the lowest mobility rates in the school district run in the mid-20s.

The school has also gotten a couple of big boosts with reading help this year.

Hawthorne was selected for the fall 2014 expansion of Reading Partners, a reading intervention program that is scripted for outside volunteers to come and assist struggling students in kindergarten through fourth grade.

Dozens of WPX employees who previously mentored Hawthorne students now work through this program, and other volunteers from the Tulsa police and fire departments, Northeastern State University and Tulsa Community College were added for a total of 92 participants.

Hawthorne was also recently awarded a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Oklahoma State Department of Education to beef up its teachers’ reading instruction and intervention skills.

Outreach to parents

Last year, the school had only a core group of five parents working to support the school on a regular basis and all of those are gone this year, for one reason or another.

In an effort to draw more parents to PTA meetings, the Hawthorne faculty and community engagement staffer jazzed them up by planning a job fair, free health screenings, free meals and even free child care.

After all of that, their best turnout of the year was at the February meeting when 12 parents attended.

Thomas Henderson, a father of four past and current Hawthorne students, has been greeting every student and parent as a volunteer crossing guard in the school driveway every morning for years.

When he stepped up to serve as PTA president this year, not even all of that goodwill was enough to convince more parents to get involved. He said when he has tried to encourage parents to attend PTA meetings, he hears a lot of excuses about transportation or not being able to get out at that time of night.

“I think a lot don’t make a conscious effort. If you can make a conscious effort, you can do things you set your mind to,” Henderson said. “You don’t want to push too hard because some would take that as criticism.”

Still, Henderson — like so many of the other adults working inside Hawthorne every day — is undeterred.

“Like the word on the board out there,” he said, motioning toward Hawthorne’s marquee, “I’m ‘optimistic.’ I see signs of change — or maybe it’s just that I’m looking because I’m more closely involved.”

Tulsa Public Schools’ next superintendent, who is expected to begin full time at the district on July 1, recently toured Hawthorne. As she listened to the myriad ways the school has worked to increase community and especially parent engagement, one statement stopped her dead in her tracks.

“We have 100 percent participation in parent conferences,” Principal Bitson told Superintendent-designee Deborah Gist.

Gist stopped her, saying, “Tell me again? 100 percent?”

Bitson responded, “If they don’t come, we go to them.”

Student achievement at Hawthorne

Percentage of students scoring satisfactory and above

Source: Tulsa Public Schools

How Oklahoma grades public schools

Oklahoma's A-F school grading system has been highly controversial since its introduction in 2012. It was intended to make it easier to evaluate the effectiveness of public schools, but many educators across the state and research scientists at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University have objected to the state’s grade calculation methods.

The current calculation method relies on student proficiency rates in core subjects on state-mandated standardized tests for half of every school and district’s grade.

The remaining 50 percent of a school’s grade is determined through an analysis of how a school or district’s student scores in math and reading compare to the previous year’s.

Bonus points can be earned for strong rates of student attendance, graduation, participation in advanced coursework and college entrance exams, and low dropout counts.

The number of schools deemed failing by the Oklahoma State Department of Education soared in the fall from 163 to 200.

Tulsa Public Schools saw its number of “F” schools grow from 36 to 49, with 21 sites falling one letter grade and four sites falling two letter grades.

Editor’s note: Oklahoma’s A-F grading system is intended to be an easy way to judge the performance of public schools. The Tulsa World took an in-depth look at what’s going on in one of the 36 local schools that received failing marks.

Journalists Andrea Eger, John Clanton, Mike Simons and Matt Barnard went to Hawthorne Elementary School during our monthlong project. Here’s what they found.

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: TPS working to recruit more teachers to district

Related story: Read Inside an 'F' school, Day 1

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: Testing a weekly, year-round focus

Related story: Inside an 'F' school overview: F schools struggle with testing, turnover and poverty

Photo Gallery: Tulsa World photographers documented life and lessons inside Tulsa Public School's Hawthorne Elementary.

Read all the 'Inside an 'F' school' stories on our page dedicated to the project.

It’s the last Monday in January, with little more than two months before students will begin taking state-mandated tests, and Hawthorne Principal Estella Bitson opens the weekly faculty meeting with more bad news.

"Ms. Grinder is not coming back," she said.

The departed third-grade teacher is the latest of five teacher vacancies Hawthorne has had to grapple with since students returned from winter break.

Superintendents across the state have cried foul over a change in Oklahoma’s school grade card system that caused a giant uptick in schools that received an “F” — from 10 the first year that schools were graded to 163 last year. None of the political rhetoric is any consolation to the educators at Hawthorne, one of 36 “F” schools in the Tulsa district.

“We don’t need to know we are at-risk — we know that,” Bitson said. “An ‘F’ doesn’t support us. It makes us not want to come back.”

A Tulsa World analysis of teacher turnover rates over the past four years in Tulsa Public Schools shows that Hawthorne has the third-highest four-year average among graded schools in the district at 26 percent. It was tied for second highest turnover last year at 41 percent.

 Mekhi Oliver works on spelling words and their definitions during class at Hawthorne Elementary School in north Tulsa on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2014. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

The chronic instability in staffing at Hawthorne isn’t isolated.

Eight other “F” schools have four-year averages near 20 percent or even higher, and three of the sites have already reached that range with midyear turnover.

These teacher turnover rates are likely grossly underreported because Tulsa Public Schools has not included in these calculations the teachers who left one TPS site for another. District officials acknowledge that intradistrict transfers are common during the summer months.

While TPS has engaged in aggressive efforts to push out teachers for sub-par instructional skills — roughly 200 have been “exited” since a new evaluation system was adopted in 2009 — Bitson said systemic problems with the recruitment and retention of teachers have created a revolving door for instructors that leaves at-risk schools like hers in a particularly precarious position.

“This is a cycle that is going to take a lot to break,” she said.

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: TPS working to recruit more teachers to district

Karesha Solomon talks with students in her third-grade class at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa on Feb. 13. Solomon was once a student at Hawthorne. After a teacher across the hall left the school, she volunteered to take on an additional 20 students. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Interrupted instruction

Since the beginning of January, Hawthorne has seen the arrival of new teachers in special education, kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade.

By this point in the year, the school district’s applicant pool has reached drought status.

Bitson was able to persuade an administrative applicant who had most recently served as principal at Victory Christian School to finish out the year at the helm of a fifth-grade class.

