BRADENTON – Achieving educational success among students from the lowest socioeconomic rungs, particularly those for whom English is not the primary language, has long been seen as the great challenge in American public education. It seems that one local school just may have figured it out.
Team Success, a kindergarten through 8th grade title 1 public charter school in Manatee County, has quietly been building a model of succeeding where other schools facing such demographics continue to fail. Next year, they’ll get the opportunity to take their approach to the next level when they add a high school component to their institution.
The school, which is housed in an old building adjacent to the Manatee PAL where the U.S. 301 overpass connects with the city of Bradenton, was converted from a failing charter school by founder and education visionary Fred Spence in 2007. It houses 690 of the poorest children in our community with more than 99 percent of the students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.
Over the past five years, Team Success has earned a reputation as the highest-performing Title 1 school in Manatee County. In the recently released 2017 Florida State Assessment scores, its students actually led the county in 7th grade Math, Algebra and Civics. That’s not just among charter or title 1 schools mind you, but the entire school district.
Proficiency levels in Algebra and Civics were actually a perfect 100 percent. Team success also held the second spot in 8th grade Science and Math, while its 6th grade Math class ranked fourth. Such results are pretty much unheard of when it comes to title 1 schools. When you consider that English is a second language for more than 80 percent of Team Success students, the results are even more impressive.
"We are ecstatic about the scores," said middle school principal Armando Viota. "The results are the product of the hard work and dedication that our entire team put forth this year. First and foremost, I must credit the teachers. They have been so dedicated, and this year we have just had an amazing team that was unrelenting in their drive to help these students achieve. Without them, none of this would be possible."
The results typify an ongoing trend in which the school has continued to improve. Last year, its middle school classes finished either first or second in Math, Science and Civics, with B grades from the state calculations during the FSA era, and an A in 2012 while the FCAT was in place–and that was just three years after the school had been struggling as an F school in its third academic year.
Viota is counting on moving to an A score again when the improvement gains are calculated into the grades for this year in the next few weeks.
Ed Viltz has been involved with team success since Spence recruited him to help design a turnaround plan for the then-struggling upstart school. Viltz, a former IBM executive, also spent six years as a math teacher at the school after retiring early. He credits Spence’s philosophy of treating academics the way most schools treat sports with being at the core of the school’s remarkable success story.
"It’s really difficult to explain the environment without having you see it, but imagine a big pep rally, the kind that you would see at any school in America before a big game with a rival team. You see those kind of celebrations at Team Success all of the time, but we’re recognizing academics and teaching these kids that your success in the classroom is really what is going to change the course of your life. I had a saying when I was a teacher, I’d ask my students, ÔWhat do you call a nerd when he grows up?’ I’d tell them, ÔDoctor,' and you’d see some of these kids sit a little taller in their chair when you put it that way.“
Viltz stepped away from the school in 2016 for an unsuccessful run at the Manatee School Board. Afterward, he returned as community relations director. Viltz is also one of 14 applicants seeking to be appointed to Karen Carpenter’s Manatee School Board seat, in the wake of her recent retirement.
"What Team Success has done is truly amazing,“ said Viltz. "For students who are among the poorest socioeconomic disadvantaged children in Manatee County not only to be doing so well compared to other title 1 schools but leading the county in multiple categories is a great victory.“
Considering its middle school success, there will be much interest in how the school performs on the next level. In May, the Manatee School Board approved Team Success to start a high school, which will open for the upcoming 2017-2018 school year.
"Starting our new high school with scores like these fits perfectly with our vision for our secondary school,“ said Viota, who will also be principal for the upper school. "We already have a waiting list because so many of these families want to have their kids to be able to succeed in such an environment.“
Viota said that the process of getting these kids from point A to point B is long and challenging but that with a motivated team of teachers, they’ve found they can reach even the most challenged students and help them find success.
"When our students arrive in kindergarten, most of them have never even been to a pre-school,“ Viota explained. "They are far behind and not well positioned to learn and score proficient in a second language, so those early scores are often not encouraging. You also have to understand that many of the parents have very little education and often not in English, so the support at home is not what it might be in other families. So we work hard to catch them up through elementary school and then by middle school, that is when we see them really start to succeed.“
Viota explained that while many of the parents lacked the educational background needed to help in a traditional manner, he applauded their foresight in wanting to put their children in a place where they had the best opportunity to thrive.
"These parents are encouraging them to have a better life than they have, to get to that next level,“ said Viota. "So we’re blessed in that they are reinforcing our motivation, even if they are not as able to help them with the educational component. We also work to provide them with additional resources to help in this regard. For instance, we have a voluntary Saturday school in the second semester, summer school and a spring break camp. These extra instructional opportunities, we wholeheartedly believe, help our students learn and contribute to their success.“
Viota and his team are clearly fulfilling the vision Spence put forth when he took over the struggling school. The number of success stories among students who too often fall through the cracks is awe-inspiring to say the least, and it will be interesting to see how many other institutions can learn from their example.
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