With nearly 9 of 10 children from low-income families, Tampa's Kenly Elementary doesn't have an achievement gap between black and white students. The reason: Kenly's white students fall far short of their white peers at other area schools.
By LETITIA STEIN
Published May 17, 2004
[Times photo: Kinfay Moroti]
Korayma Moya, 8, left, checks on fellow first-grader Damantre Douglas, 6, at Kenly Elementary in Tampa. Many Kenly students arrive unprepared, teachers say.
TAMPA - Mrs. France's first-graders were stuck on the last word of the first sentence.
Tokoma Williams pressed his lips to make a hard "m" sound. Jonathan Pacheco rolled his tongue around the unfamiliar vowels. Byroneshia Peterson toyed with the edge of the page.
Teacher Martha France tried sounding the word out, but nothing flashed in her students' eyes. No recognition.
"Have you ever been to a "museum?' " France asked. Three heads shook. No, no and no.
White, black and Hispanic. Poverty is an equal opportunity hardship at Kenly Elementary School.
Regardless of race, fewer than half of Kenly students can read on grade level. The same is true for math.
"Poverty is a leveler," said Don Pemberton, who works with high-poverty schools through the University of Florida's Lastinger Center for Learning. "If you're poor, more often than not you bring a set of circumstances to school which certainly impede achievement."
Kenly Elementary is the heart - and often the kitchen - of an east Tampa neighborhood that has produced generations of blue-collar workers.
Almost nine in 10 students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Some students come to school needing shirts and shoes. A small food pantry sits on campus. Occasionally, the staff helps find rent money for parents in need.
"This is not one of our upscale neighborhoods," said Mary Harvey, a former Kenly student who now runs the cafeteria that serves almost 500 free lunches daily. "There are some who come in each morning, and you know they have not eaten dinner."
Kenly Elementary is an anomaly in the Tampa Bay area. It is one of a tiny number of schools without a significant achievement gap. That's largely because white students at Kenly perform far below their peers at other schools.
Researchers say that's what happens when white and black students come from the same poor socio-economic background.
While school systems measure poverty in free lunches, the teachers here see its impact in words and experiences. Many students, both black and white, started school with below-average vocabularies. They didn't go to zoos or museums. They weren't read to at bedtime.
"The mom who can be home with the kids - doesn't matter if you're green, pink, blue, whatever - you can be home with the kids," said France, who has been at the school 10 years.
In her class, a mother raising six young children is the closest thing to a stay-at-home parent. The 30 parents who regularly attend PTA meetings represent the school's strongest showing in years.
"Most of our parents work," said PTA president Sandra Sanderfur, a teacher's assistant whose two children attended Kenly. "Most of them don't have transportation to get to and from school."
Researchers say the culture that grows from poverty tends to be reactive, sensory and literal. But success in school requires planning and abstract thinking. The academic divide between rich and poor children starts in the disconnect.
Longtime Kenly principal Carolyn Hill worked to build bridges. Walking the halls between classes, the educator hugged, smiled and offered inspirational words. She believed in Kenly students like teachers once believed in her, when she was a child poor in material possessions but determined to succeed.
"Our job is to keep pressing forward," said Hill, who recently left Kenly to open a new school. "They're only obstacles if we let them become obstacles. We're going to use them as stepping stones."
Kenly offers all of its students a wealth of incentive programs, such as free bicycles for students with perfect attendance and a weekly bonus period for Girl Scouts. Two teachers buy students savings bonds for college.
But even here, some racial divides persist.
Fifteen students at Kenly qualified this year for gifted classes - 13 white and two black.
In Mrs. France's first-grade class, students are separated into "players" and "coaches" to help each other in small reading groups.
There are Hispanic coaches for white players and white coaches for Hispanic players.
