Education Reform in Action at CICS-Basil

by Ashley Muchow Thanks to the hospitality of Meghan Schmidt, Director of Special Projects at Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS), and Chenita Hardy, Director of CICS-Basil, Amanda Griffin-Johnson, Daniel Anthony, and myself were able to take an eye-opening tour of one of Chicago’s groundbreaking charter schools—CICS-Basil. CICS-Basil is a K-8 charter school located in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood. The...

by Ashley Muchow

Thanks to the hospitality of Meghan Schmidt, Director of Special Projects at Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS), and Chenita Hardy, Director of CICS-Basil, Amanda Griffin-Johnson, Daniel Anthony, and myself were able to take an eye-opening tour of one of Chicago’s groundbreaking charter schools—CICS-Basil.

CICS-Basil is a K-8 charter school located in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood. The school opened its doors just 8 years ago and current enrollment now stands at 730. While canvassing the school and interacting with Basil students, we noted a handful of impressive features in the way this charter school operates:

• School safety. Upon entering Basil one immediately feels safe. Basil has security on site—one guard  I saw interacting with a kindergarten class—and there a strong sense of calm throughout the school. CICS-Basil prides itself in offering a safe haven to every student that walks into the school.
• Innovative incentives to reward students for good behavior and performance. For example, one teacher offered rewards including a “call home” for good marks—an interesting contrast the all-too-familiar “call home” for bad behavior or poor performance.
• Dynamic change tools used by instructors and administrators. For example, Basil teachers spotted a tendency for a particular 6th grade class of boys to get perpetually distracted by the girls in their class. Basil teachers and Director, Chenita Hardy, decided to separate the two classes by gender after grade 6 and witnessed remarkable improvements in the focus and performance of the class as they moved onto 7th and 8th grade.
• School is in session from 8:00AM to 3:30PM—an extended day that surpasses typical CPS hours by nearly an hour, which stretch from 8:00AM to 2:45PM on average. Also, Basil’s 7:30AM early drop-off option has proved extremely valuable for working parents.
• Local community partnerships are vast and contribute greatly to the school’s atmosphere and student activity offerings. For example, Chicago Cares has beautifully decorated Basil’s campus with various artistic murals of influential figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama.
• Commitment to teacher development. For Chenita Hardy, every week is teacher appreciation week. Chenita Hardy is committed to the improvement and professional performance of Basil teachers and her great reverence for their hard work is indisputable.
• Interim assessments. CICS Basil keeps track of the school’s progress by performing three interim assessments throughout the school year. These assessments let the school know what they need to improve as an institution, and they also serve as valuable progress checks for both teachers and students as the year progresses.
• Individual performance tracking. Teachers follow each students’ performance from the time their first ISAT is completed to the day they graduate Basil. Students are kept abreast of their performance, and work with teachers to formulate and take ownership of their individual targets for each year.

CICS-Basil is meeting its goals and closing the achievement gap one student at a time. CICS’s goal is to fully close the achievement gap between the performance of CICS students and the performance of their more economically advantaged peers by 2013.

CICS-Basil is contributing to this end—its innovation and accomplishment are excellent representations of CICS’s success in improving public education in Chicago.