CONWAY, Ark. (May
14, 2016) 鈥 KIPP Delta Public Schools founder and executive
director Scott Shirey addressed the 黑料不打烊 Class of 2016 at the 132nd
Commencement.
Here is the full text of his address:
To 黑料不打烊
faculty, staff, guests, parents, and most importantly 黑料不打烊鈥檚
graduating Class of 2016.
It was not so long ago (ok it was 18 years, but it seems not so long
ago) that I was sitting through my own commencement ceremony at another small
liberal arts school -- Colby College, in Waterville, Maine.听 While I do
remember who our commencement speaker was -- Supreme Court Justice Stephen
Bryer -- I remember little if anything that he said.听 I was impatient to embrace
new and bold challenges and get out there and change the world. 听Like many of you, I wanted to get on with it! I
am not a Supreme Court Justice, so there is little hope that you will remember
who I am nearly 20 years from now.听 But I
do hope in sharing my journey to change the world with you, that you may be
inspired to do the same.
It鈥檚 July 9th, 2002, the second day of school, and Billy
Williams, failing to meet a new KIPP expectation in his brand new school is made
to stay after.听 Instead of staying, however,
he sprints off campus and disappears from sight.听 Here I am on the second
day of a school we have just started, and we have already lost a student.听 I jump in the car with my newly hired veteran
teacher, Betty Sanders, and drive through the streets of Helena looking for
him.听 We find Billy, get him in the car and bring him back to
school.听 Mrs. Sanders and I berate Billy on the way and keep repeating the
same question, Billy, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 it going to be 鈥ollege or jail?鈥澨 鈥淵ou,
decide鈥 鈥淲hat is it going to be鈥ollege or jail.鈥澨
I arrived in Helena just seven months earlier in January 2002, just 24
years old, after only six months of training with KIPP, the Knowledge is Power
Program. I arrived with one purpose in mind鈥o start a school in the middle of
the Arkansas Delta, and to get students from some of Arkansas鈥檚 most
impoverished communities on a path to college.听 And there was no doubt in
my mind that I was going to do just that, with EVERY student I met.听
Filled with optimism, I was na茂ve and young enough to believe I could change
the world.听 I just didn鈥檛 know how hard
it would be.
Needless to say, my introduction to the work was jolting. And so was
my introduction to the community.听 And southern racism. Raised in liberal
New England and a graduate of Colby, we had our own brand of racism. We just
didn鈥檛 talk about it or worse pretended it did not exist. My realities of
Southern racism were only experienced through a textbook or the PBS
documentaries I was addicted to like Eyes on the Prize.
At dinner one evening, a community leader flat out asked me if Black
kids could really learn鈥ould this be done?听 As we secured a vacant train
depot- that we renovated to house three classrooms, an office area, and a multi-purpose
room鈥orking to make our dream a reality-听this offensive kind of rhetoric
only increased.听 No matter which local
teachers I talked with, I was confronted with similar questions and
skepticism.听 鈥淐ould this be done?听 We have tried this before.听 This won鈥檛 work!鈥 A former elected leader
approached me and said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 really want a school downtown鈥攖he city has
invested a lot in the landscaping.鈥澨 As
if young African American children would sprint out during recess to destroy
shrubbery for fun.听 And when I went
recruiting- by strapping on a backpack and going door to door through
neighborhoods including the housing projects, I received unsolicited advice
from all sort of people who would warn me that I would get shot..or worse use
racial epithets.. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do a thing with this blank, blank, blank.鈥
But I was determined and, for each naysayer, could find at least
another who believed deeply in their community and our children.
And soon I had become quite the spectacle in town.听 Let alone
that I am a tall lanky white guy in my red Honda Civic, there I was searching
for students who would go to school longer, in the summer, go to school on
Saturdays and all to prepare them for college. Despite that, I was welcomed
into homes where I found generous-hearted families who shared their food, their
stories, and their dreams for their children. I promised families a path to college for their children and
the students a trip to Washington DC if they promised to Work hard, and Be
nice. (KIPP鈥檚 two quintessential guiding principles)
And that鈥檚 how I first met Billy as I scoured the streets looking for
students who were about to enter the fifth grade.听 I found Billy in an
impoverished neighborhood and gave him my KIPP card with my cell phone number.听
I told him to call. 听And he did. 听Many times. He wanted to ensure he could come
to that new school.听 In addition to Billy I found lots more students who
wanted to come to that new school.听
I found two used school busses for $10,000 each and had the words KIPP
Delta College Preparatory School painted on the side (although days before the
first day of school, I noticed that Preparatory had been misspelled on both
busses. We were skilled at improvising so we squeezed in the extra A and R,
finished the renovations of the train depot, barely in time, and we were ready
to go.