According to district leaders, the only third-grade teacher in the pipeline who could have filled Hawthorne’s latest vacancy opted to extend her maternity leave. That leaves the school to limp through the rest of the year with only substitutes to help fill the void, even though third-grade is a high-stakes testing year in Oklahoma.

A new law taking effect this year will require schools to retain (i.e. hold back) any third-graders who don’t pass the state reading test. The first sub to show up is not only not a certified teacher, but she has no college degree.

Karesha Solomon, a second-year teacher who is already the school’s lead third-grade teacher, will keep two full classes of third-graders in her standard size classroom. The substitute teachers who will cycle in and out every couple of weeks are simply being asked to help monitor students and grade homework.

“I’ll just teach 35 or 40 instead of my 20,” Solomon said. “You have to be flexible at this school.”

Third grade student Jermico Willis works on schoolwork at his desk under banners of handwritten educational posters in Karesha Solomon's class at Hawthorne Elementary School. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Their teacher may be flexible, but for many of the squirmy 8- and 9-year-olds crammed elbow to elbow before her, adjusting to the change has involved acting out and testing boundaries.

At 12:45 p.m. that Wednesday, the third day since the other teacher’s departure was formalized, Solomon showed up in the school office with one of her new charges, who was in tears.

The boy had flat-out refused to go to math class.

“He just said, ‘I’m not going.’ I’ve had a hard time with him all week,” she said.

“I would send him to ISS (in-school suspension), but he would miss instruction. To me, it’s best for him to stay in class if the parent will help,” she explained, dialing his mother’s phone number.

Another student’s mother said the middle-of-the-year disruption may be less than ideal, but she thinks the school’s response has been excellent and that her child ended up with a better teacher.

“His teacher has been absent a lot, and I really like the other teacher because she sends him home with a thorough homework packet every Monday,” said Sharlén Smith, mother of 8-year-old Nathan Cole. “I feel like they have a pretty good staff here, and the principal is one of the only principals I’ve dealt with that I can call and she’s always responsive.”

Karesha Solomon, a third-grade teacher at Hawthorne Elementary School, separates students who can go to recess (right) from those who have to sit in class during recess time for breaking rules. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Not for everyone

Bitson describes the hiring process in her three years at Hawthorne as a constant uphill battle. On top of Oklahoma’s statewide teacher shortage, an inner-city district such as TPS has an even harder time attracting applicants for its toughest teaching jobs.

Of the 26 certified positions at Hawthorne, Bitson was charged with filling one part-time and eight full-time positions for the 2013-14 school year. In the spirit of teamwork, she asked a committee of teachers to help her interview and select applicants last spring.

Everyone departed for summer feeling confident they had found individuals who could help them build on their already significant achievement gains. Then one by one, six of those hires backed out of their verbal commitments to Hawthorne before August.

Bitson had to begin the hiring process again.

“Late hiring is a challenge and an obstacle to ensuring you have the best possible teachers in the highest-need schools. Historically, this has always been the case, and it has been exacerbated by the teacher shortage,” TPS Chief Human Capital Officer Talia Shaull said.

The Hawthorne principal knows the struggle only too well.

“We don’t get the quality teachers because there is kind of a stigma on north-side schools about the behaviors of students,” Bitson said. “A lot of times, we get the new teachers with no experience.”

Saniyah Oliver corrects a mistake during class at Hawthorne Elementary School in north Tulsa on Jan. 31. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Kerri Ishem, a first-grade teacher who is in her fifth year at Hawthorne, said the extreme challenges and constant obstacles teachers face there are just too much for most.

“This environment is not a fit for everyone,” Ishem said. “When you first come here, you think all kids can learn — and they can — but it’s not what you think. It’s almost like you have to fight them to teach them; it’s a constant battle to convince them that this is important.”

Bitson, one of the more seasoned principals in TPS, said she tries to prepare new teachers and assure them that she will support them in maintaining a safe and orderly environment and a focus on academics.

“I tell new teachers, ‘These kids can make it so bad you won’t even want to be here.’ If they sense you’re afraid or you can’t handle it, they will challenge you all day because it’s how they’ve learned to act from experience. They’re like little adults,” Bitson said.

Even those among the core group she has come to rely on have told her they want to leave.

“I’ve tried telling them, ‘Our kids need you — you’re the foundation of this place. Just give me two more years,’ ” Bitson said, shaking her head. “I don’t blame them.”

Students in Karesha Solomon's class line up against the wall as they wait to be dismissed for lunch at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa on Feb. 14. After a third-grade teacher left the school earlier this year, Solomon volunteered to take the students into her class. She now teaches a class of almost 40 kids with help from a substitute teacher. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Instability wreaks havoc

When the departures occur midyear, it’s especially disruptive to student achievement and the school climate, but it can also be devastating for kids.

Bitson said that for Hawthorne’s at-risk students, trusting the adults in their lives is not a given.

“When teachers walk out the door, that trust is a major concern because so many people come and go out of their lives. Sometimes, teachers do the same thing,” she said.

Then she pointed to the unusually long line of students heading from the cafeteria back to the in-school suspension room as proof of the disruption to the school climate caused by all of the midyear staff churn.

“This has been a rough week,” Bitson said. “I am going to talk to my teachers because we are going to have to do some of the trust-building activities we did at the beginning of the school year. These kids notice — even if they’re not in a class with a new teacher — and start testing boundaries,” she said.

Nowhere was that on greater display than among the students of Debbie LaRochelle, the new fifth-grade teacher who came from a private school setting.

“It’s a totally different culture. There’s a great amount of disrespect,” she said in a group discussion at a faculty meeting.

She has been paired up to team teach with the other fifth-grade teacher because her students have already been through the resignation of their first teacher and a couple of substitute stints.

When the other teacher took most of the fifth-graders to the computer lab for a reading exercise, LaRochelle was left to conduct a unit review about English settlers with the dozen remaining students on her own. She tried to carry on with only a few students responding to her questions while the others wreaked one kind of havoc or another.

Two girls in the front were taunting and threatening each other with physical violence while two boys in the back colored Christmas posters and used scissors to both destroy pencils and antagonize a girl seated near them.

LaRochelle plowed ahead with the quizzing as a couple of students got up and walked out of the room and others hollered at each other.

