So… does it work—-this endeavor called Literacy First Charter Schools? Explicitly, Liberty Charter High School (LCHS), of which I have given my heart and soul for the past eight years, working on nine. Yes, there are wonderful moments of success scattered throughout the year, exhilarating joy on graduation day. However, there is one night that says it all to me, one night where I find out if the rubber really meets the road: Alumni Night.
This time we met at the Lemon Grove Recreation Center as our JV and Varsity volleyball teams played. It was a lovely fall Tuesday afternoon, October 26, 2016. A room was set up with stacks of goodies to eat. On the wall hung a special display for alumni to sign, beautifully crafted by one of our amazing students.The volleyball girls were getting their last minute pep talk from their coach in the room next door.
Then they came — familiar faces from years gone by. Familiar, yet not! How these young men and women have grown, not in height but in maturity. They have been living life after high school. Many have jobs, many have schooling, many have both. One young man told me he had three jobs.
Last year I remember one showed up who was a nurse at Kaiser Permanente. Another came with a husband and a baby, and they were preparing to move to Alaska. Lives happening! This year I had my same burning question: Did it work? Did LCHS prepare you for what came next?
Over and over again the answer was an overwhelming “Yes!” One after another told of the English and math classes they didn’t have to take in college because of AP classes and how well they did on placement exams. Essays? No problem! In fact, their papers were often used as models in the classrooms. Long papers? Easy, because they had all done senior exhibition. Presentations? Again, senior exhibition made it a snap. One young man told how he always does his presentations early to get them out of the way, but as soon as he does, the bar is raised, and he has noticed other students in his classroom rising to the standard he has set.
So many times these college students seemed to be amazed at how much other students didn’t know. Their classmates are only now learning MLA writing format, and only now finding out how to use concrete, detail sentences and commentary. So many wondered what in the world were those other high schools teaching? One student put it this way: “Perhaps those schools are only preparing students to graduate, whereas LCHS prepares students for life after high school.”
Equally gratifying to hear was when students brought up the ESLRs, our Expected School Learning Results, which are the underlying values to enable success and accomplishment. Students may joke or whine about them during their high school years, but none of the alumni did tonight. The ones who brought them up were gratified to have those principles built into their lives.
Tonight I sat across the table from one precious young man who was rather squirrelly as a freshman. I remember the challenge it was to get him to put anything much on paper. He broke out during his time with us like a butterfly out of his cocoon, leaping into leadership and finishing as a shining star. That star is continuing to shine in college. He told me how he scored 100% on his last timed essay. He remarked, “They set the bar so low, Mrs. Samuels.” He plans to continue his leadership skills in college. We shared a sobering moment. What if he had gone to another school? Would he have broken out like he did, prepared to step up like he is doing now in college? “No!” he replied. Anything is possible, but the likelihood is no.
And so here I am at the end of a full evening, with an even fuller heart, ready to go back to my students tomorrow, inspired afresh. What we are doing works—might I say, spectacularly. All of our hard work, our painstakingly designed programs, our hearts and souls given to living beings, our careful building of character and academic excellence… It works, it matters.
Alumni Night is my favorite night of the year.