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Kirkpatrick Enhanced Option Elementary School is located in booming east Nashville, an area that has been called “the Greenwich Village” of the south. In the last ten years, the neighborhood has made steady progress as a dedicated group of individuals who have worked tirelessly to revitalize the historic homes. A thriving arts and restaurant scene has made this area a welcome spot for those looking to live or relax in an eclectic, laid back neighborhood. Property values are on the rise and people are hunting for the perfect bungalow to call home on one of the many tree-lined streets. Even in the tough economy, houses in this neighborhood spend very little time on the market before they are snatched up by an enthusiastic buyer itching to get over the river. One of the most desired areas of east Nashville is Historic Edgefield, an area of the neighborhood listed on the national historic register. This area, demarcated by the 37206 zip code, is highly coveted for its stately late 19th and early 20th century homes, cobblestone sidewalks, and pedestrian accessibility to the trendy “5 Points” area. But ask anyone in the neighborhood how safe they feel, and the answer may surprise you.

Just across Shelby Street, one of the main thoroughfares in this part of east Nashville, lies James Cayce Homes. The Cumberland River works with Shelby Street and Shelby Bottoms to essentially cut Cayce off from the rest of east Nashville… and the world. This public housing development is the city’s oldest, largest, and poorest. Cayce covers roughly 63 acres and is home to over 3,000 people living in extreme poverty. Between 85-90% of the families in this area are African American. Roughly the same percentage of homes are headed by a single female. The average annual income for the people living in Cayce Homes is about $5,000. This is far below what we as a nation consider the poverty line ($17,000/year).

In an area so distressed, one might not be surprised to learn that crime occurs frequently. If you lived in Cayce Homes, you would be 2x more likely to have an arrest record than Nashville as a whole. Violent crime is 4x and burglaries 2x higher than the rest of Nashville. In our neighborhood, 44% of adults lack a high school diploma. Compare this with the state average of 24%. Children who attend Stratford High School, our zoned high school, have a 1 in 4 chance of becoming a dropout. Additionally, only about 10% of students from this area complete post-secondary education.

Yet, despite these numbers, access to essential needs (meals, shelter, transportation, technology), services (library, adequate bus access), and food (grocery stores) are limited in Cayce Homes. As a food desert, there are very few options in the immediate area where a family can purchase healthy foods at a reasonable cost. And getting to the closest Kroger and back could take over 2 hours if you took the bus, due to limited bus routes running through the area. Great non-profit organizations, like the Martha O’Bryan Center, are changing lives with some groundbreaking programs that entail wrap around services and support. But even the best organizations would be hard pressed to be able to serve 3,000 people needing such high levels of support to become independent, much less succeed, by middle class standards.

Facts and statistics like these would probably bring most people to agree that an area such as the one described above is far less than desirable. Ask residents of Cayce and they would likely tell you the same. Families often live in fear for their lives. Mothers and fathers have dreams for their children to break the cycle of poverty and get out of Cayce. But with so many odds against you, the bootstrap phenomenon becomes a little less conceivable or possible. What is especially striking is the fact that, of the 3,000+ people living in this area, about 60% are minors and roughly 16% are under the age of 11 years old. The majority of people living in this area are children. Young children. These statistics give credence to the idea that there should be a heightened importance placed on education in Cayce Homes, particularly that of early education (i.e., childcare and elementary school).

Back to Kirkpatrick. Judging by physical attributes, it’s not a pretty place. Until the end of last school year, we lacked a permanent sign indicating what exactly the name or purpose of the large brick building was for the small humans who entered it each day. We do not have a Parent Organization (PTO or PTA) like those that serve to support, fund, and allocate resources for most elementary schools. Our teacher turnover is high, a result of the additional stressors that come in the package of teaching in an area as distressed as ours. The school grounds are often littered with trash and debris in the mornings. And a few days out of the year, you may hear gunshots from your classroom or the playground. Sadly though, teachers tend to be the most frightened during these times. These sounds are not novel or alarming for our students. They are life.