Everything came to a grinding halt when one of the two girls who were about to come to blows at the front of the room raised her hand, then blurted out, “She called me the B-word!”

Prompted by their teacher to illustrate a point, students in Karesha Solomon's third-grade class laugh out loud during a lesson at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa on Feb. 13. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Highest/lowest teacher turnover rates in TPS over past four years

Highest

Lowest

Source: Tulsa Public Schools/Tulsa World

Closer look at Hawthorne’s teacher turnover

Note: Teacher turnover rates include all certified employees paid on the teacher salary schedule including counselors, librarians and nurses.

Comparison of teacher turnover rates in Tulsa’s ‘F’ schools

Note: TPS does not include teacher turnover from transfers within the district, which are common, so these figures are likely underreported.

Source: Tulsa Public Schools

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: TPS working to recruit more teachers to district

Related story: Read Inside an 'F' school, Day 1

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: Testing a weekly, year-round focus

Related story: Inside an 'F' school overview: F schools struggle with testing, turnover and poverty

Photo Gallery: Tulsa World photographers documented life and lessons inside Tulsa Public School's Hawthorne Elementary.

Read all the 'Inside an 'F' school' stories on our page dedicated to the project.

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470

andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com

According to rules negotiated with Tulsa Public Schools by the local teachers union, teachers can request a transfer within the district any time. And district leaders readily admit that it is common practice for principals to “steal” teachers away from other sites year-round.

Ken Calhoun, executive director of human capital at TPS, said the district only recently began requiring the approval of both the sending and receiving principals for transfers when school is in session.

Each year, Tulsa teachers sign an annual employment contract for 176 days of work, but by union-negotiated agreement, they are allowed up to 10 sick days and five personal days, plus 20 more work days off with substitute pay deducted from their paycheck.

If they sign the TPS contract and then leave for another district, Calhoun said, recourse is provided by state law, but it’s not commonly enforced among the public school districts here.

“The contract is not really binding because the law says if we wanted to keep someone under contract, Dr. (Keith) Ballard has to go before the state Board of Education to petition them to hold the teacher’s certification, and nobody does that,” Calhoun said.

Chief Human Capital Officer Talia Shaull said holding the teacher’s certification is not a good option because “I don’t want to keep somebody who doesn’t want to be here, who doesn’t get up every morning and want to make a difference in the life of those children.”

The school district has turned to a national nonprofit organization called TNTP that recruits and trains teachers to get help finding more applicants. Since 2009, it has also relied heavily on the Teach for America organization to bring in recent college graduates from a variety of educational backgrounds to commit to two years of teaching in Tulsa schools.

TPS has been getting 75 new Teach for America corps members each year but will soon ask the school board to increase that number to 100 to help address its teaching shortage.

Hawthorne has only two TFA recruits — some sites have many more than that — and Principal Estella Bitson said there is a good chance both will be departing at the end of this year.

Chinedu Udeh, a fourth-grade teacher recruited by Teach for America after her graduation from Dartmouth College, said she wants to stay because she really cares about Hawthorne’s students and thrives on the academic focus and support of Bitson.

But the ties that bind are drawing her away from Tulsa.

“I just got engaged, and my fiance is in finance. He’s in Boston now but can’t get a job (here) that would pay him nearly what he can make on the coasts, so we’re planning to move together to the L.A. area, where I’m from,” she said.

“It’s something TFA really needs to look at — take more corps members from Texas or Oklahoma so there’s a better chance they can stay.”

About the reporter

Staff Writer Andrea Eger has worked at the Tulsa World since 1999 and has covered public education since 2000. She has completed intensive professional development in education reporting with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Education Writers Association.

Over the years, her work has garnered her two first place awards in investigative individual reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists – Oklahoma Pro Chapter and numerous first place awards in education reporting from SPJ and the Great Plains Journalism Awards, an eightstate competition.

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470

andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com

A moment of silence is observed during the short “sunshine assembly” that begins each and every school day at Hawthorne Elementary.

While students squirm and teachers “shhhhh,” Principal Estella Bitson says a silent prayer.

“I pray that I can make a difference for one child that day,” she said.

After the usual announcements, the music teacher picks up her trumpet and the computer lab assistant takes his seat at the piano.

While they play a jazz-style tune, the students exit the gymnasium class by class, singing, “I will do my best, nothing more, nothing less.”

Bitson, 43, was born and raised in Chicago and spent the first 18 years of her career as a teacher and then principal in Jefferson City, Mo. Much of that time she worked in a poor, rural school where a majority of students were at risk.

But almost none of that prepared her for what she would encounter at Hawthorne when she accepted the job here three years ago.

“There are at least triple the environmental concerns with our students here. More trauma, more death in the families, and little to no support from parents,” Bitson said.

“Parents send us the best they have. They want us to educate their children, but it’s very hard for our students to be at their best when they have no food consistently at home or the proper clothing to come to school,” she said. “They’re like little adults with adult worries, and they don’t know how to be the child they are.”

Bitson has spearheaded an overhaul of Hawthorne in just a few short years, and the payoff has been a dramatic surge in student proficiency rates — from 29 percent overall in 2012 to 46 percent in 2013.

She said she had to challenge some teachers who thought it was acceptable to show students videos all day long and beef up security so lax that explosive confrontations were frequent between parents and teachers and parents and children who were not their own.

“There were times I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I would go home and tell my husband, ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ ” she said, with a nervous laugh.

“But they deserve the best that I can give. I walk through the door every morning because I see kids who look just like me growing up.”

Karesha Solomon walked over the very same railroad tracks and was chased by stray dogs back to her grandmother’s house along the same neighborhood streets traversed by her students at Hawthorne Elementary School.

She tells those stories so they know she can relate to their current circumstances.

Then she tells them the rest of the story — so they might imagine something better for their futures.

“I tell the kids ‘I’m just like you, but … there’s a but,’ ” said the 27-year-old, laughing. “My parents expected us to go to college, so they worked hard — my dad worked nights and my mom worked early, so they dropped us off at our grandmother’s house around the corner. We all went to college, and I want to show them they can, too. That’s the but.”

Solomon has an 18-month-old of her own at home and teaches in an after-school enrichment program to earn extra income.

She is only in her second full year of teaching, but she did her student teaching at Hawthorne before that. The irony of a second-year teacher serving as a school’s lead third-grade teacher is not lost on her.

