School has high expectations

For most schools, the goal is to have students recognizing letters and sounds and reading simple text by the end of kindergarten.

At downtown Meeting Street Academy, all the students entering first grade are reading, and the same is true for about one-third of those starting kindergarten. Some of the incoming first-graders are so advanced they can read 60-page books.

It's an accomplishment celebrated by the school's leadership, but they'd like to see students reading even sooner.

"The higher the expectation, the more the children rise to meet it," said Trish Scarry, the school's director.

High expectations are ingrained in this school's culture, and it's one of the reasons the small private school is unlike any other in Charleston County. Meeting Street Academy enrolls students whose parents want them to have a high-quality education but can't afford private-school tuition. The goal is for these high-poverty students to graduate from high school and college and become community leaders.

Families pay $1 per day for classes and $2 per day for after-school programs, and Sherman Financial Group, a company that originates, purchases and services debt, pays the tab for everything else, including teachers' salaries, uniforms and classroom supplies.

The city is so supportive of the school's premise that City Council agreed to buy a $4.75 million piece of land and lease it to the school for basically nothing. The school will use the space to build a new $9 million building.

For now, the school is in a temporary space at 1156 King St. Its new building was slated to be finished during the upcoming school year, but that's been pushed back, likely until the start of the 2012-13 school year, after environmental

testing revealed contaminants in the site's soil. South Carolina Electric & Gas, which sold the land to the city, has incurred the cleanup costs.

The construction setback hasn't stopped the school from growing its enrollment. The school opened two years ago for 3- and 4-year-olds, and is growing by a grade each year until it spans to eighth grade. This year, the school will expand to first grade and enroll 90 students.

To accommodate its increasing student population, the school set up a mobile unit in its parking lot.

"Logistics are always an issue ... but we're taking advantage of the situation we have," Scarry said.

Results from the school's first two years are promising. Although most private school don't share students' test scores, Meeting Street Academy does.

Last year, the school didn't have any students scoring above the 90th percentile on a national vocabulary exam at the end of the school year, and this year 30 percent scored in that range. Students' median score dropped from the 73rd to the 66th percentile, but Scarry said both fell within a slightly above-average range.

On another exam that gauges students' knowledge of fundamental literacy skills, most students outscored the national average at the beginning and end of the year. Scarry wants to see that kind of growth continue, and she said the scores show the school is on the right track.

"We want to provide them with a phenomenal education," she said. "There's no excuse for them not to achieve at the top level."

Scarry said she believes the combination of starting with children early, making their lessons rigorous, and involving parents has been key to the school's success. Parents must sign contracts agreeing to take an active role in their child's education, and failure to do so could lead to their child's dismissal. Two students were kicked out in its first year, but that hasn't happened since then.

Amy Bennett, who taught kindergarten this past year, said she's seen her students go above and beyond what she thought they were capable of doing, and her expectations for the upcoming school year are even higher.

"It's made us push harder to see what they can do," she said. "With the right tools, they are able to accomplish anything. It makes my job fun and interesting because it's never going to be the same each year."

She expects her students to be able to write complete sentences by the end of the year, but her students this year were writing four- or five-sentence paragraphs in journals, creating commercials and problem-solving with one another.

She could make a list of why the school is able to do what it does: students want to be there, families are involved, staff members are valued, and everyone does their part to help one another and support the students.

"It's just a great environment for kids and families and the staff," she said. "Sometimes it doesn't feel like a school. It feels like everyone's home. Like we're going to see family -- that's the big difference."

Demand for the school is high. The school had more than 250 applications for 20 spots this year, and it didn't do any advertising. It's becoming more difficult to make decisions about who should be admitted, and the school's leadership is beginning to look for more ways to fund the school, Scarry said. The more money they have, the more students they can serve, Scarry said.

"It's going to be a big priority," she said.

Reach Diette Courrégé at 937-5546 or dcourrege@postandcourier.com.