CCI charter school takes on big challenge

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Tim Hussin / The Rocky

Carolyn Jones, founder of CCI charter school, hugs Ailey Pop, 18, after speaking with part of the 2008 graduating class.

Photo by Tim Hussin / The Rocky

Ailey Pop, 18, speaks during a Montbello town meeting Monday that included the 2008 CCI graduating class.

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Some of the families who've flocked to one of the last mostly black schools in Denver returned to Challenges, Choices & Images charter school Monday night for a town hall meeting that felt at times like a Sunday church service.

But there were hard-nosed questions, too, and an eight-page plan created to lift the charter from the brink of closure to the path of academic rigor.

"This school has survived, do you know how important that is?" CCI founder Carolyn Jones asked more than 200 people seated on folding chairs in a sweltering gym, many using the school's revitalization plan to fan themselves.

"I know how to lead. I also know how to follow. I am ready to follow," Jones said, gesturing to the man who will now head the 600-student school she built from scratch in Montbello.

"Behold that gentle giant over there, he is our leader and we need to follow. He needs us," she told them. "If you love me like you say you love me, get behind him. Can I have an amen?"

"Amen," they replied in a roar, in unison.

CCI grew from a Saturday school Jones started for children of color, she said, "to move kids out of thinking they are nothing and believing they are capable of doing anything."

But in the past few months, as Denver Public Schools began investigating allegations of fiscal mismanagement, grade-changing and the employment of convicted felons, the school was in danger of being shut down.

Under pressure from DPS to make changes, Jones tapped Oscar Joseph, a former Montbello High School football star and poetry lover who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 300 pounds.

Joseph's roots run deep in the community - he's the oldest of 10 - and he's spent the past 20 years teaching teachers how to excel in urban classrooms.

"I want to be sure we articulate very clearly what is our vision for your child," he said. "I am going to need your support and I am going to need your help."

Joseph talked about a new school governing board, bolstering training for teachers and monthly town hall meetings.

But his biggest applause came when he talked about summer classes for eighth- and ninth- graders in a few weeks and about putting college classes at CCI this fall.

"I want to make sure you understand the seriousness of where we're going," he said. "We're going to show we're serious about education."

CCI supporters are serious, too, and they made that clear.

"I want you to step up to the plate," one of CCI's first graduates, Natasha Ware, 21, told Joseph. "I know you can do it. If you don't, it will be tough."

Ware, who graduated this spring from Grambling State University in Louisiana and who will attend graduate school in political science this fall, calls CCI her family.

The school got her out of Colorado for the first time - to New York, to Washington and then to Paris. It showed her - and her little brother, another graduate - that she could dream as big as she wanted.

"That's what CCI gives us, the ability to perform outside this little school," she said. "The ability to go into the world and stand firm."

Jones built her school on an African-centered curriculum, one that teaches values of respect and reciprocity. For Ware, that means her mission now is giving back, is returning what she's learned to her community, her school, her family.

Joseph has one year - one year on probation with DPS - to ensure CCI survives.

"You have a tough task ahead of you," she told Joseph in front of the audience, which chanted "yes" and "amen" along with her. "I'll be behind you, but you can't slack off."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

Oscar Joseph

* Age: 43

* Hometown: Detroit; Montbello resident from age 15.

* Education: Montbello High School, Class of 1982; bachelor's degree in education and social policy from Northwestern University, 1986; doctorate in curriculum development, K-16 urban education, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1998

* Experience: Middle school teacher; GED instructor and jobs coordinator; administrative posts at University of Colorado at Denver and Community College of Denver

* Of note: Joseph decided to go back to school when he was working in the Chicago projects. "I saw these little kids battling each other, one from each side of the projects, throwing rocks. I thought, is this how it starts, the gangs? I need to do something."

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