When Harry Johnson, 12, goes to school, sometimes he is the head chef. Draped in a white jacket, he crafts delicacies like sloppy joes. A wide grin spreading across his face, he says he likes school because his peers are friendly and eager to learn. As a student at the Community Partnership School (CPS), he has a different experience than most.

In the eyes of some, the environment for education in North Philadelphia is bleak and unstable. It’s a neighborhood where families are seemingly buried by multi-generational poverty and where area public schools not fearing closure are few and without many other affordable alternatives. The Community Partnership School operating out of the Project Home building on Judson Street is, however, a bright spot.

Embracing the environment where the students come from, the school centers its practices around the children, their families and their neighbors. But with success has come popularity and the school needs more space to grow.

The independent school is planning a move to a facility of their own on the border of Strawberry Mansion and Brewerytown. Looking to begin as soon as the plans are approved by the city, it is anticipated that the move will allow the school to take on twice as many students, bringing their total from around 92 to 200.

The move signifies more than increased enrollment: It is the beginning of a bigger, bolder role in the North Philadelphia communities.

Community Transformation

The corner of 33rd and Stenwood and Oxford Streets, the space set aside for the school, used to be an area to avoid at night, said Charles Holliday of the Greater Brewerytown CDC.

“Blight is bad and that corner was like kindling,” he said.

The organization has been working to improve the area, planting an orchard nearby. Still there is an additional vacant lot that Holliday hopes the school will help to beautify when the time comes.

“The building is firmly in their grasp, but it is really in great disrepair,” he said flatly. “I am hopeful though that things will work out.”

School officials held a meeting in January for the community members in both Brewerytown and Strawberry Mansion. They announced an intention to include community members in every step of the process, even construction.

Living up to their name, school officials floated the idea of hiring residents as construction workers on the project or opening the building as meeting space.

“It could also open the door for more revitalization,” said Tonetta Graham of the Strawberry Mansion CDC.

Graham is hoping for residential development; with its proximity to Fairmount Park, she said the location is dynamic.

A fresh cluster of homes has already been built nearby at 32nd and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

But according to Graham, the school represents more than development — it is another option for the children of the community, children like Harry.

A New Approach to Education

According to data provided by CPS, 91 percent of their 5th graders have tested at or above their grade level in reading and 86 percent at or above their grade level in math. This is in a neighborhood where, according to school officials, some enter their doors with poor literacy skills.

“We are in a section of the city that doesn’t have many elementary charter schools,” Graham said. “We still have some strong public elementary schools, but this school will provide a better edge.”

The tactics of the school have touched Graham on a personal level — her son Lucas graduated from CPS two years ago. When she speaks of the school, she gushes.

“I never wanted him to come home and not want to go to school,” she said. “The never happened.”

As an independent school, Beth Vaccaro, director of curriculum and instruction, says that CPS operate differently than most schools. Free from much of the restrictions that public schools can face, educators cater to the lifestyle of the child.

“We are student driven in the sense that there are certain things we have to do, but the students can shape how we do them,” she said.

Given the economic status of the community the school serves, the promise of this level of education can seem impossible, leaving some wondering how it is affordable. Even if their income was to double, some area families would still be below the poverty line.

The parents do pay, but they decide how much. Affordability is a top priority. Eric Jones, the school’s director, said that they make it work.

“We have found that folks are more vested when they have some skin in the game,” Jones put simply. “Some parents pay $10 per month for ten months and sometimes they are our most involved.”

Drawing a parallel to the environment crafted in the television show “Cheers”, Jones said that their model works because “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” A giggle escaped his lips after making the comparison.

Placing value in intimacy, the school operates at a 7:1 student teacher ratio. Jones said it builds trust between the students and their school.

“Who wants to go to a place where you are frisked every day,” he asked. “That type of security is a reality for many of the neighborhood schools.”

Candra Mickens said that when her daughter Justice, a member of CPS’s inaugural class, graduated, she cried. Mickens said that Justice had blossomed into an intelligent woman, and was saddened to see her daughter leave the school.

“They do really great things for families,” she said.

The school puts on several parent nights throughout the year where the adults are given tips in topics relating to education or parenting. Childcare and dinner are provided at each.

Still, the family feel does not end when a student graduates — through CPS’s alumni program, school officials remain connected with their former students. Members of the school’s first graduating class have started to look at colleges, a process that CPS will help each child with with.

In the words of Jones, CPS teaches the “whole child” — emotional education is valued just as much as math, science, or history.

Living up to their name, through a multitude of partnerships — like the Vetri lunch etiquette program, which emphasizes table manners and healthy eating — students are exposed to unique experiences.

“Most of the time kids reach for snacks when they go to the store. Now Justice will ask for fruits and veggies,” Mickens said.

“We try hard to execute a program that allows kids to be who they are, to have questions, to want to know, to know how to channel moments of frustration and anger,” Jones said.

The school’s guidance during turbulent life experience proved to be a value that transformed Sakina Tucker’s daughter Chrisma. While at CPS, Chrisma was going through what Tucker describes as a rough patch at home. The school helped Chrisma get outside counseling.

“She graduated from counseling about two months ago,” said Tucker. “She was like a different child — she had a whole different outlook.”

A need

“This is the beginning, this is the gateway,” Linn Vaughters, the school’s director of enrollment, said. She welcomes families to the embrace of CPS with those words.

But the reality is that not every applicant is as fortunate as Lucas, Chrisma, Justice or Harry.  Vaughters said that the school gets three times as many applicants as they can serve.

“One of the hardest parts of the job is turning them away,” she said.

Dreams of summer and after-school programs fill the heads of employees who are now forced to vacate their rented space at 3PM. With the new building, it is their hope that these tales will come to fruition.

Honing in on a bigger picture of social justice, according to Jocelyn Hillman, the chair of the board, the type of education that the students receive creates leaders, changing families for generations.

“It is our core belief that zip code should not determine the prospects of a child,” Jones said.