The Coolest School in East Harlem

Being from East Harlem is very cool. It's a brand, like saying you went to Exeter or Harvard or your family came over on the Mayflower. That's what Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation's principal Nicholas Tishuk (at right) keeps telling the 135 ninth graders who will make up the school's inaugural class starting in September. He also believes it.

It's part of his spiel when he and his staff visit each and every one of the incoming freshmen's homes in the weeks leading up to the start of the school year.

Tishuk, who started out his educational career teaching 11th graders in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn wants his students to realize that being from the rough and tumble neighborhood of Manhattan is a brand that is marketable to college admissions officers and job recruiters three or four years down the road.

"In some people's minds there is a stigma associated with East Harlem because it has a reputation for poverty and violence, but we want our students who have so much potential academically to think East Harlem is a cool place to be from. It is New York City and the very heart of the urban environment. It's cool and it is marketable," Tishuk, 31, said.

To drive that message of East Harlem's allure home for the kids, Innovation, East Harlem's first charter high school, prepared a two-week program this month, free of charge for any incoming student with the inclination and free time on their hands. Staffers have led daily field trips around Harlem's historical sites, eating lunch at spots like the Creole Jazz and Supper Club, African drumming classes (below left) and conducting reading groups with excerpts from Piri Thomas' Down These Mean Streets. By the end of the two weeks, each student will have a map of what they love, hate and want to do more of in their neighborhood.

For Mariana Sidibe, 14, who has only lived in East Harlem for a year after growing up on the Ivory Coast in Africa, the program was an eye-opening introduction to her relatively new home and a welcome opportunity to improve her English, which she laments isn't as good as she wants it to be.

"There are so many famous places here and famous people from here. It makes me proud to live in East Harlem and proud to talk about it," Sidibe told me during a lunch at El Nuevo Caridad, home to some of East Harlem's best mojito chicken.

The summer program was proffered to the students and their families during another of Tishuk and his staff's value-adds for the fledgling school, the home visit. Most of the moms, dads and grandparents raising the incoming ninth graders have never had a phone call from their child's teacher, much less had the principal show up on their doorstep and come in for a lemonade and an hour long chat about how he expects this school year will go down as well as to listen to everyone's concerns and expectations.

"We hope you guys will think of us as a partner," Tishuk says when he walks into a home.

Tishuk can't visit all the homes of all the students himself, but at least a few members of the staff can, including his wife, Innovation's co-founder, Rita Tishuk. The full staff consists of 22 members, which includes two college counselors and eight special-ed instructors, one of whom came out of retirement after 30 years in the city school system. Their gym coach played minor league baseball and their English teacher once wrote comic books for a living.

Each home visit includes at least three of these staff members, the same number of teachers that will be in each of Innovation's classrooms. For many of the students, it might be the first time someone has talked to them like an adult whose opinion matters. When Rita Tishuk strides into a family room she makes sure to shake the student's hands. She jokes with them and puts them at ease; something she can get away with it because she looks less like a school administrator in her jean skirts and blazers and more like a cool older sister — despite being the brains behind the school's multi-million dollar fundraising campaign.

"I feel like we won the lottery," exclaimed Wanda Fernandez when Innovation's team asked her about her expectations for the upcoming school year for her son, Angel. "He was heading to a high school that I didn't choose and I didn't want that for him."

"What kinds of things do you like to do Angel?" asked Ray Ramirez (at left), one of the school's para-professionals and an East Harlem writer and poet.

"I like science and math," Angel mumbled in a way teenagers do when they're put on the spot by a grownup.

"Well we're starting a science club," Rita Tishuk chimed on, reaching over to touch Angel's knee. "Can I maybe call you to talk about it? This is our first year so you'll get to be a really important part of starting new clubs." Angel's face lit up for the first time during the visit and he nodded his head with a smile.

Starting a charter high school is viewed as a risky proposition. Most charter schools begin early in a child's educational process, pre-school or even middle-school but rarely in the ninth grade, since the long held assumption is to introduce students to the charter system young or don't bother. Negative learning habits and difficulties are believed to be ingrained at a young age and irreversible.

"The idea of saying to a kid, 'hey you're 14 it's too late for you,' seems ridiculous," said Innovation's College Bound coordinator Art Samuels (at right). "These are good kids. they're smart kids. They want to learn and go to college. It isn't too late."

Not only is Innovation taking on ninth graders, but they're taking on some of the most high-risk ninth graders in New York City. Around 40 percent are special education students compared with 11 percent citywide; 20 percent speak English as a second language compared with 8 percent citywide; and 94 percent qualify for free lunches compared with 36 percent citywide.

None of the students will be put into segregated special education programs. Each classroom will be fully integrated and consist of students of varying learning abilities. Each will be staffed by three teaching professionals, a mainstream teacher, a special ed teacher and a teaching para-professional.

The school has received funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which is named for Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart stores, as well as other private donors. Charter schools can be controversial because they operate outside of the purview of the department of education. They are able to exercise professional creativity and flexibility yet if they don't keep their students' Regents test scores high their charter can and will be revoked.

"We believe in our staff and in our kids," Nicholas Tishuk says. "We got so many more applications than we had spots for because these kids and their families are willing to take a risk on a brand new school and we have every reason to believe it will exceed expectations."

Photos by Pete Self.