But great things are happening at Kirkpatrick because great people are working tirelessly for our kids and our families. Under the direction of our new principal, Ms. Sandra Moorman, the school is seeing some awesome changes take place. Inside the classroom, there has been intense focus placed upon teacher strategies and instruction. Assessment data are being closely examined to determine best practice for our students and changes are being made accordingly. Outside of the classroom we have seen transformations, as well. A group of high school students, under the direction of their Freedom Writer teacher, came down from Pennsylvania last spring to do a service project at our school (that included a new playground structure)! Teachers are collaborating to come up with enrichment program ideas for our students. Focus has been placed on team-building solutions, support systems, and other elements that will equip each educator with the tools he or she needs to become (and then stay) successful in the classroom.

During a conversation last year with a man who has been helping our leadership team, the roles of teachers in each grade were discussed. He mentioned that he felt 3rd & 4th grade teachers should see themselves as “polishers”, those who refine the skills and abilities students acquire in the younger grades. The toughest job, academically, fell upon the shoulders of the teachers in 1st and 2nd grades. Kindergarten begins this process. Pre-K teachers, he said, had to get students and parents in and get them excited. He called this role the school’s “ambassadors”.

At Kirkpatrick, our Pre-K team has fully embraced this concept. We are working to create positive learning experiences for parents and kids on the front end of their educational journey. We recognize that many of the things that will help our students become successful learners must occur outside the 8-2 school day. And we are committed to making them happen because we feel these experiences will set the whole family up for success throughout the child’s time in school. The basis of this comes from our desire to strive to make parents feel comfortable within the walls of the building. We recognize that many of our parents themselves had very rough experiences in school when they were students. And we work very hard to ensure that parents trust, respect, and value our investment in their child’s education.

We also expose parents to available resources that the district and the school provide (i.e., Centerstone counseling, social worker through Vanderbilt, the HEROES program, tutoring opportunities for older siblings). Many times, parents may recognize that they need additional support but lack the knowledge of where to find it or the ability to find it independently due to lack of access to technology. We spend lots of time coaching parents on things they can be doing at home, stressing the importance of parental involvement and ways that the parent can work with their child, independent of school work. And we also strive to be an avenue for information about programs in the neighborhood/community/city that may be beneficial to the family, parent, or child.

When you think about what makes a person happy and fulfilled, similar ideas are shared across groups of people. We want to feel valued, safe, trusted, loved, and respected. It is no different for the parents and students of Kirkpatrick EOS. When these things are present in our lives we can start looking beyond the bounds of our circumstances and dreaming of something bigger. But to dream, you have to know something bigger exists. Consider someone who was born blind. Day to day life and reality is constructed through the use of sounds, smells, feelings, and tastes. But the person does not “see” when they dream because they do not have exposure to this concept due to the limitations of their eyes. The same is true for people who are born unable to hear. Noises make no sense to someone whose ears do not communicate the messages of sound with one’s brain. So dreams are made up of something entirely different. The same concept is true for our kids and families. If a child has never met, talked to, or even learned about what a doctor/lawyer/astronaut/social worker does each day, how can we expect them to dream to become such? If a child has not experienced life outside of the confines of Cayce Homes, how can we expect them to dream of living in a world beyond the areas in which they live? We can’t.

Our Pre-K program is fun. We work extremely hard to prepare our kids academically for Kindergarten. But we also do some really cool stuff and make sure to save time to play each day. In addition, we devote great amounts of time to helping our students acquire the social skills and worldly ideas that they will need to be successful. We bring in speakers, guest readers, and organizations to talk with our children about ideas that may be foreign to them. We read books about different places and people who have done amazing things in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. And we talk about college constantly. But what are missing for so many of our students and our families are ongoing, sustained, healthy relationships with adults who can serve as models of character and perseverance. Good examples of what could be. Because generational poverty and the cycles of being poor prevent so many from knowing how to navigate the middle class world and from having a close support network upon whom one can depend to be there if they stumble. But it also means that our families and kids lack the opportunities to learn and grow as a person from their neighbors or their family to become a better person, parent, friend, etc. What is missing is a community of people devoted to spending time talking about plans for the future of their family, brainstorming ideas for new paths or options, setting goals, and coming up with action steps to achieve those goals.

Empowerment comes from being able to see value in yourself through the value that others see within you. For many of our families, they simply need someone to lead by example so that they can discover/re-discover the value that lies within them. And it all starts when something happens that makes them feel important, special and loved. Like a Christmas meal they’ll never forget.

Jennifer Ward and Katie Elam are teachers at Kirkpatrick Enhanced Option School in East Nashville. Watch for more from this team.