“Technically, I’m still a new teacher. I should have some old lady telling me, ‘Do this, don’t do that.’ But I’ve had to grow up really quick in my profession here,” Solomon said.

School doesn’t officially start until 7:45 a.m., but fourth-grade teacher Chinedu Udeh arrives for battle between 6:15 and 6:30 every morning.

Her adversary? The school’s decrepit copy machines.

She’s got the war wounds — both fresh cuts and older scars — all over the tops of her small hands to show for the work she does for Hawthorne students.

Udeh has written many successful grant requests on a website called DonorsChoose.org to get funds for everything from cases of copy paper and up-to-date dictionaries for her classroom to Scholastic News magazines and culturally sensitive reading materials so her students can better relate to the texts.

“It’s hard to care about what you’re learning when so much of what we’re given is written about a predominantly white, middle-class perspective,” Udeh said.

The 23-year-old from Ontario, Calif., was recruited to Tulsa nearly two years ago through the Teach for America program. She majored in history and minored in public policy with a concentration in education at Dartmouth College, but she said the public schools she attended as a kid in Southern California weren’t so different from Hawthorne.

“You have to believe in the kids, and it is easier when they can relate to you. I think my students think if I could get to an Ivy League school, they could, too. But you can’t do it with the wrong teachers,” she said.

“Until teachers take universal ownership of children, teachers are going to keep leaving for those ‘better’ kids,” she said. “And our kids aren’t stupid — the ultimate message we’re sending our kids is they’re not as valued as other kids.”

Ask her for her solutions to too-low student achievement rates at Hawthorne and so many other schools like it, and at the top of her list is instructional time.

She said the additional time is absolutely essential for children who enter school so far behind their more affluent counterparts in basic knowledge and skills. It would allow teachers to expose them to science, social studies and writing, which she said have been largely abandoned in at-risk schools.

She may be young and short on experience, but she and her fourth-grade colleague, Lisa Baker, have the impressive test score gains to show for all of their hard work.

Last year, the fourth-grade student proficiency rates skyrocketed from 22 to 57 percent in reading and from 32 to 53 percent in math.

Fredrick Freeman is 65 years old but says he can’t retire from his teaching assistant position at Hawthorne Elementary School because too many kids there lack a good, male role model.

He works all day long in the school computer lab with kids who need extra help in reading and math. And he stays late with the principal’s secretary, Lynne Hill, to run another educational program that is expertly disguised as an extra-curricular activity.

Through the Hawthorne Ambassadors group, students in kindergarten through sixth grade get to learn choral music and public speaking and perform at events in school and throughout the community.

Being a Hawthorne Ambassador requires kids to maintain good academic, attendance and behavior records.

“We’re at 45 students now, but we have had as many as 70. Parents have to sign a contract, too, ensuring that they will bring their children,” Freeman said. “It gives the kids an outlet to get up on stage in front of people, which they love, but in the process, they’re learning manners, articulation and striving for excellence.”

He admits to getting discouraged at times but said he loves working for Principal Estella Bitson because she holds everyone to high standards.

He said too many of Hawthorne’s students suffer from too much inconsistency in their lives.

“Things are so very, very different today. They come from homes that are split up, messed up, so it’s important for me to give them what I had in school growing up — teachers who really invested themselves in students,” Freeman said.

Why would someone choose to send their child to an “F” school?

Judi Wilson should know. She has driven not one but two of her daughters from their neighborhood near downtown all the way up Peoria Avenue to East 33rd Street North so they can attend Hawthorne Elementary School.

“This is not an ‘F’ school,” she said matter-of-factly. “My oldest daughter who went here is getting ready to graduate from TU this spring, and my youngest daughter is in the fifth grade and has great teachers.”

Wilson was volunteering in the office, putting items in teachers’ mailboxes and greeting midmorning visitors as they walked in the front doors.

As one of only five parent members in the Hawthorne PTA, she spends a lot of time in the building. She said she questions the state’s method for grading schools.

“I don’t see how the criteria changed so much last year, so a school that made like 18 percent improvement in student achievement gets an F,” Wilson said. “What does that do for morale? So you change all of this. Does that happen again next year?”

Wilson’s fifth-grader, Jamarie Wilson, is student body president, has perfect attendance and was among the 140 students recently named to Hawthorne’s honor roll.

In all of the years Wilson has been involved in her children’s education, she has noticed some big changes — namely a significant decrease in the involvement of other parents at the school.

“Parents, just show up and let your kids know you care,” she said. “We could do so much more if we had more volunteers.”

She is also troubled by a decline in funding instructional materials.

“My oldest daughter would bring textbooks home. Then we went to checking textbooks out from class.

“Now, Jamarie just brings home copy papers, and it’s hard because she can’t go back to the textbook if she needs help. Everything they do in this school is on copy paper, and the copy machines are always broken and they’re always running out of paper,” she said. “Resources have gone down.”

Karen Roach is the longest-serving employee in the building, having arrived as a mere substitute teacher for a two-week assignment at Hawthorne way back in 1982. Back then, she would have scoffed at the notion of staying 32 days, let alone 32 years.

But one request to sub led to another and before long, Roach was hired full-time as an assistant to two kindergarten teachers. She has worked in many positions throughout the building and been a witness to the changing tides in the three decades since.

“Classroom size was large, then it was shrunk. Now it’s large again,” she said. “Now teachers have to spend more time trying to discipline than teaching. Sometimes experience is the best teacher, but they took all the seasoned teachers out of the classroom who could help mentor the new ones. They retired them and started bringing in the new ones right out of college.”

Roach, a licensed minister, also works with youths through her position as assistant to the pastor at Vernon Chapel AME Church.

Although the work has never been more difficult, what keeps her coming back nowadays is her promise to her great-niece, a second-grader, to remain at Hawthorne until the girl leaves for Carver Middle School.

“I want to help the children. Sometimes, the only kind word and only hug they get is from you,” Roach said. “The story of the little engine that could is my favorite story to tell them — I try to keep them encouraged.”

Then she added: “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but a school. This is where I need to be. I plan to retire in three years, but that might not happen.”

Stephanie Fox worked for Tulsa Public Schools for 14 years before leaving for a teaching job at a private school. After only two years, she came back.

“I didn’t feel like those kids needed what I had to give,” said Fox, whose 22 years of teaching experience make her by far the most senior among Hawthorne Elementary’s otherwise young faculty.

