On Thursday, June 15, members of the HEA faculty bargaining unit will vote on whether to support the renewal of the charter for the Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School. This vote is required under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 71, Section 89 (dd), which specifies that the charter’s renewal is contingent on approval by a majority of the members of the local school committee, the local collective bargaining unit and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The Haverhill Education Association is committed to providing its members as much information as possible from both sides of the Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School renewal application debate. The complete application and its associated documentation are available for review here.
*Editor’s note: The HEA welcomes and encourages member submissions for each and every newsletter. Joe Cunha, former HEA president and Bradford Elementary School teacher, was the only member to answer this month’s call for submissions on any topic. Because the newsletter lacks sufficient space to represent all of the information from both sides of the charter renewal debate, the Executive Committee elected to publish this article here alongside others relevant to this issue.
Statements and information from DESE, Silver Hill Parents, Principal and FaceBook commentaries.
(These are placed to conserve space and without comment for your own consideration.)
* The charter establishes a 580 student cap. By the end of SHHMCS’s 3rd year we reached LEVEL 1.
* Data analysis is used for curriculum planning, instructional practices, intervention and enrichment.
* We require teacher growth and learning.
* Silver Hill undergoes extensive annual reporting to ensure we are meeting benchmarks.
* We are an RTI school. We are a PBIS school. We instituted Lucy Calkins.
* We do not take money away from other Haverhill schools. SH school based funding by HPS.
* As a separate district we write own grants. Silver Hill kids are Haverhill kids.
* 78% of SHHMCS students are white (DESE). We are actively recruiting to increase our ELL population.
* Siblings are automatically accepted and bypass the SH lottery. 47 of 89 accepted in 16-17 are siblings.
* The SHHMCS Principal is a task master.
* Silver Hill has incredibly dedicated teachers who perform incredible amounts of work. *UNDENIABLE*
My Observations and Thoughts
We have 4 “cookie cutter” schools built by an initiative that began with Mayor Pelosi. Three of those plus Tilton and Consentino are District schools that exclusively service the students in their respective quadrants and are subject to MCAS grades 3, 4, & 5. The Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School (SHHMCS) that occupies the Silver Hill building is not part of our school district, is subject to the same MCAS, but does not exclusively serve the Consentino quadrant students. Bradford, Golden Hill, and Pentucket Lake Elementary Schools achieved LEVEL 1 status over time, taking the necessary steps while exclusively teaching the student mix that lives in and moves into their respective quadrants over a school year. The SHHMCS achieved the same LEVEL 1 status over time not only by taking the necessary steps, but also by displacing students through their lottery and not exclusively teaching the students that live in its originally intended quadrant and not taking on students that move into that quadrant over a school year. Those displaced students overcrowd the Tilton and Consentino Schools.
The SHHMCS claim that they turned the school around is a simple statement that ignores the fact that they did not turn around the Silver Hill student population of 2006 but created a new entirely different student population. Data on the Mass DESE site shows they service a much less challenging student body than the other 3 LEVEL 1 “cookie cutter” schools as well as Tilton and Consentino. Part of the Horace Mann program was that successful practices can be replicated in district schools, but our 3 other similar schools have achieved the same level 1 status without changing their population. At the same time, Tilton and Consentino are showing improvement while being forced to house those district children not accepted at SHHMCS. Perhaps 10 years is enough to see that we need to return the Silver Hill building back to its district’s children and institute those best practices that elevated the unaltered populations of Bradford, Golden Hill, and Pentucket Lake Elementary Schools in a reunited Consentino quadrant at the Silver Hill School.