I had visited Jack Jouett Middle School during my days as Program Director at C4K, so I didn’t tour the school building itself. During this visit I focused on talking with Principal Kathryn Baylor about needs and challenges particular to Jouett.
A major change in our community in the past decade or so began when the International Rescue Committee chose Charlottesville as a relocation site. The IRC relocates refugee families from places of conflict. It would be misleading to say that the IRC relocates families from their home countries– many families have already been forced to flee their home regions and have been living in refugees camps in a foreign-to-them country. The IRC brings these traumatized families to the Charlottesville area, sets them up with housing and jobs, and enrolls the children in grade school.
The majority of IRC families currently live in two middle school districts: Buford, in the city, and Jouett, in the county. Overcrowding at one of Jouett’s feeder elementary schools, Greer, is requiring redistricting, which means that the redistricted ESL students would attend another county middle school, likely Burley. Principal Baylor pointed out particular challenges with moving this population, that, like so many problems that schools face, have little to do with what happens in the classroom, but with the peripheral logistics. Imagine that you have to navigate the Charlottesville area without a car, without speaking English. Imagine that you’ve figured out how to navigate the 2-3 Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) buses that you need to get to visit your child’s school. Imagine now that the new school is in a completely different direction.
Principal Baylor described some of the many small details that you have to know to effectively serve this population– who else lives in the neighborhood who speaks that language? What is the service that you call to get a translator? She allowed that another school could pick up this knowledge, but that the time spent learning these critical details would be disruptive to these children’s educational experiences.
ESL students are not the only at risk demographic that Jouett serves. As the Charlottesville area grows, and downtown locations become more desirable and expensive, families eligible for free or reduced lunch have been pushed to the outer urban ring, and have been enrolled in county schools. Low income families are disproportionately less likely to have a family member who has completed college. The support and knowledge that a family member can bring to the college journey is immeasurable. Access to education, particularly college, is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty.
To help high achieving, first generation college students, Jouett implements the college preparatory program AVID, as do many of the county schools. The first cohort of Jouett students to go through 6 years of AVID through middle and high school just graduated from Albemarle. As a national demonstration school, Jouett is a leader in implementing the AVID program. In addition to offering interventions for underserved populations during the school day, Jouett partners with the Boys and Girls Club to host an after school program. Jouett benefits from being adjacent to Albemarle High School, so is able to offer an after school activity bus. In addition, Jouett’s location on the urban ring means that it is able to host many UVA student volunteers.
I’ve visited 3 of the 5 county middle schools now, and the differences between them reflect how diverse Albemarle County is. Sutherland reflects the mostly suburban nature of the 29 North corridor, Walton is predominantly rural, and Jouett sits at the outskirts of the urban ring. While the students’ experiences are diverse, their needs remain the same, and the challenge becomes how to address those needs, even given instances beyond the school’s control.