After years of academic struggles, Durham schools celebrate new success

Would Lakewood Elementary School continue to be labeled an "F" school, as it had been for years? Hopkins had been running calculations in his head for weeks, trying to determine how his school performed. He felt certain his students had improved, but how much? He desperately wanted to raise his school's "F" grade to a "C" – a tough turnaround for a school to make in one year.

All he needed was a 3.89 growth index – a number that doesn't mean much to the average person. But to Hopkins, it was the number he needed to meet his goal. He opened the folder, knowing exactly where to look on the page. There it was – 3.89. After years of failure, his school was now graded a "C" and exceeded academic growth expectations.

"I became just motionless," Hopkins said. "I was so emotional and thinking about what Lakewood had been through the previous year."

In the past few months, the school system has celebrated several high-profile achievements, including:

Mubenga is proud but not surprised, saying the district's sudden positive shift is all part of his plan. And he's happy to share his secrets.

In Mubenga's first year as Durham's superintendent, he shared his vision of improving the district in two years, not in three to five years as some had suggested he try. But his vision was quickly met with skepticism, he recalled.

"You're out of your mind," some staff members told him.

"You've never been here before," others said.

"It's never going to happen," colleagues said.

As a leader, his expectations are high, he told Durham schools' employees. Central office staff will be evaluated on job performance three times a year. Principals will be held accountable for their students' performance. Those who succeed will be celebrated. Those who do not could be let go.

"If I have a principal sitting in that seat for five years and I'm not seeing any movement, I have to act on that," Mubenga explained. "Maybe you are not the right person for that school. Let somebody else try that."

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When he wasn't visiting schools, Mubenga was meeting with community groups and local real estate agents to ask them to share more positive stories about Durham schools with their clients. If they hadn't visited any Durham schools lately, he offered tours so they could experience the positive changes first-hand.

Real estate agents "were not telling good stories about DPS," Mubenga said. "Some of them never put their feet on our campuses. Now we start bringing them and [they] say, 'Well, this is not what we heard.' ... You're the ones selling houses. We want you to tell the correct stories."

But the bulk of Mubenga's work the first year was getting people to believe the school system could improve. "Once they start tasting that success, I [told] my folks the second year is only going to get better," he said.

"I was like, 'What!'" Berg said, recalling her message to the superintendent.

"You can see in the data what I had been seeing in the schools," she said. "It was just pure joy to see their numbers come out this year."

Berg has been tracking North Carolina's largest school districts, including Durham Public Schools, for the past six years to see how they compare. When she began tracking the data, Durham was near the bottom of the list in terms of students' academic growth. This year, Durham was near the top of the list, along with Cabarrus and Union county schools, which also had incredible results, she said.

While Durham's academic results show room for improvement, the district's academic growth was what impressed Berg.

"Growth is the measure of where a student gets to over the course of the year relative to how they have been trending over time," Berg said. "I'd rather have my child be in a 'C' school that's exceeding growth than even a 'B' school that's not meeting growth."

In Berg's experience studying school systems, those that are high-performing tend to focus on five main areas:

"Anytime I see those blips [of improvement] over the last six years, I can always go back to a superintendent who is empowering principals and principals who are empowering great teachers. Every single time," she said.

But Durham Public Schools and Mubenga "shouldn't get comfortable right now," Berg added. "This is where you celebrate and you move forward."

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In a defiant statement after the announcement, Mubenga said his district "has demonstrated a track record of decisive action in improving our schools ... There is no need for the state to consider taking over any DPS school; we are showing that we take care of our own."

The state's announcement that two Durham schools – C.C. Spaulding and Fayetteville Street elementary – are at risk academically and could be taken away is not the first time the district has heard that type of threat.

In 2017, the school system protested when the state announced it was considering Lakewood and Glenn elementary schools for North Carolina's new Innovative School District, which was created to take some of the state's lowest-performing schools and hand them over to charter school operators to try to improve their performance.

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Meanwhile, Glenn Elementary has continued to struggle as well, earning a "D" grade last school year and failing to meet academic growth expectations. But Lakewood Elementary has been a different story.

Monica Rosa, a mother of three, noticed the changes at Lakewood not long after Principal James Hopkins started in 2017.

"Everybody knew that this was, like, a bad school," Rosa said, talking with WRAL News in Spanish with help from an interpreter. "Ever since Principal Hopkins came, now, really, I can say I feel like Lakewood is a model school. It's a school I'm very proud of. I'm proud to say my children go here."

Rosa joined the protests when the state considered taking over Lakewood in 2017 and cried when the principal announced at a September news conference how much the school had improved in the past year. Her daughter, Brianna Rosa, a fifth-grader at the school, has noticed the changes, too. Before the new principal came, the school felt "very wild."

"It just didn't feel right," Brianna said. "It was a weird feeling."

The biggest change the mother and daughter have noticed is the hiring of new teachers, whom they describe as "really great."

"I get into class knowing that I'll be learning and succeeding," Brianna said. "I just get into class, like, I have a great teacher. I don't have anything to worry about, and I'm just very happy."

That feedback brings a smile to Hopkins' face. When he was hired as principal in 2017, he wasn't recruited to come to Lakewood. He applied, fully aware of the school's longstanding struggles and the mounting obstacles he faced, including some families choosing charter schools, private schools or homeschooling for their children instead of enrolling them in Lakewood.

But as a former Durham Public Schools' student and graduate, Hopkins was inspired by the "raw potential" he saw at the struggling school.

"It just needed to be watered and it needed to be tended," he said.

Some changes Hopkins made were cosmetic, like a new sign for the front of the school and updates to the gymnasium floor, which the community responded positively to. Other changes were harder.

"I had to make some tough decisions with letting some teachers go," he said. "They're not bad people. There's just a different level of expectation ... It can't be business as usual anymore. I mean, we really have to push."

The hunt for highly qualified teachers became Hopkins' number one focus, but convincing top teachers to come to one of the district's lowest-performing schools was a challenge.

"Look, I had a chip on my shoulder. It's very tough to be an F school and try and recruit the best and brightest teachers," he said. "It's discouraging ... I didn't think that people were applying for Lakewood because they wanted to work here. I think they were applying just to have a job."

Hopkins says he was eventually able to find a group of highly motivated, high-performing teachers. With a current staff of 58 teachers and support staff, Hopkins estimates he has hired nearly 30 people in the past two years. Some of the positions are new, thanks to a more flexible budget due to Lakewood's status as a "Restart school."

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Hopkins credits his students, staff and community for helping him improve the school, but he also gives a lot of credit to his superintendent.

"Dr. Mubenga's a leader. The very first time I met with him, he asked me what I needed. I gave him a list of five things. One of them was student support [staff]. Within two days, the position was posted," Hopkins recalled. "I think leaders, their role is to push other leaders, and Dr. Mubenga pushes, and I can appreciate that. While it may be uncomfortable, our students hang in the balance."

Mubenga is not shy about touting his district's success, but he knows there are naysayers who think the district hasn't improved enough. To them, he has a message.

"It's just a matter of time. Give me a couple years," he said confidently. "It's going to be a different story."