Ms. Pacione-Zayas makes sure students get to school, works to keep them there and helps them deal with challenges they face beyond the school walls. Before she arrived at Clemente at the beginning of the school year, the school’s culture “was basically an environment waiting to blow up,” said Ms. Pacione-Zayas, who holds a Ph.D. in educational policy studies.
Chicago Public Schools announced a violence-prevention initiative for high schools in late 2009, in the wake of the beating death of a 16-year-old Fenger High School student, Derrion Albert. But the well of federal stimulus money that financed the program will run dry at the end of the year.
Though coordinators like Ms. Pacione-Zayas knew the money would run out, the program’s success in increasing attendance and reducing suspensions at many schools makes the loss hard to accept. Even a new study indicating that the way a school staff deals with conflict and violence can affect academic achievement isn’t likely to save the program from burial in the school system’s graveyard of start-stop reforms.
“It’s very easy for C.P.S. to make these kind of stopgap-measure decisions and say, ‘Well, it’s just for a year. Sorry. Thanks, you did a great job. Keep it moving,’ “ Ms. Pacione-Zayas said. “I’m not surprised, because that’s kind of been the history of it.”
Derrion’s death in 2009 shocked the city and the nation. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and top Justice Department officials flew to Chicago to announce a $500,000 federal grant to help Fenger restore a peaceful learning environment.
Shortly afterward, Ron Huberman, then the C.P.S. chief, announced the Culture of Calm initiative to reduce violence in some of the city’s most troubled high schools. Chosen as one of six focus schools, Clemente received $1.1 million to put the program into effect.
Over all, the district received $260 million in stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Of that sum, Culture of Calm received $40 million for the 2010-11 school year, the second-largest amount distributed to district programs, behind early childhood programming.
C.P.S. officials announced in March that stimulus aid would end in the next budget cycle, placing Culture of Calm on the chopping block.
With federal financing gone, Ms. Pacione-Zayas and others face an uncertain future. Joshua Gray, the district official who oversees the violence-prevention initiative, said each of the schools participating in the program had been allocated different amounts and used the money differently. Many hired new staff members, while others had an existing staff member absorb the duties of carrying out the program.
“Until we know what all of our budgets are, we won’t really have an answer,” Mr. Gray said, “and that’s concerning for everybody.”
The program faces financial uncertainty even as academic research has begun to show that an improved school culture can contribute to better academic achievement. Next week, the Consortium on Chicago School Research is expected to release a report revealing that while neighborhood poverty and crime affect school safety, they are not the most important factors. The school’s organization and the relationships between teachers and students were found to be more important.
Though Culture of Calm is not the focus of the new study, it is mentioned as an example of an effort that helps schools improve safety and overall academic success.
“If you have poor safety, you have virtually no chance in improving learning,” said Elaine Allensworth, an expert on school safety and a co-author of the study.
The violence-prevention initiative was designed to focus on safe passage to and from school, a better learning environment inside the school and mentoring for high-risk students.
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