BRIDGEPORT -- Park City Prep, the 8-year-old, state-funded charter middle school traded one old factory building for another this summer and moved from the former Singer factory building on Barnum Avenue to the former Bead Chain Manufacturing building clear across town on the West Side.
Its new digs on State Street, director Bruce Ravage said, are brighter, bigger, and a place the school doesn't have to share with dozens of other businesses.
The 30,000 square foot space has been custom renovated to include science laboratories and there is till room to grow. If it is granted permission from the state, the school, with 260 sixth through eighth graders wants to add a fifth grade next year.
"Most charter schools have at least four years to work with kids," said Bruce Ravage, the founder and director of the school from the start.
One of 18 state charter schools, Park City Prep has quietly established itself has one of the best performing.
In a city where some 33.7 percent of students met the math goal on the Connecticut Mastery Test and 45.3 percent met the reading goal in 2013, Park City Prep students far exceeded expectations and the state average. This year, 73.3 percent of Park City eighth graders met the goal in math and 79.4 percent of seventh graders met the goal in reading
"I am getting the results I hoped I would," said Ravage. What he looks for is the amount of improvement students make over the three years they are at the school.
Park City Prep recruits students from all over the city. It has a special education population comparable to the city, but very few English Language Learners.
More than anything else, Ravage, who previously was director of the Math/Science Institute at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, credits the results to the teachers he hires and the rules the school keeps.
Two teachers, math teacher Jennifer White and social studies teacher Chris Van Etten, have been with him from the start.
"I get very few teachers who have the mettle to be successful with our students," said Ravage. "They need high energy and a sincere desire to work with our student population because making a difference makes
a difference to them."
He also looks for a dynamic stage presence. Students need to be engaged, he said.
Ravage said he spends a good chunk of his budget -- the school gets $10,500 per pupil from the state -- on teacher training.
Two consultants come in twice a month, he said, to work with teachers and model lessons, and teachers attended summer workshops.
The school has a science theme, but students spend two hours on reading and one on math in every eight hour academic day. Students are also grouped by ability.
As for being a stickler for rules, students will be called out for walking through the halls without the right belt on.
"We take pride in our look," said Ravage.
The school has gotten better, though, at applying positive discipline. Students who earn academic honors wear special scholar sweaters. During one ice breaker this week, eighth graders in an advisory class where most wore sweaters were asked to choose between being popular and being smart. In this school, it may have been peer pressure talking, but 17 of the 20 in the class chose being smart.
The school's suspension rate is half of what it was two years ago. In 2010-11, 75 in-school suspensions were served and 25 out of school suspensions. Last year, that number was down to 25 in-school, 1 expulsion, and 23 out-of-school suspension, most of which were one or two days in duration, Ravage said.
Earlier this year, the state took charter schools to task for having much higher student suspension rates than traditional public schools.
"We don't suspend for minor infractions," Ravage said. There is also a concerted effort to intervene early so that misbehavior does not escalate.
That's one thing Precious Bynum, 13, likes about Park City Prep; teachers know how to handle kids who act up.
"And there are not a lot of people that you disagree with in this school," Bynum added.
Student turnover is also down. In 2013, 80 of the 96 students who started as sixth graders graduated eighth grade. Most who left, Ravage said, moved out of the area.
"Occasionally a family is not pleased that they have to honor the contract that says their kid has to follow the rules. We try to keep them here. Sometimes families get frustrated."
Others like the discipline.
"I like that it is a better learning place," said Andre Lawson, 14, an eighth grader. "There are not as many kids getting into trouble."
Fewer students per class -- the average class size is 22 -- means less friction, said Lawson, whose last school was Batalla, a school with more than 1,000 students.
As for the new space, Caitlyn Hughes, 14, who graduated last year and now attends St. Luke's High School in New Canaan, said she is not jealous. She said she got out of Park City Prep what she wanted. Like Park City Prep, St. Luke's has small classes. "I felt very prepared," she said.
In the new space, voices will echo against the walls and high ceilings until acoustic panels -- in the schools yellow and navy blue colors -- are installed.
The school spent about $500,000 toward the renovation and has a five-year lease, with an option for five more. The annual rent is $400,000.