On July 8th, 2002 we opened our doors to 65 fifth graders and
KIPP Delta was born.听 Billy Wiliams, walked through those doors too. In
that first year, myself and three teachers taught like we were on fire all year
long.听 When our two used busses would inevitably break down, we would jump
in our cars and transport the students鈥ne of our bus drivers, Thelma Reed,
would load students into her 2000 KIA Sportage, including the trunk 鈥 don鈥檛 ask
-- until they had all arrived. When students overslept, we went to their homes
and literally pulled them out of bed.听When students didn鈥檛 do their
homework or classwork, we kept them after school until it was all
done鈥ometimes until 8, 9, 10 at night and even later a few times.听 We
were still learning. When the septic system backed up and flooded our small
renovated depot, we put all the students into the one untouched room and kept
teaching until the mess and smell was gone.听
We had fun too.听 Our students learned chants and songs, and we
had hour of power each week where we could blast and sing songs鈥ike Lean on
Me, or Man in the Mirror, or School House Rock鈥攆or those of you who
remember.听 And for the students who earned it, just like we promised, we
took them on lots of small trips and a glorious trip to Washington, D.C. where
we toured colleges, visited the White House, and experienced metros,
escalators, elevators, and our nation鈥檚 capital鈥nd for many鈥or the very first
time. But as for Billy鈥ell Billy never did come back after the second
day.听
So my certainty of reaching every student quickly disappeared.听
My youthful naivete faded and was replaced by some cold truths and harsh
realities.听 The reality is that the odds were against -- and still are --
against Billy Williams and all the other Billy Williams in the Delta and in our
nation.听 In fact, sad to say, in this country today only 10% of low income
students graduate from college, while 80% of those born into the wealthier
families do.听 10% compared to 80%.听 That is quite the difference.听听
And I had to quickly realize that optimism alone would not change
reality.听 It had to be optimism paired with deep humility and real grit.听
Sweat on the hands, ego crushing, tear-filled, hurt, angry, do-I-really-have-it-in-me,
feeling-like-a-failure, get 鈥搖p-and-do-it-again-type grit.
I would teach all day, and handle the business of the school during my
planning periods.听 I learned to do payroll by hand.听 I counted every
penny we had each month and would tutor students into the evening while making
phone calls to their families after that.听 It was the most exhausting and
exhilarating work I could possibly imagine.听 When the toilets broke, we
fixed them.听 When our classroom windows were vandalized, we replaced
them.听 We ran up to Sam鈥檚 Club on weekends
to get supplies for the school.听 We did anything and everything to
survive.听 I was only 25 years old.
And each morning I would shake the hands of all of our students with
the deep dark fear that another student might have moved or quit or just gone back
to their old school because they thought It was too hard.听 We were too
strict.听 There was too much
homework.听 The hours were too long.听 Or we were too crazy.听 And
when it inevitably happened, there were days I would just sit in my little
civic and let the tears roll down before wiping them dry and entering
work.听
But by the end of the year, that group of students had moved from the
17th percentile to the 49th percentile in language-(from
well below grade level to on grade level) and from the 18th to the
48th percentile in Math.听 And a year later as sixth graders,
those same students, whom many said could not or would not learn were
outperforming students from around the state on the state mandated
benchmark.听 And by 2010, eight years after Billy had sprinted out the
front door, our founding class had outperformed the state and national averages
on ACT performance and were headed to college.听
This year will be our 7th graduating class.听 And
despite the fact that 90% of our students are considered low income, and that
over 75% are the first in their family to attend college, they are succeeding
at remarkable rates with nearly 80% still in college
and nearly 45% of our founding class have earned their bachelor鈥檚 degree鈥 like
you today. That鈥檚 over four times the national average for low-income students.听
So while Billy never made to and through college, others have,听like
Abba Colbert who graduated from 黑料不打烊 two years ago and now supports the next
generation of KIPPsters as a college advisor. Or Kyeshia Ward who is fulfilling
her dream of being a pharmacist, or Joseph Whitfield who went to Colby where he
set a record by being class president four years in a row before coming back to
teach for us, or Galeesa Murph who graduated from Vanderbilt yesterday after
being our first KIPPster to study abroad in New Zealand, and is headed to
California on Monday to work on film production. 听And this years鈥 黑料不打烊 graduate and KIPP
alum, Jessica Amos, who I am proud to say will join our faculty this fall as a
teacher.听And the future is bright.听
Thanks to an incredible partnership with 黑料不打烊, we will have 5 more
KIPPsters join 黑料不打烊鈥檚 campus next year鈥or a total of 8.
