“We’re going to college!” they invariably answer.
And that’s exactly what DECA students — most of them from poor backgrounds — do. Since the first graduating class in 2007, 100 percent of DECA graduates have gone on to college. Nearly a third of them have gone to the University of Dayton, the charter school’s partner.
The future of the state’s early college academies — including DECA — is in jeopardy because of state budget cuts. Some may be forced to close.
DECA officials have vowed not to let that happen to them, though the school lost about $700,000 in state funding this fiscal year and is slated to lose another $700,000 next year — nearly 25 percent of its annual $3 million budget.
“This school has phenomenal community support,” said Hennessey, who took a 50 percent pay cut to become DECA’s principal. “We are absolutely determined not to let this school close.”
Time to do something different
Hennessey had been superintendent of Oakwood schools for seven years when she got a call from Tom Lasley, a former colleague who’s now dean of the College of Education for the University of Dayton.
“It’s time for you to do something different,” Lasley said.
He wanted her to become principal of an innovative new charter school, sponsored by Dayton Public Schools yet operated on the UD campus.
The catch was the pay cut. Hennessey jumped at it. She was moved by Lasley’s argument that “this is one time in your career when you get to do something entrepreneurial.”
As an educator her heart always had been with urban students from poor families. DECA, funded in part with seed money from the Bill Gates Foundation, proved irresistible with its concept of giving students an early taste of college. It was one of the first of its kind in the country, and it remains the nation’s only charter school operated by a Catholic university.
“It’s a personalized approach to high school,” Hennessey said. “We know the kids and their families and we support them academically. Most of them are the first college students in their families. They may be the only ones on their street or their neighborhood.”
All of DECA’s graduates to date have started college. Better yet, 84 percent have stayed there.
"Our goal is to make them not just college eligible but college ready," Hennessey said. "If you can't write a cogent paper and you don't have math skills and you don't have the tenacity and the ability to manage time, it doesn't help you much if you get into college."
Mary Jo Scalzo, who succeeded Hennessey as Oakwood’s superintendent, was startled at first by her predecessor’s decision to take a lower-paying job in an underachieving school district. “I was surprised, like everyone else, but when I thought about it I wasn’t,” she said. “Ever since I’ve known her, Judy was absolutely committed to her work with students from urban areas.
“She truly cares and she conveys that. In Oakwood, too, she knew the students, and they loved her.”
When kids step off the elevator at DECA, they learn Hennessey’s mantra: “Everyone is an equal” — set apart not by economic or social status but by determination and hard work.
Dayton Superintendent Kurt Stanic said Hennessey’s leadership is a huge factor in DECA’s success: “DECA not only gets the students to college, but also prepares them to succeed. I’d like every school to be like that.”
Uncertain future
Despite its success, DECA’s future is not assured. Lasley remains optimistic, despite the loss over two years of more than $1 million in state funding.
It helps that the school pays only modest fees — primarily heat and electricity — for the use of space on the third floor of UD’s College Park Center.
In addition, Hennessey said, the school was sustained this year by carryover funds from the charter startup money.
Lasley hopes the early college academies can weather the storm.
“In the long term, we’re hoping the state’s school funding panel will provide for a permanent subsidy for these schools.” But if that doesn’t happen and DECA had to close, he said, “we would lose one of the only educational equity programs in the state.”
That won’t happen if Judy Hennessey has anything to say about it.
She’ll continue collaring the community, recruiting an army of volunteers, soliciting grant money, scoring corporate donations.
And inspiring her students.
Senior Te-Jal Cartwright, 18, said, “I’ve grown so much as a person, and I’ve learned so much about time management and being responsible. I understand what I need to get things done.”
Added sophomore Marva Berri: At DECA, “it’s nearly impossible to fall through the cracks.”
That’s clearly where Jordan Davis could have ended up. Mocked as a geek in his Dayton grade school, the 17-year-old senior celebrates his inner geek at DECA’s popular monthly “Nerd Night.” He has racked up an entire year of college credit in classes such as physics and calculus.
“I’m more at home here,” he said of the school on UD’s campus.
Davis hopes to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., if he get enough financial aid. He got his acceptance letter last week to Cornell, the same week he left for St. Louis where the DECA robot team were named the top rookie team in the regional robotics competition.
For months the team’s 15 members have stayed after school to design, build and test their own robot. “The robot is a side note to what’s really happening,” noted teacher Tracy Martz, who accompanied the team to St. Louis. “They’re being exposed to stimulating careers and learning practical applications for math and science.”
They and the other students at DECA learn something else.
They’re going to college.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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