Case Studies
The impact of our work can be seen in stories of our schools and their students – schools that establish a culture of safety, trust and achievement, where students receive much needed stability and support.
One Big Kindergarten
Scott Cartland, Wheatley Education Campus
Washington, D.C.
Principal Cartland at Wheatley Education Campus in Washington, D.C. had a plan to improve the school's negative, unsafe culture, but he and his faculty struggled to address the sheer number of students who needed support.
Lorraine Chanon, Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School
Bronx, New York
Students came to school with issues that teachers were not prepared to handle and couldn’t overcome. They wanted to help, but didn’t know how.
Dana Kirton, Clara Barton
Bronx, New York
Every Monday morning at 8:00 a.m., the entire faculty of Clara Barton attended targeted professional development and received individualized coaching too.
Naseer Wilkerson, Chancellor Avenue School
Newark, New Jersey
On day one of yet another three-day suspension, eighth-grader Naseer asked Principal Fuentes if he could come back because he “didn’t want to miss another day of school."
School Highlights
- At Cleveland Elementary, the principal credited the combination of Turnaround’s strategies and a new literacy curriculum for the fact that most students in grades 1-3 have made substantial gains in their reading levels, as measured by the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA)
- In 2015, independently-trained observers gave New York City’s Collaborative Arts Middle School a schoolwide rating of 6.7 (out of 7) in the Absence of Negative Culture category of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), a 20% increase from the previous year
- At Walker-Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C., new discipline systems and regular data reviews have helped drive down suspensions from 27% during the 2013-14 school year to 12.1% in 2014-15
- At Walker-Jones Education Campus, treatment rates among referred students jumped to 73% in 2014-15 from 54% in the previous year, thanks to a new mental health partner, First Home Care, whose best practices – including an expanded presence in the school, with families and at school support team meetings – are now being added to our standard contract for mental health partners