[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TheGreen_08292014_CEBBuilding.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Tom Byrne and contributor Larry Nagengast discuss the newly opened Community Education Building in Wilmington.]
Lunching in a mahogany-paneled cafeteria where top MBNA and Bank of America executives once dined and enjoying recess in a sun-soaked 200-foot-long atrium, the students at Kuumba Academy and Academia Antonia Alonso are partaking of an educational experience unlike any other in Delaware, taking classes in a nine-story high-rise formerly occupied by one of the nation’s premier credit card banking operations.
Looking out the windows to the southeast, they see the Delaware Memorial Bridge carrying traffic to New Jersey. To the northwest, the bell tower at Alfred I. duPont’s Nemours estate looms in the distance, amid the greenery of the Brandywine Valley that leads to a far-off world they have yet to explore. Should they attend high school in Wilmington’s new Community Education Building, they will move to the upper floors, where more expansive views will permit them to look down at the business district of a city they might dream to lead.
As the first students to attend classes in the building, donated by Bank of America through the Longwood Foundation two years ago, they are part of a grand experiment — an attempt to revive public education in the state’s largest city by locating four charter schools in a shared facility just two blocks from Rodney Square.
The building’s opening Monday marked the first step in that effort. And even some early glitches - getting the kids in and out of the cafeteria on schedule and confusion on some Academia’s afternoon bus routes – do little to dampen the enthusiasm of the building’s operators and the leaders of the two schools currently occupying the space.”
Kuumba, formerly housed in another old bank building at 519 Market Street, is expanding as it enters it 13th year to serve about 475 children in kindergarten through seventh grade and will add an eighth grade next year. Academia, a brand new program which offers dual language instruction in English and Spanish, is starting with about 300 students in kindergarten and first grade and hopes to gradually expand to about 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
A look inside the Community Education Building.
A look inside the the Community Education Building.
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Kuumba is occupying the building’s second floor; Academia is on the fourth floor and will take over the fifth floor as its enrollment grows.
Next year, one or two more schools most likely serving middle and high school students will join them, taking space on the four upper floors, says Riccardo Stoeckicht, Community Education Building president. Stoeckicht knows the outcome of the selection process but said it is up to the school or schools chosen to make any announcements.
The building’s goal, he says, is to be “a catalyst for quality education” in Wilmington, and achieving that objective will require closing the “achievement gap” between children of color and white students and between children in poverty and those of higher socioeconomic status.
Data released last week by the State Department of Education showed that 82.4 percent of all white students were rated proficient or highly proficient in reading the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System (DCAS) testing while only 58.9 percent of African American students, 32 percent of English language learners and 58.9 percent of economically disadvantaged students reached that benchmark. Similar variations were found in math test results.
“Education in the city is not where we want it to be, and we want more children to have access to a high quality program,” says Sally Maldonado, Kuumba’s head of school.
“We think this is an amazing opportunity for children of different backgrounds, from different cultures and different parts of the city, to learn together and to learn from each other,” says Jesus Urdiales, Academia’s school leader.
The vast majority of Kuumba and Academia students are city residents. About two-thirds of Kuumba’s students reside in the 19801 and 19802 Wilmington-only ZIP codes or the 19805 ZIP code, which includes the city and suburban areas extending to Richardson Park and Elsmere. About two-thirds of Academia’s kindergarten students and 80 percent of its first graders reside in those ZIP codes.
The school building has undergone a $26 million renovation that included strengthening the steel in its core, improving and adding stairways, installing a security system and creating science labs on the upper floors.
Kuumba and Academia, as well as the schools that arrive in the next couple of years, will share the 650-seat cafeteria, a teacher lounge and meeting room and the atrium play area on the second floor, and a health center, two dance rooms and a 7,500-square-foot library equipped with an array of computers and seating options suitable for individual study, small group lessons, quiet reading or lounging.
The Community Education Building has hired a librarian, Caroline Barlow, who will serve all the schools in the building, Stoeckicht said. When the building is fully occupied, the plan is for each of the schools to share in paying the library’s costs, he said.
While the building offers many amenities, some facilities typically found in schools are missing. There is no gym, but the Community Education Building has arranged for the use of the gym at the Walnut Street YMCA a block away. Nor is there an auditorium, so the Grand Opera House will be used to host occasional special events. In addition, two vacant lots and a surface parking area in the 1200 block of Walnut Street are being leased from Elwyn Delaware. The lots will be transformed into a community garden; the parking area will be used as a playground during the day and as a parking area for evening events.
The schools are paying $15 per square foot for use of the building, including all improvements, shared amenities, janitorial costs, security, utilities, and a school resource officer and building management staff, Stoeckicht said. Rent payments should come to about 15 percent of each school’s operating budget, he said.
Both schools are building their curriculum around a model called “expeditionary learning” in which students work on case studies called “expeditions” that last from nine to 12 weeks and involve taking field trips and bringing outside experts into the school. “They go out with a purpose, acting as a scientist or a historian, and bring what they learn back into the classroom,” where it is integrated into their language arts, math and other lessons, Urdiales says.
The topics studied, typically three a year, focus on themes relevant to the students’ lives.
Maldonado offered the example of an expedition taken by a group of Kuumba second graders last year. Since many of them live in areas of Wilmington where opportunities for exercise are limited and the nearby corner stores don’t offer a large variety of healthy foods, they explored ways to improve their fitness and nutrition. They brought in experts to learn about counting calories and balanced diets, and they identified good places to exercise in their neighborhoods. They invited a magazine writer to talk to the class and then they created their own health and fitness magazine as well as a video with yoga tips for their parents.
“It empowers students to be change agents within the community,” Maldonado says.
Academia also offers its students dual language immersion instruction, with students taking lessons in Spanish and English from different teachers on alternate days. The classwork will be sequential, with minimal overlap, so students cannot rely solely on their primary language to learn all they need to know, Urdiales says.
The two teachers who partner in instructing each class must plan out each day so they avoid repetition and keep the students moving ahead, he says.
With a near 50-50 balance between students whose primarily language is English and those who primarily speak Spanish, “we have the perfect scenario” for a dual-language program, Urdiales says.
Stoeckicht might say the same thing about the building as a whole.
“It’s all about raising the educational bar for inner-city students,” he says.
For starters, that means closing the achievement gap, he says. For the longer term – 15 or so years from now, it means ensuring that students who are then taking classes in the building “will be able to advance their educational journey and their careers in a global arena,” he says.
This week, first steps were taken toward that goal. There were some anxious moments in the beginning but overall, Stoeckicht says, the direction was generally positive.
“I’m very pleased with where we are today and how we’re working together,” he says.