About 40 of Hawthorne’s 386 students require assistance outside of their regular classroom. That specialized instruction is provided by Fox, a paraprofessional and — since January — a part-time second teacher.

Over the past 10 years, Fox has seen much earlier identification of autism spectrum disorders and many more diagnoses of speech disorders and emotional problems.

The biggest uptick lately is in cases of “oppositional defiant disorder,” a mental health issue marked by anger-fueled disobedience, hostility and defiance beyond typical childhood behavior.

“There is a lack of control and trust in the adults in their environments,” Fox said. “A lot of parents are very good about asking for help and our counselor provides referrals, but many don’t follow through. The idea of having someone from Family & Children’s Services or Youth Services of Tulsa in their home is very daunting.”

Hawthorne’s special needs students can demonstrate continual growth and improvement, but Fox said new changes in the state’s testing rules that restrict special accommodations will likely penalize them.

“They may be ready for taking the state test, but if they’re doing fifth-grade math but at a third-grade reading level, we’re not going to get the full picture and find out what they know,” Fox said.

Working so hard and then being deemed a failing school by the state has weighed heavily on this veteran teacher.

She said she can’t understand how the school grading system doesn’t account for the vast differences in the knowledge and skill-base of student populations, especially when the educators in public schools have to do so every day.

“I’ve thought a lot about the grades. I don’t want to change the standards. The world doesn’t care where you come from, it only cares what you can do,” she said.

“The growth aspect needs to be taken into consideration. We are in here doing the best we can.”

Fox noted how she and so many of her colleagues work second jobs and even neglect their own families at times because they are so committed to low-paying, high-demand day jobs helping the most at-risk students.

“Some days, I go home and I think, ‘Oh, my gosh. It’s too much.’ It’s too much for my own kids,” Fox said. “I feel absolutely demoralized. Those of us who have been around long enough have experienced the trend of educators being valued members of society and now being vilified.”

Editor’s note: Oklahoma’s A-F grading system is intended to be an easy way to judge the performance of public schools. The Tulsa World took an in-depth look at what’s going on in one of the 36 local schools that received failing marks.

Journalists Andrea Eger, John Clanton, Mike Simons and Matt Barnard went to Hawthorne Elementary School during our monthlong project. Here’s what they found.

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: Testing a weekly, year-round focus

Related story: Inside an 'F' school overview: F schools struggle with testing, turnover and poverty

Photo Gallery: Tulsa World photographers documented life and lessons inside Tulsa Public School's Hawthorne Elementary.

Read all the 'Inside an 'F' school' stories on our page dedicated to the project.

Every other Friday without fail, Judi Wilson, LaChelle Harris and Kenneth Stanley Sr. can be found at Hawthorne Elementary School selling sour pickles and fresh-popped popcorn to raise money for the PTA.

It’s a good thing they do, because they’re three of only five parents in the PTA at a school with 386 students. In December, teachers were the only ones who attended the monthly PTA meeting.

“Just show up and let your kids know you care!” Wilson said. “If we had more volunteers, we could do this every Friday. The kids love it and love us being here, and we raise money for student activities and rewards parties.”

The active PTA members' children are proof positive that kids can not only succeed but can flourish academically, even in an F school. Wilson’s fifth-grader, Jamarie Wilson, is student body president, and she and Harris’ granddaughter Jordan Silas and Kenneth Stanley Jr., both second-graders, have perfect attendance, and all were just named to the honor roll.

Kenneth Stanley Sr. stands with his son Kenneth Stanley Jr. at his locker after attending a Donuts with Dads event at Hawthorne Elementary School. This was the first Donuts with Dads event the school had ever held, with about 120 dads attending the event and then taking their kids to the classrooms. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Starting behind

Hawthorne’s achievement rates rose 17 percentage points to 46 percent from 2012 to 2013, but poverty and social ills are having a profound impact on a majority of the school’s students.

Faculty and staff say they’re simply not getting the support they need from parents. The office staff grapple with chronic absenteeism. This is evidenced in the school’s student mobility rate, which was 108 percent for 2012-13, primarily because of enrolled students being dropped from the rolls for excessive absences — sometimes multiple times throughout the year.

By comparison, the mobility rate at A-plus neighborhood school Carnegie Elementary is 24 percent.

Janice Watkins, a counselor at Tulsa's Hawthorne Elementary School, brings testing paperwork to a school parents' home to be signed. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World

Hawthorne counselor Janice Watkins recently had to resort to home visits because parents or guardians of 15 students weren’t responding to repeated phone calls over the course of three weeks about the possibility of their children having special education needs.

Early-childhood education teachers say a significant portion of their students enter school with profound deficits in basic skills and knowledge.

“I have students who can barely form a sentence or who don’t know their own first names because they’ve only been spoken to in basic commands or called a nickname,” said Patricialynn Holweg, who teaches prekindergarten. “They’re so far behind that even when we make great strides, they’re still behind the others.”

The effects of rampant, generational poverty are everywhere you turn at Hawthorne, where 94 percent of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-rate school meals based on family income.

A Tulsa World analysis found a strong correlation between this poverty indicator and schools that received "F" grades. Tulsa Public Schools has 36 "F" schools and 44 schools where more than 90 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-rate school meals. The lists overlap with few exceptions.

Only four "F" schools did not make the 90 percent threshold, but their rates of children from low-income homes are still very high. They are Chouteau Elementary, with 87.5 percent qualifying students; Jones Elementary, with 84.5 percent; Key Elementary, with 82 percent; and Tulsa MET High, with 83 percent.

Among the 44 sites with the highest poverty rates, all but two scored D or F.

Extra efforts

The school day doesn’t officially begin until 7:45 a.m., but Hawthorne opens its doors at 7:10 a.m. for breakfast, and most of the 386 students count on that free meal.

“We are supposed to cut it off at 8, but we keep serving until 8:30 because so many kids come late,” said Rolonda Henderson, a cafeteria assistant.

A nutritious snack is provided three to four days a week before after-school tutoring sessions, too, but not everyone immediately gobbles up their fruit cup, cheese crackers and orange juice.

“Some of them don’t eat their afternoon snack. They take it home so they have something to eat in the evening,” Principal Estella Bitson said.