"The one thing I liked was that this building was a shell. We could customize it to meet our needs. This is a this is a much better, secure, safer environment," Ravage said.
Its new digs on State Street, director Bruce Ravage said, are brighter, bigger, and a place the school doesn't have to share with dozens of other businesses.
The 30,000 square foot space has been custom renovated to include science laboratories and there is till room to grow. If it is granted permission from the state, the school, with 260 sixth through eighth graders wants to add a fifth grade next year.
"Most charter schools have at least four years to work with kids," said Bruce Ravage, the founder and director of the school from the start.
One of 18 state charter schools, Park City Prep has quietly established itself has one of the best performing.
In a city where some 33.7 percent of students met the math goal on the Connecticut Mastery Test and 45.3 percent met the reading goal in 2013, Park City Prep students far exceeded expectations and the state average. This year, 73.3 percent of Park City eighth graders met the goal in math and 79.4 percent of seventh graders met the goal in reading
"I am getting the results I hoped I would," said Ravage. What he looks for is the amount of improvement students make over the three years they are at the school.
Park City Prep recruits students from all over the city. It has a special education population comparable to the city, but very few English Language Learners.
More than anything else, Ravage, who previously was director of the Math/Science Institute at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, credits the results to the teachers he hires and the rules the school keeps.
Two teachers, math teacher Jennifer White and social studies teacher Chris Van Etten, have been with him from the start.
"I get very few teachers who have the mettle to be successful with our students," said Ravage. "They need high energy and a sincere desire to work with our student population because making a difference makes
a difference to them."
He also looks for a dynamic stage presence. Students need to be engaged, he said.
Ravage said he spends a good chunk of his budget -- the school gets $10,500 per pupil from the state -- on teacher training.
Two consultants come in twice a month, he said, to work with teachers and model lessons, and teachers attended summer workshops.
The school has a science theme, but students spend two hours on reading and one on math in every eight hour academic day. Students are also grouped by ability.
As for being a stickler for rules, students will be called out for walking through the halls without the right belt on.
"We take pride in our look," said Ravage.
The school has gotten better, though, at applying positive discipline. Students who earn academic honors wear special scholar sweaters. During one ice breaker this week, eighth graders in an advisory class where most wore sweaters were asked to choose between being popular and being smart. In this school, it may have been peer pressure talking, but 17 of the 20 in the class chose being smart.
The school's suspension rate is half of what it was two years ago. In 2010-11, 75 in-school suspensions were served and 25 out of school suspensions. Last year, that number was down to 25 in-school, 1 expulsion, and 23 out-of-school suspension, most of which were one or two days in duration, Ravage said.
Earlier this year, the state took charter schools to task for having much higher student suspension rates than traditional public schools.
"We don't suspend for minor infractions," Ravage said. There is also a concerted effort to intervene early so that misbehavior does not escalate.
That's one thing Precious Bynum, 13, likes about Park City Prep; teachers know how to handle kids who act up.
"And there are not a lot of people that you disagree with in this school," Bynum added.
Student turnover is also down. In 2013, 80 of the 96 students who started as sixth graders graduated eighth grade. Most who left, Ravage said, moved out of the area.
"Occasionally a family is not pleased that they have to honor the contract that says their kid has to follow the rules. We try to keep them here. Sometimes families get frustrated."
Others like the discipline.
"I like that it is a better learning place," said Andre Lawson, 14, an eighth grader. "There are not as many kids getting into trouble."
Fewer students per class -- the average class size is 22 -- means less friction, said Lawson, whose last school was Batalla, a school with more than 1,000 students.
As for the new space, Caitlyn Hughes, 14, who graduated last year and now attends St. Luke's High School in New Canaan, said she is not jealous. She said she got out of Park City Prep what she wanted. Like Park City Prep, St. Luke's has small classes. "I felt very prepared," she said.
In the new space, voices will echo against the walls and high ceilings until acoustic panels -- in the schools yellow and navy blue colors -- are installed.
The school spent about $500,000 toward the renovation and has a five-year lease, with an option for five more. The annual rent is $400,000.
"The one thing I liked was that this building was a shell. We could customize it to meet our needs. This is a this is a much better, secure, safer environment," Ravage said.