Planning for the Future

Jordan (standing) drew on the talents of several Exonians, including (left to right) Udochi Nwogu '02, who worked as an intern at the school's summer session; Roberto Garcia '71, who grew up two miles from Bronx Prep and now teaches in the Stamford, CT, school system; and Richard Schubart, chair of the PEA history department and member of the Bronx Prep board.

All of this represents a good start, but Jordan has her eyes on the future. She plans to expand the school one grade at a time, until classes are offered in grades 5 through 12. This fall she begins her campaign to raise $15 million for facilities to accommodate a projected enrollment of 800 students, in two middle schools and the high school. Two middle schools are required to maintain what Jordan sees as the ideal size of 200 students in grades 5 through 8 and to serve as feeders for a high school with 400 students.

Speak with either Jordan or Damiba about these plans, and they use the word "when" not "if"-they can already see that gleaming new building, on an empty lot they hope to acquire from the city near their present location. Born in Haiti, Marina Damiba grew up in Queens and is a dynamic presence at Bronx Prep, alternately cheering the students on and issuing stern reprimands for out-of-line behavior. She teaches fifth-grade math in addition to her duties as principal. Like the seven other teachers on staff, she is young (the oldest of the group is 32) and fired with a sense of urgency about the Bronx Prep mission. A veteran teacher at the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academy, another Bronx charter school, Damiba was ready to leave teaching when Jordan came calling.

Exonians in Education Kristin Jordan is one of a significant number of Exonians working to improve the range and reach of education in America. Just ask faculty member Peter Greer '58, '81 (Hon.). As the Academy's first Bates-Russell Distinguished Faculty Professor, Greer has spent part of the past year visiting educators around the country, "to see if what is out there can inform what we do here at Exeter, or if what we do here can inform what is out there." Besides Jordan at Bronx Prep, Greer visited Norman Zamcheck '65, principal of Richard C. Briggs High School, an alternative school for at-risk students in Norwalk, CT; Eleanor Campell Ritter '73, a teacher at Merlo Station High School in Beaverton, OR, a magnet school that is a member of Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools; Barbara Sprague Newsam '81, guidance counselor at Manchester (NH) Memorial High School; and Stephen Murray '81 and Jonathan Reider '63, administrators at, respectively, Deerfield Academy and San Francisco University High School. Out of Greer's visits has grown a plan: next November, these six educators will return to Exeter, accompanied by a member of their faculty, for a two-day conference at which they can discuss their experiences and perspectives with PEA students, faculty members and one another. Look for coverage of this conference, and of other Exonians in education, in future issues of the Bulletin.

"When one of Kristin's board members first approached me and asked if I would consider a leadership role in the school, my immediate response was no. Kristin made me want to do this," Damiba remembers. "I saw that this was a school that could be built, be successful and meet its mission."

Many people involved with Bronx Prep have a similar story to tell-they couldn't say no to Jordan and her insistent dream. Fifth-grade reading teacher Marta Lopez came through the Teach For America program and thought she was finished with the classroom. Lopez, who grew up in a public housing project in Newark, says she knows the importance of her work because she comes from a background similar to that of her students. "Kristin was very persuasive," she adds, "and being part of a startup school really appealed to me."

Social studies teacher John Stassen arrived at Bronx Prep after working in a group home for emotionally disturbed teenagers in California and says he is trying to keep his current students from ending up in similar straits. "I have the sense teaching here that every day it's a life or death situation. Either these kids start to figure it out and choose to make a difference in their own lives, or there's a real danger of their slipping through the cracks." Such sentiments do not represent hyperbole-at the housing project across the street from Bronx Prep, where a number of students live, three people have been murdered since September.

Kristin Jordan has served as a teacher this year as well, for the Junior Great Books course for fifth and sixth graders. This fall, the demands of fund raising and planning for the continued expansion will not allow her the time to teach. She remains undaunted at the challenges, though she is quick to point out that she is raising the capital for a new facility with no alumni to call on. "In this neighborhood, it's not necessarily true that if you don't reach a child, someone else will," she reflects. "The stakes are really high. We have a wonderful base of support in the New York community, but in order to create a school that will be successful, we need help from the broader community. That means everyone, in New York or outside, who cares about creating educational opportunity for low-income kids."

Richard Schubart acknowledges that when Jordan first approached him about serving on the Bronx Prep board, he told her that he found her plans "pretty audacious." In many ways, his initial opinion hasn't changed; it's just that now he believes she will succeed. "In my book Kristin is a heroic figure. She has the sense that she can't be denied in her vision for this school. She's imbued the rest of us with the vision that this can be done."

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