Melissa Bailey Photo
Larry Young’s mission began with a note from a geometry teacher: A student “walked out of class” and didn’t come back.
“Radio to all deans,” said Young, pulling out his walkie-talkie. “We’re on the hunt.”
Young, who’s 41, broke into a stride in a second-floor hallway of Hillhouse High School as he delivered that message Wednesday morning.
The subject of his search was a junior boy whom Young affectionately calls Songz, after the rapper and heartfelt singer Trey Songz. Hillhouse’s 15-year-old Songz has a great singing voice, Young said — a voice he could develop further if he didn’t miss so many sessions of music class.
Larry Young was a singer for a band and a Hillhouse student, too, before he took a long, circuitous route that led him back to his alma mater.
Now the Newhallville native is leading a team of deans at the 923-student school on Sherman Parkway.
Kermit Carolina, Hillhouse’s new principal, is counting on Larry Young not only to bring kids back to class, but to help turn around a school that’s been cited for years as one of the nation’s “dropout factories.” A full-time employee at the school for 10 years, Young stepped into his new leadership role in February, when the head of deans and longtime Hillhouse “father” Tom Fleming passed away.
Young leads a team of deans who grew up in the neighborhood, some from the same housing projects where the students live. The modest wages of the four deans reporting to Young — as low as $12 an hour for an official total of 19 1/2 hours a week, though they put in considerably more time — come from a $2.1 million federal School Improvement Grant designed to transform the country’s lowest-performing schools.
Early results have been promising: Suspensions are down, attendance is up, and the culture of the school is changing. Carolina, a longtime Hillhouse basketball coach who took over the school this year, said the new deans are establishing a new culture in the school, restoring order to the hallways, and helping quell disruptive behavior.
The job involves a mix of mentoring, mediating conflicts, calming down parents — and looking for kids like Songz.
Radio Check
The student, who’s in his third year at Hillhouse, had been absent from class this year through a series of in-school and out-of-school suspensions. He showed up Wednesday morning to a 90-minute geometry class, where students were taking a third-quarter assessment.
While other students scribbled answers, Songz put his head down on his desk.
He “refused to complete any part of the assessment,” reported teacher Erin Petruzzelli.
Then he asked to go to the bathroom. Petruzzelli said no.
“I repeated myself and he said he was leaving anyways,” she said.
Petruzzelli gave that report on a Level I discipline slip, which is used to report minor incidents in class. She handed it to Young at 8:35 a.m.
Young greeted her wearing a striped tie, a button-down shirt with silver Tiffany cuff links and loafers, though he usually wears sneakers to cover more ground. He agreed to help track the kid down.
“Young to all deans,” he said through his radio. “Be advised, deans, I’m looking for [Songz].” If anybody sees him, Young directed, “please give me a radio check.”
“It’s Where I Grew Up”
The radio waves hit the walkie-talkie of a man named Paul Brock, who’s one of the new deans but also a familiar face at Hillhouse.
Brock (pictured), a large man wearing tinted eyeglasses and a long, black overcoat, was stationed at the back entrance of the school, checking in students who came in late. Brock, who’s 43, grew up in the Brookside projects and in Newhallville. After graduating Hillhouse in 1985, he kept strong ties to the school: Of his 10 children, nine have attended Hillhouse. One is still a student there. Brock, a retired correctional officer, said he started showing up at the school last year as a parent volunteer. “I felt I needed to know what my son was doing,” he said. “It turned into a job.”
Brock mans the “tardy” entrance in the morning, checking in late students. Then he supervises the in-school suspension room, where seven to 12 kids report each day. He’s pictured in the cafeteria, where he doubles as lunchtime emcee, making announcements about LEAP and test prep with a wireless microphone.
“I’m into it,” Brock said Wednesday morning, reflecting on his job between checking in students to his suspension room. “I love it here because this is where I grew up.”
Brock is the first face kids see when they return from out-of-school suspension. Under a new system of interventions, kids now get at least one day of in-school suspension when they’re returning from out-of-school suspension. That’s supposed to acclimate them to the school environment again. Once the students are back in class, the deans keep an eye on them.
The “Honest Hat”
Young found Songz during second period. It turned out the boy wasn’t roaming the hallways, after all — he had gone to see his social worker instead. The social worker sent him to Young’s office on the second floor.
Young and Songz sat down in a so-called “refocus room” to talk about what happened that morning in geometry class.
