Booker High Makes Historic Jump From 'D' to 'A'

As Booker High School principal Constance White-Davis sat down at her kitchen table Tuesday night, her home telephone rang. She does not remember what she was doing at the table, but noticed the number was a 927-9000 number, which is the school district's main number.

Thinking it was nothing more then an automated message, White-Davis took her time to get to the phone. It cut off before she could answer.

Within seconds White-Davis' cell phone was buzzing. She immediately became worried that something was wrong.

"By that time I'm thinking maybe something is going on at school," White-Davis said. "There's a lot going on, we got basketball, the play, so maybe they are calling to say something has happened at school."

When she answers the phone, the executive director of Sarasota County's High Schools, Steve Cantees, said, "Constance, I'm calling about the school grades."

"What about the school grades," she said.

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On Tuesday morning White-Davis was in her normal groove, walking the halls of Booker High trying to motivate her students, employees and her school.

"I believe in creating a school environment that is conducive to learning," White-Davis said. "It's easy to say expectation, but you have to put some teeth in it. You give that support and encouragement. What I found is that a lot of our kids need to be motivated."

White-Davis walks through doors of the administration office, takes a left and heads into her office. She sits down on the computer and after a few minutes a tone sounds on her computer to notify of a new email.

Clicking the mouse, she opens an email from Cantees. It is about the school grades.

He sent a message to all high school principals telling them state grades would be in that night. The grades would be in around 8pm and Cantees asked the principals if they would like to receive a call from him when the grades come in.

Without much hesitation, White-Davis replies.

"No, I will find out soon enough, thank you."

-       CWD

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"Constance, you're not going to believe this," Cantees said over the phone.

Sitting in her kitchen White-Davis said she wasn't nervous or excited.

"You are an 'A' school," Cantees said.

She asked if he was sure.

"Yes, Constance. I'm looking at the scores," he said

By that time Superintendent of Sarasota County Schools Lori White comes on line congratulating her.  Someone else joins the line and tells her to wear something pretty to school the next day.

After White-Davis hung up the phone, she paced the room for a few minutes and dialed Cantees back.

"I knew you were going to call back … yes, I said you are an 'A' school."

"Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. We are an 'A' school," White-Davis said.

Franticly pacing the room after her conversation with Cantees, White-Davis went into her bathroom and pulled a note off the bathroom mirror she had stuck there last April.

It read 'FCAT', 'Senate 1908' and 'A' 2010.

"I went into my bathroom took it down and said to myself 'this was the expectation. I never doubted,'" White-Davis said.

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At this time last year, White-Davis was learning that Booker High was a 'D' school. It bothered her.

"I'm a spoiled principal," she said. "I came from an 'A' school and I  am used to an 'A'."

White-Davis had already turned a school around. Before coming to Booker High, White-Davis was the principal of Alta Vista Elementary School. There, after six years, Alta Vista had moved from a 'D' to an 'A'.

She turned Booker around in three.

No Booker school in Sarasota (Elementary, Middle and High School) has ever received an 'A' from the state.

Booker High had never even received a 'B'.

This year, White-Davis said, most people expected and predicted Booker High to improve to a 'C'.

"I knew we were going to move from a D," she said. "I thought, perhaps, we would move to a 'B'."

White-Davis, who is retiring at the end of the year  and after 45 years of educating, said she expected this year's scores to propel the school to an 'A' when the scores were released in 2011.

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As excited as White-Davis was, she was just as excited to tell her students, her staff and her school the next day.

She called all of her assistant principals into her office, had them take a seat and shut the door. She walked behind two of them, put her arms over their shoulders and said Booker was an 'A' school.

They jumped out their seats in a mixture of emotions.

"We were screaming and hollering until the secretary called in and asked if something is wrong," White-Davis said.

"We are very proud of Booker High School," White said. "I can tell you there were a lot of cheers of gladness and happiness and tears. The students, staff worked so hard for several years. In all aspects, they have made a tremendous gain.

"This is the second school [White-Davis] has moved from a 'D' grade to an 'A'," White said. "I'm willing to bet not another administrator in the state of Florida that has that on her resume."

White-Davis could not wait to tell her students, who she said worked so hard to get to this point.

She began her announcement to the students by thanking them for their hard work and that she had something to say about the school grades.

"I kept dragging it on and the students told me 'is she taking that long to tell us we are a 'C' school'? As I kept going they said 'oh maybe we are a B' school,'" White-Davis said.

 When she told them Booker was an "A" school?

"Oh my gosh," she said. "Everybody came running and crying. Kids were hollering and screaming. It's still going on."

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In a part of town where it only makes the local news when there is a shooting or when the local Winn-Dixie is closing, Newtown and North Sarasota, White-Davis said, has something to brag about to the entire community.

"This image out there, when you hear kids saying well we can look at Pineview, they are an 'A' and we are 'A'," White-Davis said. "Kids saying we are going to work even harder now. Kids can now put on their resume they graduated from an 'A' school. They get it.

"It has brought so much pride to the community. We now have an 'A' school in our community," she said. "Jubilation is the right word. Just so excited. We knew our kids could do it. We know our kids are smart. It was just a matter of time."

For all the times Booker's community was a statistic, a negative one, this time a statistic was something to be proud of.

Five of the eight high schools in the Sarasota County School District improved their grades compared to last year. All eight high schools received 'A' or 'B' grades.

The gains the school made bring a smile to White-Davis' face.  The 'A' is something to remember. It was about changing cultures, holding people accountable and telling the students you can do it. It was about student achievement.

"For the students, it's about being visible," White-Davis said. "And for someone to say you're smart, you're brilliant, I believe in you, you can do this and I'm here to help you, it means something … I do a lot of that."

The new high school grading system incorporates additional criteria into the evaluation of school performance. Fifty percent of the school grade is based on scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). The other 50 percent is based on the school's graduation rate; the number of students taking advanced courses and indicators of student readiness for college.