Nakia Hicks, a sixth-grader at Tulsa's Hawthorne Elementary School, hands out snacks before an after-school tutoring session on Feb. 13. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World

Being ranked among the lowest performing schools in the state qualifies Hawthorne for $108,949 in state funds for school improvement, plus one or two visits a month from a state consultant.

Bitson uses the money — along with a portion of the site budget she receives from the school district — to pay for the after-school tutoring plus materials, software and technology for students who are behind grade level, as well as for professional development for teachers.

Teachers, low-wage support staff and PTA members spend money out of their own pockets to buy warm coats and gloves, socks, underwear, and even toiletries for kids in need.

The school has some community partners who help provide support. WPX Energy sends about 70 employees to mentor students once a week and has invested tens of thousands of dollars for things such as a new outdoor exercise track and funding for field trips. Crossover Community Impact puts on an after-school enrichment program staffed by church volunteers and a couple of Hawthorne teachers they pay, plus they sponsor and coach several Hawthorne boys football teams that compete in a local league.

Also, Hawthorne recently became part of the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative network of schools in hopes of establishing more partnerships and programs to help parents.

Trauma and tragedy

Because it serves children from one of Tulsa’s poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods, Hawthorne has also had to cope with a surreal amount of trauma and adversity.

The school struggles to keep up, with only one counselor and no assistant principal or school-based social worker.

“I really believe most people don’t know what’s really going on. Maybe they think these things happen in Chicago, but Tulsa, Oklahoma? It’s here, and unless you come and see the obstacles our teachers face, you can’t understand,” Bitson said.

“In the three years I have been here, there has been a lot of death among family members, and it comes into the school naturally,” she said.

In the past three years alone, a Hawthorne teacher’s assistant plus two fathers and one older brother of Hawthorne students were murdered; another child’s uncle was shot in the neighborhood; and the mother of another student was killed in a car wreck.

Just before this past Thanksgiving, Noni Taylor-Moses, a 4-year-old in Hawthorne’s prekindergarten program, died alongside her 18-month-old sister in an apartment fire. Their aunt, who was baby-sitting them at the time, has been charged with second-degree murder in the deaths.

“These are not natural deaths,” Bitson said. “So not only are we dealing with nutrition and health but (students’) emotional state, as well.”

Teachers all over the building say it is not uncommon for their students to bring up contacts their families have with police or Oklahoma Department of Human Services workers. Holweg, the pre-K teacher, recalled an instance when she was using a Venn diagram with the story of the Three Little Pigs to teach relationship recognition to her 4-year-old students.

“In the book we were using, some of the pigs died and the wolf ate them and then got caught and sent to jail,” Holweg said. “One little boy said, ‘My dad’s in jail for shooting someone.’ Another student said, ‘My dad’s dead.’

“So we talk about bad choices a lot and how they’re good, loving and nice, and it’s their decision to make good choices.”

Right before Christmas, faculty members recognized a man on the “Tulsa’s Most Wanted” segment of a local TV newscast as the father of one of their students.

Bitson said one of the most horrifying situations she has encountered in her nearly three years at Hawthorne involved a fifth-grade boy who was in a family of 10 children living in a two-bedroom apartment. Some of his siblings told school workers that he was prostituting himself with men to bring home extra money for his family, and a school secretary witnessed him soliciting at a gas station near the school one evening.

“All of the kids in that family have special needs and serious behavior issues. Three of them were sent to foster homes or group homes because of behavior problems,” Bitson said, shaking her head.

Tatyana Simon (right), 11; Aiyana Simon (black jacket), 11; Samona Herrion (tan), 12; Kennedy Johnson (small pink jacket); and Jordan Robinson (left) walk home from Tulsa's Hawthorne Elementary School in sub-freezing weather. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World

Cold and troubled

On a recent Monday, the mercury was at 19 degrees with a north wind gusting to nearly 30 miles per hour all day long.

With several teachers out sick that day, Lynne Hill, the principal’s secretary, stepped in to help see off the large group of children who walk to and from school from a low-income apartment complex about three-quarters of a mile away.

Among them was a fourth-grade girl who had no coat and only capri-length pants with knee socks to cover her legs.

Just a couple of days later, she was in the office because her mother had called to say she was picking her up to take her to a mental health treatment facility. The girl waited for her ride for two hours.

Seven days later, Bitson said, the girl simply returned to school with no follow-up instructions. She said she asked the student whether the treatment had been helpful and whether she would be getting more counseling, and the girl responded: “No. I didn’t go off on them, so they let me out.”

Dr. Estella Bitson escorts a second grade student to apologize to his teacher, Julia Wyble (right) after he was sent to the principal's office for an outburst during class at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa. Wyble is a new teacher at Hawthorne, having joined the staff less than a month ago after a teacher left her position in the middle of the year. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Extreme emotions

Teachers face constant challenges from students who don’t strive to do well in school because the value of an education has not been instilled in them.

Serious, disruptive behavior is a constant battle.

Physical education teacher Julie Davis said she has learned to avoid highly competitive activities to minimize the number of fights, even among best friends.

“There are a lot of defiant, disrespectful children here because they’re just angry and don’t know how to cope with their emotions,” she said. “It takes a special person to come here and love these kids through all of their nonsense.

“You have to be harder than you ever thought you would be. I call it ‘empathy without enabling.’ What’s in store for these kids’ futures if we don’t do this?”

A student lays her head on her desk after being asked to stay in the classroom during recess by her third-grade teacher at Hawthorne Elementary School. Karesha Solomon kept several students in her class during recess for breaking classroom rules in the morning. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

The Hawthorne faculty was on pins and needles for weeks leading up to the school’s first-ever honor roll assembly, uncertain how many parents would show up.

The teachers and staff were nearly as elated as the kids with silver and gold honor roll medals hanging around their necks because of the standing-room-only crowd that packed into the gymnasium.

“We put out 100 folding chairs, but we would have had more if we knew it would be like this!” Davis said, giddy with excitement as she folded chairs afterward.

After everyone else left, PTA members Judi Wilson, LaChelle Harris and Kenneth Stanley Sr. remained for “pickle and popcorn” Friday, saying they wouldn’t want to disappoint students who turn out in droves for the 50-cent and $1 salty treats.

“My son wanted me up here, so I tried it last year, and now I’m involved with everything,” said Stanley, who works the night shift as a janitor. “It makes him happy. I think it keeps kids pushing forward.”

