Bancroft bilingual arts charter school takes off by John Tribett

The dark green banner at the edge of the roof reading El Colegio is the only indication of what the old supermarket at the edge of 42nd and Bloomington in south Minneapolis, may be holding. As you enter an open corridor, the building’s blank façade is betrayed by paintings hanging from geometrically intriguing walls. Directly ahead, double doors part into the main gallery. Works interpreting El Dia de los Muertos are tastefully placed about the gymnasium-sized room. To the right, a group of young artists circulate a feather while engaging in intense conversation. This is El Colegio, an arts- and environment-based charter high school targeting Latino and Chicano youth, that started its school year Sept. 5th. The school’s charter proposal describes its mission: “As evidenced in our core beliefs, we feel that there are a number of students who learn best when they have more individualized attention, when they use curriculum that is based in a bilingual culturally diverse context, and when they participate in experiences that are not class room activities but take place in the real world.” The genesis of the school drew from the combined experiences of its initial four developers, Carmen Lundberg, David Greenberg, Armando Gutierrez and George Sand, in the legislatively funded PASS (Partners: Arts and Schools for Students) program in the late nineties. PASS sought to improve student learning by bringing the arts and artists into the school in an interdisciplinary context. In July 1999, El Colegio was approved for a charter by the state. A charter school is sponsored by a school district or university which ultimately is responsible for monitoring the school’s academic progress and overseeing finances. After deciding against locating in St. Paul, despite approval there, and being turned down by Minneapolis, a sponsorship with Augsburg College was finally secured. Augsburg’s interest in community programming and their desire to attract Latino students to their college program was ideal. The final hurdle was finding a physical space able to house both El Colegio and CreArté. CreArté seeks to offer arts education, to develop the Chicano and Latino artist and provide a venue for their art. El Colegio’s primary focus is on Chicano and Latino students, bilingual studies, and environmental/arts education. Greenberg notes, “Both organizations saw the benefit of a partnership, those two missions were really complementary. The arrangement of the partnership is that we share this space, the main gallery, and all the gallery space belongs to CreArte, to El Colegio, to the artists, the students, the community.” This space is the former supermarket across from Bancroft Gardens. Typical of this arrangement was the preparation for the Day of the Dead exhibit. Students worked with artists provided by CreArté to produce animitas, small altars typical of the Chilean celebration. Greenberg elaborated, “Students engage with professional artists, see the work that they do, communicate with them, are taught by them, and really see what goes on, what is the process, how does the artist work, how does the artist use his or her art to express themselves.” Asked about having his work in the gallery, a student named John, born in Mexico and now dividing his time between Minnesota with his mother and California with his father, said, “It’s cool. Everybody looks at it and they just tell you how good it is and you feel good because you know you’re doing a good job. I did two drawings in there that are on the walls, and they told me it was in the paper, so I was like, this is cool.” John considers himself an artist and plans to graduate high school. The school currently has approximately 65 students working with the equivalent of seven half- and full-time staff members and additional CreArté and community artists that collaborate on a project-to-project basis. This ratio creates an intimate environment where students are encouraged to partake in individualized project-based learning. Projects bundle components of Minnesota’s Graduation Standards, of which all curriculum is aligned, in an interdisciplinary context. Furthermore, all students at El Colegio are required to complete the World Languages standard in Spanish. Tina, formerly a Kennedy high school student, plans to study music in college and hopes to become a gospel singer. She sees the project approach as ideal. “I’m doing a project right now [that entails] researching how to do a demo tape. So that’s, like, helping me out, I’m going to know what to do at that time. It’s good because they actually teach you what you’re interested in.” When asked about her experience in public school she said, “They’re just about, OK, ‘Read this book and do this work sheet,’ but it’s not helping you on what you want to do, so [at El Colegio] if you want to be an actress, go to theater…or do a project about theater. If you want to be a boxer, do a project about boxing. If you want to be a singer, do a project about singing. They concentrate on what you want to do with your life. That helps me.” Jill, a freshman and one of the school’s few non-Latino students, is a former Highland junior high student with aspirations in film and television. She hopes for fame but turns practical when asked about how the school will help her. “We have a lot of theater in our school. Also — the Spanish part — I could get bilingual roles.” She sees the projects as an opportunity. “We can learn the way we want to learn. We can do our own thing. … We have to document what we’re doing and what times and we have to have some evidence, like papers or knowledge of what we’ve read. In a public school you can just like copy off other people. Everyone is doing the same thing so you can copy and be like, ‘Here, I did this.’” The environmental focus will allow students another venue for interdisciplinary projects. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will be serving as lead partner helping to develop a network with environmentally-orientated organizations. Victor Sanchez, director of CreArté, outlined a series of student designed gardens that will circle the school incorporating native flora with innovative urban designs. Plan s are being explored with the Bancroft neighborhood association for work on the 40th street greenway project and for the park across the street from the school. To insure student progress in English and math, skills specific classes are offered the first two hours of every day with students being grouped by ability level. "Going back to that contract with Augsburg, and really with the state, our first year goals are directly related to math and reading, so that students will improve their skills," said Greenberg. The contract with Augsburg is up for evaluation and renewal at the three-year mark. Placing an emphasis on self-motivation, teaching at the school can be a process of retraining the students to trust themselves as learners. "[Learning] doesn’t mean standing up front [saying] do this, do that," teacher Grant Boulanger explained. The beauty of a charter school is the opportunity to try new things, [and to] scrap what doesn’t work." The teachers are members of the Ed Visions Cooperative. “Our teachers here are employers-slash-members of this teacher cooperative,” said Greenberg. “The charter school contracts with the cooperative for our services. In essence, the charter school has no employees, and as part of that we are a cooperative. We strive for a cooperative based decision making model. In other words, as a group we would decide on how we’re going to spend our funds. As a group we make decisions about curriculum. In traditional schools, I work for the school. I work for the principle. I have no decision making power, and here the idea is that we own the school. Not that we own the school, but we own our own profession. We own our expertise, and we are contracting with the school to provide that expertise.” Pedro moved to Minneapolis two years ago from Puerto Rico and oscillates between broken English and fluent Spanish. He transferred from Southwest High to “work on his English,” and because “a lot of people wanted to start trouble.” Tina translates when he struggles to articulate himself in English. “He was in problems but he was going to get into more trouble because there’s a lot of racism in Southwest.” Jill then translates, “The teachers [at El Colegio] worry about each one. In Southwest if a person had a problem they’d see it but wouldn’t say anything.” According to the results of the 1999 Completion Study released from the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning (CFL), the percentage of Minnesota’s Hispanic public school students graduating on time or staying in school has risen to 68.8 from 61.3 in 1996. State education commissioner Christine Jax stated, “The increase in minority completion rates is indeed good news, but their dropout rates are still too high. We need to keep working toward the best K-12 education system in the nation, one that offers all our students good options for a quality public education. The gap between white and minority completion rates must be closed. We need to insure that more of our minority students graduate from high school in four years.” *The names of the students have been changed.