REMAKING WOODLAWN MIDDLE

Last year, Brittany Gainey brought more than books and homework to Woodlawn Middle School. She brought fear.

This year, the 11-year-old doesn't worry about her safety anymore. She doesn't keep watch for food hurled across the cafeteria. She's no longer afraid of fights in the hallway, or outside the building. In class, she's learning again.

"Not as much bad stuff is happening," the seventh-grader said. "This year, I feel much safer."

Woodlawn Middle desperately needs such improvement. In February last year, it became the first school in Baltimore County - one of 107 in Maryland - warned of a state takeover if students' test scores and attendance rates didn't rise.

But administrators in the red-brick schoolhouse, a place where pupils hit teachers and shunned academics, may finally be turning things around.

Like troubled schools from Chicago's South Side to the Bronx, N.Y., Woodlawn Middle has become a MASH unit of emergency remedies for lifting student achievement: It is working to interest pupils in rigorous class work, to enlist parents in their children's schooling and to provide support for young, inexperienced teachers who are still learning to manage a classroom.

But first, a climate where all of these initiatives could take place had to be created. Discipline had to be restored. Pupils had to learn that hitting a teacher, which several pupils and teachers said was common, is unacceptable behavior.

That lesson was so important that pupils spent the first week of classes this year learning how to behave and, for the first time, what uniform they were to wear in school.

Experts who study successful school reform said Woodlawn Middle, where parents once picketed to demand improvements, is following the right course of treatment.

"Without some sort of foundation in discipline, there's chaos, and you can't even get kids to pick up a book," said Megan M. Farnsworth, an education fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

School Superintendent Joe A. Hairston, who toured Woodlawn Middle recently, said he sees substantial progress. "It's completely different, a turnaround," he said. "I'm proud."

The initiatives came not a minute too soon.

According to the most recent statistics, only 15 percent of Woodlawn Middle's eighth-graders had satisfactory or excellent scores on Maryland's reading test last year, and only 7 percent in math. Daily attendance was well below average.

One last chance

This summer, under a new federal law, parents could have decided to send their children to better-performing schools in the county.

Only 42 parents took advantage of the transfer option. But that didn't mean the parents of children who stayed were satisfied. Rather, those parents said, they were giving the school one last chance.

Pleased with progress

"I'm happy with where we're going," Francine P. Churchill, president of the school's PTA, said last week.

But experts said the path has many pitfalls. There are several steps in turning around a school, and taking them isn't as easy as putting right foot before left.

"Even if you improve the safety and the order, and start to introduce a clear focus on academics and emphasize achievement, that isn't enough," said Penny Bender Sebring, who studies school reform at the University of Chicago.

"Kids have to be engaged with the material, doing their homework, and they have to be in a curriculum where new material is introduced every year," Sebring said.

The marshal of Woodlawn Middle's last-ditch battle for improvement is Principal Jerilyn C. Roberts, a veteran educator whose conversation reflects both a principal's sternness and the sensitivity of a guidance counselor, which she was for 24 years.

Principal's plan

Roberts wasn't the first choice to run the school of 1,000 students, many of whom are from low-income families.

After the principal plucked from the school system's central administration fell ill last year, Roberts took over. But by then, there was no time to make changes. So she watched and waited to put in place a plan this fall.

Roberts stressed that teamwork among parents, faculty and staff has made the school's promising stand against poor performance possible.

That is evident in the introduction of what Roberts calls the "Positive Behavior Intervention Support System," the code of conduct, the school's uniform policy and reorganization of classrooms to give young teen-agers and pre-teens structure, order and discipline.

Learning the limits

"It's just like parents," Roberts said. "The most successful parents have clearly defined expectations for their children. They've told them what the limits are, and they've told them what the consequences will be if they don't perform within those limits."

During the first week of school, pupils were taught the code of conduct's insistence on respect, responsibility and safety. They reviewed the punishment they would face for breaking the rules and the prizes they could receive for honoring them.

All pupils learned they were to wear khaki pants or skirts and tops whose color varies by grade - red for eighth-graders, white for seventh-graders and black for sixth-graders. They learned that each grade would take classes in its own wing, so they wouldn't have to crisscross the school.

Now students know what to expect in every class: First, a drill to reinforce the previous day's instruction, then writing down of the night's homework assignment and finally the daily lesson.

Climate of learning

"The atmosphere is a lot more positive, the children are a lot more focused, the administration is a lot more supportive, the staff is a lot more cohesive," said Mildred Longstreet, who is in her eighth year of teaching at the school.

"It did not used to be that way. The children used to be a lot more confrontational. They thought they ran the school before this year. They really didn't care about anything. Now I think they're feeling a little more proud about school and a little more concerned about learning," the sixth-grade social studies teacher said.

According to experts, Woodlawn Middle's effort represents a textbook start to bettering a school: the creation of a climate where learning can take place.

"It's not going to help learning by itself," said Robert E. Slavin, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University who studies school reform. "But if you can create an environment to provide quality content and better lessons, that will affect learning."

Student's perspective

Brittany Gainey, who feared for her safety going to Woodlawn Middle last year, said she has noticed the difference.

"Last year, I didn't really learn anything," the seventh-grader said, "because the students were, like, very bad. Every couple of minutes the teachers were telling students to stop doing this, stop doing that."

Brittany said she hated the fighting and the disrespect for teachers.

"Sometimes I think this school is a little obsessed with the rules," she said. But, "Overall, I think it's helpful because students are learning they can't always have their way."