Roosevelt Middle School returns to its glory days

Scores outstanding gains in academic work and dramatic improvement in student attitudes

Carmen Garcia, principal of Roosevelt Middle School, greets students on the first day of school.

By Sandy Pasqua

When Carmen Garcia became principal at Roosevelt Middle School three years ago, she slid effortlessly into a role launched by her predecessor, Julie Martell, of leading the school into an exciting new direction.
She enthusiastically agreed to guide the school into the International Baccalaureate educational program, a challenging role at a school that had been beset with academic and behavioral problems for many years.
Now Roosevelt, three years after being accepted into the IB program, received its first major evaluation. In November a visiting team recognized the positive changes at the school and “provided a road map to strengthen the program,” Garcia said, although the final report will not be completed for several months.
“This is the oldest middle school in the San Diego district,” said Garcia, “and we wanted to return it to its glory days.” The past three years have seen outstanding gains in academic performance and a dramatic improvement in student attitudes.
International Baccalaureate is a worldwide organization that, according to its mission statement, “aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, IB has developed programs to educate students in primary, intermediate and high schools that “encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”
When Roosevelt began adhering to the IB philosophy, the entire school had to be restructured, said Garcia, adopting the IB language and developing studies in IB-prescribed areas. That meant taking regular required courses and “IBifying” them, she said. In addition to required core subjects, students have classes in art, a second language, music and technology.
Roosevelt students wear uniform clothing of black or khaki pants, with a choice of plaid skirts for girls, and shirts and sweaters in white, burgundy, gray or black.
Since Garcia joined the school staff, referral rates for misbehavior have been reduced 70 percent with almost zero expulsions. In addition, she has eliminated a formerly needed suspension room on campus.
“When I started, Roosevelt was tied with one other school for the highest expulsion rate,” said Garcia, who came to the San Diego district from Long Beach as an assistant to the superintendent.
As discipline problems have decreased at Roosevelt, academic scores have increased. The school’s API, or Academic Performance Index, a measure of students meeting required scores, has risen 87 points of the past three years. Edging closer to the goal of 800, the scores rose 31 points the first year, 33 the second year and 23 last year to 726.
An after-school program, which Garcia calls “the best,” offers free participation in many sports and clubs, including garden and guitar, ceramics and a girls-only project at the San Diego Zoo provided by a Wells Fargo grant.
“Of course homework comes first,” said Garcia, so the first after-school hour is devoted to Homework Club. Almost half of the student body is voluntarily involved in some after-school activity.
Roosevelt is not the first North Park school to have the IB distinction. San Diego High School has followed that path for many years. And currently, three of North Park’s elementary schools — Birney, McKinley and Jefferson — have applied to become IB schools. All three had initial visitations in November, and will hear within several weeks if they are accepted, which appears likely.
McKinley Principal Julie Ashton-Gray said teachers at all three of the elementary schools and their principals, including Amanda Hammond-Williams at Birney and Francisco Morga at Jefferson, have been trained in IB methods and are preparing appropriate curricula. The visiting committees spent two days on each elementary campus, she said, interviewing parents, students, teachers and support staff, as well as school board members and district administrators.