In some ways, Young was looking at a younger version of himself. As a kid, he used to sneak out of his house at night and go sing at clubs in Waterbury, he said.
After graduating Hillhouse, Young made some “left turns” and spent time in jail. He turned his own life around. He became active in the NAACP, worked in prison reentry at Project M.O.R.E., and organized the Freddie Fixer parade for six years.
Songz pulled a chair up to his table, keeping his plaid backpack on his back.
“Let’s put our honest hat on,” Young told the kid. “Have you been in my office a few times?”
Yes, murmured Songz, hiding his face in his hands. The student has been through after-school detention, in-school suspension and out-of school suspension.
“We’ve been through the whole thing,” Young said. This time, he suggested the two just “have a conversation” about Songz’ behavior.
The student admitted putting his head down in geometry class during the test. “I didn’t know anything that was on [the test],” he explained, “because I wasn’t in school.”
He said he put his head down because “I didn’t want to disrupt the class.”
“Wouldn’t it probably have been better if you had sat up in class?” Young suggested. The student agreed the behavior was a form of “insubordination.”
“I’m trying to do right,” he said, “it’s just two classes I don’t like.” They talked about strategies for getting caught up in math class. And they settled on a resolution to that day’s problem: Apologize to Ms. Petruzzelli.
With those orders, Young sent him on his way. On the way out, he added a reminder: “Pull your pants up.”
The “refocus room” is part of a new system of interventions Hillhouse is trying out this year. Before, kids would get sent to an assistant principal if they acted out in class. If the administrator wasn’t available, the kid would roam the hallway. Now, they get sent to the refocus room, where they talk out the problem with a dean. Often, they cool off in about 10 to 15 minutes.
There’s one refocus room for each of the four “small learning communities” that Hillhouse is now divided into, as part of this year’s changes. One is for freshmen; the others are themed by academic subject.
If the refocus room doesn’t work, students are next sent to “after-school reflection,” then in-school suspension, then out-of-school suspension. Some offenses, such as starting a fight in the cafeteria, call for skipping to the extreme of that spectrum, but most can be dealt with in-school, Young said.
The goal is to have fewer kids missing school. When kids get suspended out of school, they rarely get any work done, and it tends to lead to “educational neglect,” Young said.
The new system — a small learning environment where teachers and deans have closer personal relationships with the kids — is leading to a drop in suspensions, according to Principal Carolina.
Carolina said the school has focused on the ninth and tenth grades, because that is where most of the “negative data” tends to pop up. So far this year, the percent of kids who’ve been suspended for at least one day has gone down in each grade compared to last year. The number dropped from 33 percent to 13 percent in the ninth grade; 21 to 8 percent in the 10th; 21 to 2 percent in the 11th grade; and 13 to 2 percent in the 12th, according to Carolina.
Attendance has gone up from 83 percent to 90 percent in the freshman class; 87 to 89 percent in the 10th grade; 90 to 91 percent in the 11th grade; and 91 to 92 percent in the senior class.
Carolina said the deans have been central to that improvement. They’ve also helped lessen the burden on assistant principals, so the school can focus on its primary goal for the year — improving the quality of instruction in the classroom, he said.
Mission’s Not Done
“Hi, Glamber!” Young called out to a freshman girl in the hallway. He greets almost everyone in the school by name, often by nickname. Amber, whom he affectionately referred to as a “fashionista,” earned her nickname as by neglecting the school’s dress code. As part of the new school culture this year, all freshmen now have to wear khaki pants and a blue polo shirt with a Hillhouse logo. The nickname is a gentle reminder — followed by instructions to change her clothes.
Instead of staying in his office, he spends most of his day having interactions like those, as he “floats” around the school. “I like to be visible,” he said.
In the school cafeteria, he opted to push around a garbage can, accepting students’ empty paper plates. He doesn’t have to do that, he said; kids can get up and go to the trash themselves. He does it because he wants the kids to know he’s there, to talk to him — and so he can “intel” on any disagreements or inappropriate conversations, and cut them off before any problems arise.
In the cafeteria Wednesday, he spotted his buddy Songz. Between that moment and the meeting earlier that day, Young had received some new intel, from Songz’ band teacher. The teacher had come up to him and reported that Songz hadn’t been in class for the last three months.
This time, Young put his arm around the kid and led him to a quiet place.
“Let’s talk,” he said.