Melissa Bailey Photo
After spending three years building a principal training program, Katie Poynter has jumped into the principal’s seat herself, leading an effort to raise morale and dipping test scores at Amistad Academy Middle School.
Poynter (pictured) started work July 1 as the new principal of Amistad Academy Middle School, a public charter school run by the Achievement First charter network, serving about 330 kids in grades 5 to 8 in a newly revamped building at 130 Edgewood Ave.
She replaced Sarah White, who left after serving as principal for two years.
“There were challenging things at Amistad Academy last year,” Poynter said. In taking over the school, she vowed to build a “strong adult team,” a “consistent, purposeful student culture” and a sense of “academic urgency.”
Poynter, who’s 33, made the remarks in a debut appearance Wednesday in her new role. She issued her first principal’s report before her bosses at a joint meeting of the Elm City College Prep and Amistad Academy governing boards. The public meeting took place at 407 James St., the home of Elm City College Prep Elementary.
The two boards oversee the schools according to an arrangement with the state. As charter schools, Elm City College Prep and Amistad Academy are public schools that operate outside the New Haven school system under their own charters. Funded by the state on a $10,500-per-pupil basis, they accept students by lottery. The schools get extra curricular freedom and autonomy in exchange for extra scrutiny: The schools’ existence depends on the state renewing their charters every five years.
Poynter took a roundabout route to the principal’s seat. From a long desk in the Elm City College Prep community room Wednesday, she quickly ran down her bio for board members: She first served as a substitute teacher at Amistad Academy Middle, which was founded in 1999 in the very same building she sat in on Wednesday. Amistad Middle was Achievement First’s first school. The network has since grown to encompass 25 schools in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, New York and Rhode Island.
In 2004, Poynter became a founding teacher at the network’s second school, Elm City College Prep Elementary. She taught math. She went on to become dean of school culture there before leaving to get her law degree from Columbia University. After graduating from Columbia, Poynter decided not to be a lawyer. She returned to Achievement First in 2010 and became director of the organization’s principal training program. After three years training aspiring principals, she decided to become one herself.
Poynter lives in East Rock with her partner, Alderwoman Jessica Holmes, their son, Adrian, and their daughter Evie.
In her report, Poynter gave a few survey results outlining a rocky year at the school in 2012 – 13:
• That year, only a quarter of teachers and staff at Amistad Middle reported they were “satisfied with the level of communication” from school leadership, compared to 58 percent across the Achievement First network.
• One third of teachers at Amistad Middle — compared to two-thirds network-wide — said they were “satisfied” with “opportunities to provide input on issues facing your grade/subject level or school.”
• Half of staff at Amistad Middle said the school is effective in “preparing student academically,” compared to two-thirds of staff network-wide.
• Less than half of staff at Amistad Middle said they “feel positive” about working at the school, compared to 79 percent network-wide.
• Only 33 percent of staff reported a positive morale, compared to 76 percent across the network.
At a board meeting in May, White, the former principal, outlined a few of those struggles. White had taught at the school for years before taking over as principal in 2011. She told the board that when she took over the school, she met resistance from some veteran teachers who had predated her tenure as principal. She also reported a struggle with behavioral problems in the 5th grade.
Prior to last year, Amistad Academy had made such academic gains that had eliminated achievement gaps, and even exceeded state averages, in many areas on state standardized tests. Test scores released this summer suggested a reversal of those academic gains. Scores at Amistad Middle went up in grades 6 and 7 from 2012 to 2013, but fell significantly in grades 5 and 8. For example: The number of 5th-graders scoring at grade level fell from 79.5 to 57.1 percent in math, and from 50 to 41.7 percent in reading. Statewide scores fell, too, but not so steeply.
Poynter vowed to establish a sense of “academic urgency.”
“We must maximize every available moment of instruction in order to push our kids as far as they can possibly go academically,” Poynter wrote in the report she presented to the board. “We must be relentless in our commitment to getting kids on a true college path and be willing to do whatever it takes to meet our goals for student achievement.”
She pledged to establish a “clear daily vision for how each minute of class should be used through strong lesson planning”; “double down” on reading; and “create an infectious love of reading that permeates our school.”
Poynter said she has begun monthly internal surveys on how well the staff “team” is working together, based on the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni. Her team has rated itself highly in some areas: Over 90 percent agree “team members leave meetings confident that their peers are completely committed to the decisions that were agreed on, even if there was internal disagreement,” a measure of “commitment.” In other areas, surveys reveal challenges: Less than a quarter of staff feel that “team members call out one another’s deficiencies or unproductive behaviors,” a measure of accountability, Poynter reported.
After Poynter’s brief presentation to the board, Melinda Hamilton (at right in photo) commended her “for the work you’ve done in a short period.” Hamilton (at right in photo) chairs the board that oversees Amistad Academy’s charter.
Another board member asked how well it is working out to have Amistad Academy share its newly renovated building on Edgewood Avenue with Amistad Academy Elementary School. Poynter said the two sides are working well together. Eighth-graders head to a kindergarten room to read to kids. And the two principals lifted a curtain that had separated the elementary and middle school kids in the cafeteria, joining them together through a shared lunch with shared expectations. On Saturday, they’ll be sharing a joint barbecue.
“How do your teachers react to you?” asked board member Katrin Czinger.
“They love me,” quipped Poynter.
In seriousness, she said, “I find people really open to newness” and “ready for the school to feel great for the kids again.” She said staff retention was relatively high: Despite the change in leadership, only three or four teachers left the school at the end of last school year.
Board member Lorraine Gibbons asked Poynter about the demographic makeup of her staff. The student body is 97 percent black or Hispanic; Many teachers are white.
“Out in the community, I’m hearing we need more diverse teachers,” Gibbons said.
Poynter said she didn’t have demographic numbers handy. The school leaders are racially diverse, she said, but the teaching staff “is definitely not as diverse as I would like it to be.”
Rebecca Good, principal of Elm City College Prep Middle, added that principals are limited by the diversity of the applicant pool, which in Connecticut doesn’t tend to include a large number of racial minorities.
Muhammad and Czinger.
Amistad Middle parent leader Khadijah Muhammad, who also works in the school cafeteria, said parents have been giving positive reviews of the start to the school year. There’s less wandering in the halls, and more consistent follow-through of rules.
“When you walk in through the hallways, it’s different,” she said.
After the meeting, Poynter declined to answer questions from a reporter. She also declined a previous request for an interview with the Independent about the year ahead.
“I don’t see the upside” in granting an interview, Poynter said.
Ken Paul, AF’s vice-president for development, boasted about Poynter on her behalf. He said when Poynter was a math teacher, her kids showed among the highest math scores of any teacher at the time. Poynter was part of an “all-star” teaching team at Elm City, where test scores shot up in two years, finding success more quickly than Amistad Academy had.
“She’s sort of a legend in terms of her instructional skills,” said Reshma Singh, vice president of external relations for Achievement First.
The principal’s job “is a very challenging role,” Singh said. “I think Katie brings a level of real authority to the role, given her extensive teaching and administrative history.” In a short time, Poynter “has been able to quickly establish strong relationships at the school. I think that will serve her very well.”