Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report - S4

S4
EDUCATION WEEK LEADERS TO LEARN FROM
February 25, 2015 n
edweek.org/leaders
By Denisa R. Superville
Tiffany Anderson
Confronting Poverty's Challenges,
A District Regains Academic Footing
POSITION: Superintendent
DISTRICT: Jennings School District, Jennings, Mo.
EXPERTISE: Community Schools
A
"
Jennings, Mo.
bout 75 people lined up
outside Jennings Educational
Training School, an
alternative high school
here, on a chilly day last
fall, their hands stuffed
into their pockets, hoods
pulled to their foreheads, waiting for the food
pantry to open.
In this St. Louis suburb of about 15,000 residents,
nearly 44 percent of the community's
households earn less than $24,999 a year, according
to U.S. Census data.
So when Tiffany Anderson, 42, became the
superintendent of the local school district of
about 3,000 students in April 2012, her first
project was to tend to the most basic needs of
students and their families. She teamed up
with the St. Louis Area Food Bank to open a
school-based food pantry for Jennings' struggling
families. More than 90 percent of the
district's students are eligible to receive federal
free and reduced-price meals.
"There was a big need," said Leon Hite III,
the district's safety and security coordinator,
who runs the food pantry with the help of eight
student volunteers and packs fresh vegetables,
canned foods, and multigrain bread and pasta
into cardboard cartons to distribute to 200 families
every two weeks.
The pantry was just the first of many initiatives
that Ms. Anderson launched over the
past three years to engage the community
while tackling obstacles students face outside
of school that affect how they perform in the
classroom.
She has installed washers and dryers in
each of the district's eight schools; set up a
clothing boutique in one school through a
collaboration with a local nonprofit that provides
free coats, socks, undergarments, and
other essential clothing to students; started
home visits after a child misses two days
of school; created parent classes; offered Saturday
classes; started a student advisory
council that allows student input on district
policies; instituted meetings with the local
police to discuss crime and collaborative efforts;
offered dinners for students; and made a
commitment that at least 30 percent of
the district's employees will be alumni and
residents.
Last month, an unused high school classroom
became a health clinic that will serve students
in its first year of operation and expand to accommodate
the community in later years.
The challenge of running a suburban district
with many of the chronic problems of an
urban system would have led some to turn in
the other direction. But those challenges were
the very reasons that Ms. Anderson was excited
about Jennings.
Good Foundation
The unrest and racial strife that followed
the death last August of 18-year-old Michael
Brown, an African-American teenager who
was shot and killed by a white police officer
in the bordering community of Ferguson, Mo.,
have strengthened her resolve to continue to
confront the deep-seated racial divisions and
economic and social inequities in the St. Louis
region that were brought to the fore in the aftermath
of the tragedy.
Perhaps influenced by her parents' example-her
father was a pastor, her mother a
principal-Ms. Anderson sees her job as superintendent
as one that helps to restore hope in
communities that have lost theirs.
"People often have a myth about what kids
People often have a myth about
what kids in poverty can do.
It is unfortunate, and the only way
to dispel that myth is to show that they
can not only achieve beyond what
many have thought was possible, but
in a time frame that is much shorter
than what many believe is possible."
"
Swikar Patel/Education Week
http://www.edweek.org/leaders
Education Week - February 25, 2015 - Special Report

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