THE INGENUITY PROJECT DEBUTS IN SOUTHWEST BALTIMORE
With eager students and an excited community, the school year is off to a great start at James McHenry, Ingenuity’s newest middle school site
As we approach the end of the first quarter, perhaps no one has had a more exciting start to the 2019/2020 school year than the 47 sixth-grade students at James McHenry Elementary-Middle School who comprise Ingenuity’s newest middle school program.
“James McHenry has had one of the strongest starts to the school year that I’ve seen,” says Lisette Morris, executive director, Ingenuity Project. “The school’s leadership was very engaged in making sure everything – from communication, organization and structure – was lined up for students and their families to make the Ingenuity program work. And the students are eager, curious, wanting to be challenged and hungry to be learning constantly. It’s exciting!”
The sight of students filling two Ingenuity sixth grade classes at James McHenry is the result of a vision that began more than two years ago. That was when Ingenuity’s leadership was surprised to learn that, while the organization has nurtured advanced math, science, and technology students in Baltimore City Public Schools since 1992, data showed it was only drawing seven percent of its students from Baltimore’s southwest area.
“Around the same time, a report from the Fund for Educational Excellence showed just how disproportionate opportunities for accelerated and advanced education were across Baltimore,” says Morris. “And that affected our thinking. We thought of Ingenuity as a citywide program, yet we realized we weren’t representing the whole city. That started our conversation about doing some purposeful recruitment in southwest Baltimore.”
As a result of this conversation, Dr. Sonja Santelises, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO, asked Ingenuity to consider expanding to a new school for the first time in 10 years. With seed money contributed by the school district and a grant by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the organization agreed and launched an exhaustive application and selection process. James McHenry was announced as the newest Ingenuity site in November 2018, and the grassroots effort began to get the word out to community parents and students. By late summer, the inaugural sixth grade class was chosen, and James McHenry’s staff got to work preparing to welcome the students and ease them through their transition from elementary school.
“We have Ingenuity students who spent their elementary school years here at James McHenry, and those who are coming from all around the city. So, our assistant principal, our team of sixth grade teachers, and I worked very closely to make sure these new students were supported to make the transition as seamless as possible,” says James McHenry Principal Christophe Turk. “Over the summer, we hosted a big barbeque with our families so that we could start to build relationships. We also held a uniform sale event, and an ice cream social just before the school year started where students could sneak a peek at their classrooms. This gave us opportunities to develop and deepen relationships, make sure every question is answered and every resource is provided so students feel comfortable and ready for their middle school years.”
This effort and care have been evident to the parents of the incoming students, who appreciate the steps Ingenuity and James McHenry staff have taken to make students and families feel welcome.
“I think school leadership has been incredibly involved in choosing James McHenry as the newest Ingenuity site, and now that we’re here, the school’s leadership and faculty have been very warm and welcoming. We’ve felt it in every way. No question is too small, and they are timely in their responses,” says the mother of one Ingenuity sixth grader.
For her family, choosing Ingenuity and James McHenry for their son was all about finding the best academic experience for him.
“We felt like he was presenting as a child who is curious, engaged in learning and has an aptitude for math and science, but not to the exclusion of his other interests. He plays mandolin and chess and he’s a voracious reader. We wanted a well-rounded education with rigor, and we thought he could withstand it. We talked about Ingenuity with him, and he was willing to try,” says his mother. “We visited all four middle schools, and we were drawn to James McHenry’s community and principal. We all felt that it was where we wanted to be.”
Looking ahead, Ingenuity plans to add between 50 and 60 new sixth grade seats at James McHenry each year until they reach 150 students served each year. In three years’ time, this year’s inaugural class will be prepared to move on to the city’s most competitive high schools. But for now, this new partnership fulfills both a key component of James McHenry’s vision of building the school’s new legacy and Ingenuity’s mission to promote equitable access to advanced academics across the city. After all the hard work it took to get here, the year is off to a great start.
“Every day I get to see our Ingenuity students engaged, challenging one another, excited in the classroom, and joyous in their learning. I see our teachers working really hard and building strong relationships with our Ingenuity cohort,” says Turk. “We worked really hard over the last year as a school community, with many families, staff, even students who have now moved on to high school, to advocate for Ingenuity Project to be a part of James McHenry. This is just an optimal example of people working together to bring something to life and accomplish something great. It has been a really successful start to the school year.”