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470

andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com

Editor’s note: Oklahoma’s A-F grading system is intended to be an easy way to judge the performance of public schools. The Tulsa World took an in-depth look at what’s going on in one of the 36 local schools that received failing marks.

Journalists Andrea Eger, John Clanton, Mike Simons and Matt Barnard went to Hawthorne Elementary School during our monthlong project. Here’s what they found.

Related story: Read Inside an 'F' school, Day 1: Fighting Failure

Related story: Inside an 'F' school overview: F schools struggle with testing, turnover and poverty

Related story: Hawthorne Principal Estella Bitson: ‘I pray that I can make a difference’

Related story: Hawthorne third-grade teacher Karesha Solomon: 'I want to show them they can, too'

Photo Gallery: Tulsa World photographers documented life and lessons inside Tulsa Public School's Hawthorne Elementary.

Every child who will take the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test in April is plotted out on a bulletin board in a small staff work room in the  center of Hawthorne Elementary School.

There are no photographs, only names and numbers to identify each one.

The kids whose numbers have landed them in the yellow band beneath the kids in green at the top and above the kids in red at the bottom get all of the attention.

“We call these our bubble kids,” Principal Estella Bitson explains. “They could either improve and pass or slip down into the red.”

Educators at this north-side school — one of 36 across Tulsa that received an “F” grade from the Oklahoma State Department of Education — say their obsessive focus on test results, and more specifically on tracking student progress, is simply standard operating procedure in at-risk schools these days.

The percentage of students who score proficient or advanced on the state test is almost totally how their success is judged, both on an individual basis as professionals, and collectively, compared with other schools.

Dr. Estella Bitson stands in front of the data wall in Cindy Kearney's office at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa on Feb. 19. The data wall tracks the reading progress of each student in kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fifth grade and sixth grade. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Bitson spearheaded an overhaul of the faculty and school climate upon her arrival almost three years ago, and the pay-off was swift — overall student proficiency last year jumped from 29 percent to 46 percent, the third most dramatic improvement in all of Tulsa Public Schools.

But significant incremental growth doesn’t count like it used to in the state’s grading system, and Hawthorne watched its D grade drop to an F.

At Hawthorne, raising the grade resembles an eight-month chess game, with all kinds of complications and strategy, in order to get as many students into the green as possible.

Crucial reading skills

In no classrooms are the stakes as high as in those of third-grade teachers Karesha Solomon and Jessica Peer.

Because of a new state law taking effect, third-graders who do not pass the reading portion of the state test will be automatically “retained” or held back in the third grade come fall.

Students are assessed almost immediately at the beginning of the year, so teachers know right off the bat where their students stand. The vast majority of them at Hawthorne are not ready for their grade level.

“For those students who are behind, it’s like teaching a baby to drive a car or something,” says Solomon, Hawthorne’s lead third-grade teacher. “I tell every parent at the beginning of the year, ‘I can guarantee one year of growth from where they are’ with the skills I can give them.”

Laila Vester looks over question on a test at Hawthorne Elementary School. The students in Karesha Solomon's class take tests every friday. Most put up folders around their desks to hide their answers. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

With little more than two months before the state tests, only 30 percent of Solomon’s 20 original students are on track to pass. The remainder of her students fall equally into three other categories — where they should be at the beginning of third grade, at a second-grade level or “a complete first-grade level.”

Teachers meet twice a month and go yellow-card child by yellow-card child to discuss strategies with Bitson and staff development teacher Cindy Kearney. Much of the discussion revolves around standardized test-taking strategies that each of the 8-year-olds has yet to master, such as eliminating the throw-away options on multiple choice questions and using extra time to double-check answers.

As they review the latest results for each student, Solomon brings up one who is borderline in reading but says she thinks he will be all right because his classroom behavior and focus have improved.

Then they get to the entire second class of third-graders Solomon took into her room in January when one of her colleagues resigned unexpectedly.

“Any time I can put on record — I am concerned about (these) kids,” she says to Kearney.

They discuss a couple of girls from that other teacher’s class who are the lowest-scoring students in the entire third grade. Kearney guesses that addressing their serious behavior problems has taken priority over their academic deficits.

“I don’t think she’s going to pass, Ms. Kearney,” Solomon said of one. “I’m going to be honest. She doesn’t have any of the foundational skills. I haven’t seen anyone this low in a long time. We may as well draw (up) the (retention) paperwork now.”

Lisa Baker (right) leads an after-school tutoring session at Tulsa's Hawthorne Elementary School as students Breyonna Smith (left), Nya Diggs (center) and Khamri Tennyson (background right) work on Feb. 13. Hawthorne uses part of its school improvement funds on the program in hopes of boosting student achievement. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World

Bombarded by tests

Outside of the meeting, Solomon said she doesn’t disagree with the spirit of Oklahoma’s Reading Sufficiency Act. But she wonders whether policymakers considered the practical realities of elementary school curriculum when they settled upon third grade as the do or die year.

“I don’t teach reading,” Solomon said. “I don’t have time to go back and teach reading because I have to teach kids how to take the third-grade test more so than how to read. First-grade teachers teach reading, and second-grade teachers do a little more. In my opinion, a kid should not leave first grade without knowing how to read.”

If that revelation is startling, she said, consider this: elementary school students are subjected to dozens of standardized tests all year long. Their progress is tracked by principals and even district-level administrators and Tulsa teachers are now routinely “exited” for lackluster results.

Karesha Solomon pauses an audio recording as she asks her students a question during reading time in her third grade class at Hawthorne Elementary School in north Tulsa. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World

Students in kindergarten through third grade take the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP test, a few times a year. Hawthorne third-graders, who are now under the most intense microscope, take a reading, grammar, spelling and math test every single Friday.

“We need to look at that data to make sure kids don’t need reteaching,” Bitson explained.

On top of all of that, students in grades three through six — those who take state tests for elementary schools — take the Scholastic Reading Inventory, or SRI, four times a year to check their literacy levels and also TPS benchmark or “check-in” tests every four to six weeks to track their progress toward the ultimate goal of passing the state tests in April.

The SRI result is known as a “lexile” score, or reading level, and it is commonplace at Hawthorne and other Tulsa schools for children to be able to recite their latest score so they focus on their own progress.

