Leading on the Line: Reimagining the High School Experience at the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academies

Abstract

Before the national trend arose of ensuring college and career readiness for all students, the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) adopted the bold mission of supporting children and their families with a birth through college model. The HCZ launched Promise Academy I & II charter schools in 2004 and 2005 in Central Harlem due to the lack of high-quality educational options. Its mission guarantees that all Promise Academy graduates will be accepted to and succeed in college. The HCZ undertook this lofty mission in spite of the odds stacked against the area’s children and youth. The Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academies has had three high school graduating classes, Promise alumni currently enrolled in college, and college graduates. As a result, the Harlem Children’s Zone has experienced the full PK-16 continuum and can now assess their effectiveness in accomplishing their audacious mission.

My Ed.L.D. residency focused on leading Phase I of One Promise, the “re-imagination of the high school experience.” My work included examining student preparation for high school and college success, determining the assets and challenges of the existing high school structure from the perspectives of diverse stakeholders, and using data to design a strategy for systemic improvement. The capstone highlights the adaptive leadership challenges inherent in the transformational process of leading a national model through a comprehensive internal diagnostic process aimed at realizing HCZ’s goal of ensuring Demography is Not Destiny for its students. HCZ’s unique place in the education sector necessitated a different approach from that of many school improvement models. My strategy intricately involved HCZ stakeholders in the process of “reimagining” and redesigning the HCZ’s first comprehensive improvement plan for its high schools. With an emerging college and career focused 9-12 curriculum and student competencies, the Promise Academy high schools are better poised for greater success.