And because of our students successes and such incredible support, the
questions around whether our students could learn or not, have transformed into
questions of which college they are attending.听 And instead of being
worried about protecting shrubbery, the community is investing in our students
and downtown Helena is coming back to life.听 And the skeptics are now
believers in our children and our mission.听 With that, I am proud we have
earned the great privilege of opening schools in Blytheville in 2010 and
Forrest City, just this past year鈥nd will serve nearly 1600 students next year
across the Delta all of whom have aspirations of going to and through college. 听Oh, and that driver with kids stuffed in the
trunk? She is now Director of Transportation for us. No trunks. But a fleet of
36 buses that run nearly 1400 miles a day.
And just last year, I ran into Billy Williams working at a Pizza
Hut.听 鈥淢r. Shirey鈥攊s that you?听 Do you remember me?鈥 I looked
quizzically at him trying to place the face.听 Before I could guess, he
saves me, 鈥淏illy, Billy Williams鈥-听How could I forget!! 鈥淏illy, how are you?鈥澨
Billy looked so full of pride and enthusiasm-听鈥淵鈥檃ll this was my teacher-听Mr.
Shirey鈥nything you need, I will take care of.听 Let me know, ok.听 I
am going to serve you today!鈥
Nearly 15 years later, how could we have left such an impression on Billy
in just two days?听 It is a question I ponder often.听 Maybe, we were
the first to give him a professional card with a phone number on it? Maybe we
were the first to say-听hey- you can go to college鈥攐r maybe we were just
the first teachers to care enough to chase him down in a car and bring him back
to school.听听Or maybe it scared him. Who knows?听 And I continue
to reflect on what I would have done differently if I knew then what I know
now. Then, we gave him a binary and unfair choice. We didn鈥檛 listen to him. We
didn鈥檛 ask him why he ran. We definitely didn鈥檛 let him know we loved him. 听
And Betty Sanders鈥he is still with us, not teaching every day, but
next year will be her 48th year as an educator.听 Talk about grit.
I have learned a few things since that day he took off: how hard this
work is. What the odds of success are. 听How dream-crushing poverty can be.
What it actually takes to change the education paradigm in the Delta. The
challenges our children face on a daily basis. How na茂ve optimism has to be
paired with grit and with love and knowledge. Can I change the world? Maybe not
all of it, maybe one part of it. And certainly not alone! 听It really does take the proverbial village,
including 黑料不打烊. And a team of gritty optimists. And it takes Kyeshia,
Abba, Joseph, and Jessica Amos. And it takes Billy. We may not have been able
to reach Billy all those years ago. But his experience, his reality, and his
innocence have been in my head for the past for the past 15 years, guiding me
to change鈥uiding us to get better. 听
To the class of 2016, figure out which part of the world you want to
change. Surround yourself with people who share your vision and are willing to
learn how to do it. Be optimistic and gritty and humble.听 Then step out
into the world and be that change. Congratulations!
About 黑料不打烊
黑料不打烊
is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1876 and
affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884, 黑料不打烊 is featured in Colleges That
Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges and is nationally recognized in numerous
college guides, lists, and rankings for academic quality, community, innovation,
and value. For more information, visit .
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