Early pressure

Teachers say it is impossible to shield children from the stress and pressure of all of this testing.

Chinedu Udeh, a fourth-grade teacher, said she was stunned by the response to a “getting to know you” discussion she had the first week of school.

She prompted her students to think about what dreams or goals they had for their fourth-grade year.

“More than half of the class said something to the effect of ‘I’m really worried about the OCCT,’ ” she said referring to the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test. “I said, ‘What? It’s August!’ My students talk about wanting to be in the Army or chefs or musicians. The focus is not on cultivating our kids. What we need is balance.”

Bitson said all urban teachers need the kind of training that Teach for America recruits like Udeh receive in how to use student achievement data.

The national nonprofit organization recruits new college graduates, many with no background in education. All of the recruits go through an intensive summer training program rooted in the use of student data before shipping out to complete two-year stints in at-risk schools across America, including many in Tulsa.

Chinedu Udeh plays a game with students after class Feb. 6, 2014. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Udeh and her fourth-grade colleague Lisa Baker have had great success in raising student achievement rates — from 2012 to 2013, their students’ reading and math proficiency shot up from 22 to 57 percent and from 32 to 53 percent, respectively. But Udeh has come to view the use of student testing in public education today as a double-edged sword, and particularly counterproductive when it is used to label students or schools.

“Data, depending on how it is used, can be a good or bad thing,” Udeh said. “When a kid knows they’re growing, they develop a growth mindset. My students know, ‘I am learning this because … .’ But we can’t ignore the fact that we are under pressure to perform on this test. The kids really feel the pressure.”

About the reporter

Staff Writer Andrea Eger has worked at the Tulsa World since 1999 and has covered public education since 2000. She has completed intensive professional development in education reporting with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Education Writers Association.

Over the years, her work has garnered her two first-place awards in investigative individual reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists – Oklahoma Pro Chapter and numerous first-place awards in education reporting from SPJ and the Great Plains Journalism Awards, an eight-state competition.

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470

andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com

Related story: Read Inside an 'F' school, Day 1

Related story: Inside an 'F' school: Testing a weekly, year-round focus

Related story: Hawthorne Principal Estella Bitson: ‘I pray that I can make a difference’

Related story: Hawthorne third-grade teacher Karesha Solomon: 'I want to show them they can, too'

Related story: Tulsa World photographers documented life and lessons inside Tulsa Public School's Hawthorne Elementary.

Oklahoma’s A-F grading system is intended to offer parents and other interested community members a quick and easy way to judge the performance of public schools.

The Tulsa World decided to take an in-depth look at what’s really going on in one of the city’s schools with failing marks from the state. We went to Hawthorne Elementary School, 1105 E. 33rd St. North, one of 36 schools in the Tulsa district to receive an F in 2013.

The reality is anything but quick or easy to understand.

“I really believe most people don’t know what’s really going on. Maybe they think these things happen in Chicago, but Tulsa, Oklahoma? It’s here, and unless you come and see the obstacles our teachers face, you can’t understand,” said Principal Estella Bitson.

Bitson is in her third year as principal at Hawthorne. She spearheaded an overhaul of the faculty and school climate upon her arrival and the pay-off was swift — overall student proficiency jumped from 29 percent to 46 percent, the third most dramatic improvement in all of Tulsa Public Schools.

But significant incremental growth doesn’t count like it used to in the state’s grading system and just like that, Hawthorne watched its D grade drop to an F.

Here’s what we found at Hawthorne:

Focusing on test results. Teachers and administrators continually pore over the data from dozens of assessments and progress tests taken year-round by students from kindergarten through sixth grade.

Staffing turnover. In addition to a state teacher shortage, qualified applicants for openings in at-risk schools are scarce. Vacancies for teachers in kindergarten and special education at Hawthorne went unfilled until January. When confronted with the challenges, many new hires leave quickly — even in the middle of the school year.

Meeting children’s basic needs. This includes providing two square meals a day — breakfast and lunch — for 100 percent of the students, plus budgeting each year for nutritious afternoon snacks several days a week and the purchase of dozens of winter coats, gloves, hats, scarves, underwear and socks for children who have none.

Making do. Although other schools with similar demographics and challenges have an assistant principal and school-based social worker to pitch in, Hawthorne does not. In budget cuts last year, it lost its courtesy bus to a nearby low-income housing complex, requiring most of the 75 or 80 students who live there to walk nearly three-quarters of a mile to school.

Because staffing levels are so lean across the district and Hawthorne didn’t have quite enough fourth graders for a third teacher, there are 28 students in each of its two fourth-grade classes. Budget cuts and student enrollment numbers have cost Hawthorne its allocation for an art teacher.

Coping with tragedy and poverty. The school serves children from one of Tulsa’s poorest, most crime-riddled neighborhoods. Hawthorne, which fronts Peoria Avenue at 33rd Street North, takes half of the students who live in the Comanche Park public housing complex up the street, plus children from the hardscrabble neighborhood of small, wood-framed houses around the school and the low-income Bradford apartment complex to the west. Most students qualify for free and reduced-price meals.

Parental involvement lacking. The frustration is seen both among the faculty and staff and also among the five parent members of the PTA in a school of 386 students. Children who haven’t been taught at home to value education can become discipline problems at school. Chronic absenteeism causes students to get behind in class, and most are unable to catch up.

Developing community support. WPX Energy sends about 70 employees to mentor students once a week and has invested tens of thousands of dollars for things like a new outdoor exercise track and funding for field trips. Crossover Community Impact puts on an after-school enrichment program staffed by church volunteers and a couple of Hawthorne teachers they pay, plus they sponsor and coach several Hawthorne boys football teams that compete in a local league.

Also, Hawthorne recently became part of the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative network of schools in hopes of establishing new supportive partnerships in the community.

Valuing educators who want to reach at-risk kids. “High pressure.” “High stress.” “Emotionally draining.” “A constant battle.” These are all phrases faculty members use to describe their work at Hawthorne. All but a few work second jobs because they said they need the extra income. Several wait tables at area restaurants, many others work at after-school tutoring programs, and one operates a children’s party bus.

But four teachers also volunteer-coach two Hawthorne girls basketball teams in a local league because no other volunteers stepped forward. If parents can’t come to school for teacher conferences, the teachers do home visits.

“We have to be so much more than a teacher,” said first-grade teacher Kerri Ishem.