Proviso East High School Principal Patrick Hardy stands in the school library and computer resource center. (Chronicle Media photo)

When teachers at troubled Proviso East High School near Maywood last year picked a single instructional area around which to build a state-mandated school reinvention plan, they chose Problem Solving — Using critical thinking skills to creatively solve real-world problems where no obvious solution is presented.

The choice is just as applicable to the school itself. Second-year Principal Dr. Patrick Hardy heads a school filled with real-world problems where many obvious solutions have been presented — and failed.

“Overhauling a large public school is not an easy task,” Hardy said. “We had to ask ourselves, is what we’re doing working? And the answer is no.”

Every day, students at Proviso East pass a granite bench that appeared at the school’s entrance last year when Hardy began his career there. In the stone are carved the words, “Failure is not an option.”

Hardy was hired just as the Illinois State Board of Education demanded a three-year “transformation plan” for the “persistently lowest-performing” Illinois schools receiving low-income federal Title I funds. Special state help is available to schools which have “demonstrated a lack of progress” — and Proviso East is one of them.

Test scores have remained stubbornly low with only 4 percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the PARCC exam and only 7 percent of students achieving a 21 score on the ACT indicating they are ready for college, according to the Illinois Report Card.

Hardy has welcomed the challenge.

“I’m concerned about minority students in failing schools; that’s who I am,” he said. Among his degrees are master’s degrees from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Cambridge College in Massachusetts. Harvey worked as a principal leadership coach for the University of Chicago’s Network for College Success.

“Schooling systemically is not meeting the needs of students of color and urban students,” Hardy said. “We have to take the students we receive and do a better job of analyzing and responding to their abilities to stay on track,” he said. “We need systemic change. We owe it to the kids.”

Hardy had a year to come up with a plan. For eight months, the Proviso East team invited in parents and community members and asked for teacher input. The school underwent six internal reviews and also invited in three outside agencies to evaluate programs and systems.

Hardy presented findings to the school board in July.

“This is a school transformation plan. That means, when traveling from point A to point B, we don’t want Point B to look anything like Point A,” he said.

The overarching theme of the plan is a focus on “mastery learning” which lets students advance

A science class meets at Proviso East High School. (Chronicle Media photo

when they truly understand the concepts being taught.

“When we spoke to parents and family members, they told us children should be able to learn at their own pace,” Hardy said.

Salman Khan, founder of no-cost online education resource Khan Academy, likens mastery learning to martial arts training.

“You practice the white belt skills as long as necessary, and when you have mastery, you go on to the next belt,” he said in a TED Talk. “If you got 20 percent wrong on something, that means you just keep working on it and you have agency over your learning.”

With mastery learning, Khan said, any student is capable of learning mathematics, for example, and they aren’t rushed along until they hit a wall and “start to disengage.” Technology has made it easier to “differentiate” instruction with on-demand adaptive computer exercises that provide practice and feedback, Khan said.

At Proviso East,Hardy said the plan calls for splitting the upper grades into four “career academies” starting next year: Engineering and Biomedical Science, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts and Career and Technical. Parents and business stakeholders told the team they wanted students to develop a vision and have more exposure to careers while in high school, he said.

The plan also calls on the school to engage freshmen right away. Team members attended the University of Chicago’s National Freshman’s Success Institute at the Chicago Network for College Success. Among the ideas shared was instilling the concept of “Bs or Better” into students and keeping tabs on attendance,Hardy said.

Although Proviso East has a revered basketball program and a scholarship-generating marching band, there are not enough clubs and student activities, the school’s team was told.

A science class meets at Proviso East High School. (Chronicle Media photo)

“Community members told us they want to see a gym filled with balloons and tables for different clubs and activities on the first week of school, so you cannot walk out without signing up for something,” he said. “We want every freshman, every year connected to the school.” The school will also work on parent involvement, which studies show drives student success.

Teachers and administrators agreed to focus on problem solving as the skill they hoped to instill in students. The strategies they agreed on are teaching “argumentative writing” and focusing on reading comprehension. Teachers will also incorporate strategies such as “students self-reporting grades” — defined as asking a student to predict the mark they will receive on an exam, and then encouraging them to stretch to achieve more.

“Once a student has performed at a level that is beyond their own expectations, he or she gains confidence in his or her learning ability,” wrote John Hattie, whose research has guided Hardy’s team.

The school will also start a “post-secondary success plan” for all students freshman year with career inventories and college and career events that move through the four years of high school.

Proviso East was built in 1910 and has suffered years of neglect and delayed maintenance. The board only recently authorized a bond to be issued to repair a decades-old list of life-safety fixes. Large-scale renovations are on hold until the board can agree on a master-facilities plan: which may mean tearing down part of the school and rebuilding. The school is also built for 5,000 students but only around 1,800 are enrolled.

Meanwhile, Hardy has worked to improve the physical environment of the building by replacing lockers, updating bathrooms, repainting and tuck-pointing the Proviso Field House and making sure floors are clean.

“I can’t control the big picture, but the board has been good to me. Money has been spent to make sure we have the best we can … for today.”

“I don’t have a school that’s out of control,” he said. “We will have a rough day today, but we’ll get through it. I’m honored to come here every day.”

Hardy balks at the idea that the selective Proviso Math and Science Academy is siphoning away his “best students.”

“My best students are the ones who may be struggling at home but are still working hard and showing grit,” he said. “I have the best kids I’m supposed to have. We welcome the PMSA students on my track team, in my band program. Those are my students and I want them to feel welcome when they come home.

“Saying PMSA takes the best students is a way to insult people and divide a community,” he said. “I believe I can get some of them back,” he added.

Hardy said he was “excitedly nervous” about the new plan. Upperclassmen asked why it couldn’t be implemented faster.

“I’ve had frustrated juniors and seniors who want to be part of the new school. But it’s a positive frustration,” he said.

“I know this won’t be easy. It took decades to let this school get to what it is now, and if anyone thinks we can change it over a summer, they are mistaken.”

District 209 Superintendent Dr. Jesse Rodriguez said in an interview that while the achievement levels at Proviso East were “unacceptable,” the school environment had improved under Hardy’s leadership. There was excitement about the changes, he said.

“The first days of this school year have been magical,” he said. “Proviso East is changing in the right direction.”

The biggest challenge, Hardy admitted, would be to keep the plan on track.

“On paper, it’s easy, because it’s all talk,” he said. “Our challenge will be stretching ourselves even when it’s not going well and sticking to the plan when it looks like it’s not working. That’s a hallmark of growth.”

As the message on the granite bench reminds Hardy and his students every day, “Failure is not an option.”

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— Proviso East High School embarks on reinventing plan  —