THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602240318
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EASTVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Only the best schools in the country win blue ribbons from the U.S. Department of Education. This year, Northampton High School - poor, rural and predominately black - was named a Blue Ribbon School.
In a county where, six years ago, not all of the school principals had telephones, the designation is a sign of significant progress.
``It says that this is a school with world-class credentials,'' said Dawn Goldstine, Northampton school superintendent.
The U.S. Department of Education gave 266 schools in 40 states the Blue Ribbon award for 1994-95. Only 8 percent of them are classified as ``low-income'' schools, like Northampton.
Virginia won seven Blue Ribbons. In southeastern Virginia, the Blue Ribbon schools were Gildersleeve Middle School and Hampton Roads Academy, both in Newport News, and Franklin High School.
Goldstine said the award is important to the 700 students at Northampton High. When graduates fill out college, scholarship and job applications, they can say they went to a Blue Ribbon School. And when businessmen look at the county to relocate, a nationally recognized high school will be a big plus.
``We don't expect to be less than this, ever,'' said Goldstine, who is proud of the accomplishment. In the past few years, Northampton closed all five of its elementary schools, built two new ones, and expanded the middle school. The high school is the only facility that wasn't completely renovated.
How, then, did it transform itself into a world-class school? Teamwork, said principal Paul Custis, and a program for continuous improvement in which students, parents and staff shared the responsibility for making the school better.
``I really believe I was part of the problem,'' said Custis about the bad old days when he had to make all the decisions and take all the blame. ``I had a perception of the principalship as being much more autocratic in nature, because that's all I ever knew.''
From the time Goldstine was hired several years ago, her vision included more than a building program. Early in her tenure, she began to sell Custis and other administrators on the concept of participatory management.
Now a planning team, with ties to all of the school's working committees, helps Custis set goals. The big difference at Northampton High, said Custis, is shared leadership, shared visions and shared decision-making.
``I became aware that there are a lot of other people with a lot of other talents,'' said Custis. He realized that he was sharing responsibility rather than losing control.
``I'm not alone in this,'' he said.
The adoption of continuous improvement throughout the system has, by all indications, dramatically improved the success of Northampton's schools. In the past six years, the dropout rate in grades 7-12 has plunged from 9.1 to 3.6 percent. The number of students who go on to further education has risen from 60 to 85 percent.
``We have lots of kids getting into very good schools,'' said Custis. He can name the students who have gone, in recent years, to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and Yale.
One big change recommended by the school planning team was ``block scheduling.'' Under this system, started this year, the students have four classes a day, rather than eight. This cuts the chaos-in-the-hall time in half, and gives teachers longer stretches of uninterrupted class time. And students finally have enough time to complete a lab, Custis said.
Course work in each subject is completed in one semester, with students getting all new subjects and teachers in the middle of the year. By giving struggling students a ``fresh start'' in the second semester, Custis hopes the dropout and disciplinary problems will be reduced even more.
This year, Northampton students are getting classroom ``citizenship'' grades as well as academic grades. If a child gets two or more unsatisfactory grades for behavior, that student is barred from dances, participating in sports, extracurricular activities, the prom and even graduation.
Custis and the planning team expect to use attendance and disciplinary statistics, test scores and grade distributions to measure the success of their innovations. Until then, he doesn't know how well block scheduling, or any of the more recent changes at the school, will work.
``We're right smack in the middle of it,'' said Custis.
The planning team will do student, parent and staff surveys to see how block scheduling is working, said Custis, and the statistics class will evaluate the results.
Meanwhile, Goldstine gives Northampton High top marks for teamwork. ``There's no formula for success except what Paul's done in bringing an organization together,'' said Goldstine. ILLUSTRATION: ``THIS IS A SCHOOL WITH WORLD-CLASS CREDENTIALS''
MOTOYA NAKAMURA photos
The Virginian-Pilot
Teacher Bob Hood leads a computer class at one of the new computer
labs at Northampton High School.
Northampton High School principal Paul Custis, left, talks with two
senior students, Dreagn Foltz, center, and Cori Scott.
by CNB