Rise Academy, Miami-Dade's most improved school, closed

Speaking of TFA, 28-year-old former corps member, after a Building Excellent Schools fellowship, started a charter school in Florida City that was one of the highest performing and most improved schools in the state – but despite (or, more likely, because) of this, the local school district shut the school down.  What a total disgrace!

Torcivia, who looks a bit like Harry Potter, opened Rise in 2008. A former youth pastor who was brought up in West Palm Beach, she had worked for two years as a Teach for America special education instructor at Miami Central Senior High School.

She says she made the decision to strike out on her own in 2004 after seeing a teacher take off a high-heeled shoe and hit a troubled teenager in the head so hard that his ear bled.

"That's why I started Rise, because what I saw in that school was disgusting and disturbing," she says. "Things that should not happen to children happened every single day. And when I would make a statement or ask for help or call when I heard a kid being hit, no one would come."

…Classes began in fall 2008. The first year was difficult, Arnold admits. "You had to be a MacGyver of a teacher to work at Rise because you had to make do with so much less," she says. Although Torcivia had found the building on Lucy Street, the school district didn't give her permission to move in. Instead, the first year, Rise was split into two buildings — one for kindergarten and first grade, the other for sixth — three blocks apart. "The building was pretty challenging: it was a big, old trailer," Arnold says. "One of the teachers fell through the floor." Even worse, Rise received an F after its first year. State officials warned that if scores didn't improve, Miami-Dade might shut down Rise.

But Torcivia, Arnold, and ten other teachers persevered. They moved to the building on Lucy Street, added second and seventh grades, and hired six more instructors. An assistant principal named Christy McIntyre moved down from Chicago after hearing about the school. Everyone tutored without extra pay at least two days a week, sometimes Saturdays.

…"To me, it's unfathomable that they shut the school down, especially considering four out of five of the other schools around here are either D's or F's," he says angrily. "Pardon my French, but the rest of the schools around here are shitholes."

Like Matheson, Wanda Kendrick saw her 13-year-old son Roddrick reading scores skyrocket. "The progress was amazing," she says. "No other school would teach them, but the teachers there kept talking about getting him prepped for college."

This certainly underscores the importance of the details of charter school laws.  It's madness to give local districts the power to unilaterally shut down charter schools, which are their competition!

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Rise Academy, Miami-Dade's most improved school, closed

By Michael E. Miller

published: August 12, 2010

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-08-12/news/rise-academy-miami-dade-s-most-improved-school-closed/