1. By Christopher
Placek
cplacek@dailyherald.com
The Des Plaines Police
Department and Pace sub-
urban bus system have been
eyeing a 17-acre property on
the city’s west side as a way to
address their needs for more
space, officials said this week.
The land and three office
buildingsatthenorthwestcor-
ner of Algonquin and Mount
Prospect roads will become
available this fall when the
Salvation Army moves its cen-
tral territory administration
headquarters to a business
park on Prairie Stone Parkway
in Hoffman Estates.
The Des Plaines property,
where the Salvation Army has
been since the early 1980s, has
been on the real estate market
for about a year.
Des Plaines officials, includ-
ing Police Chief Bill Kush-
ner and City Manager Mike
New police HQ
or bus garage?
Two possibilities for Salvation Army site
C
Wednesday, June 24, 2015 Big Picture • Local Focus $1.00
Paddock Publications • 143rd Year • no. 253
Northwest Suburbs
dailyherald.com
OAKTON ST.
ELMHURSTRD.
ALGONQUIN RD.
MT.PROSPECTRD.
Des Plaines
83
90
Salvation
Army land
See Site on Page 8
Look at the Cubs
they’re
getting national
attention,
Bruce Miles says
— Sports—
Potato salad time
What you
can do
with it
— Food
MORe ONLiNe
Follow the series at
www.dailyherald.
com/topics/
Generations-at-risk
Find your schools:
see how your
schools measure up
on our interactive
database, report-
cards.dailyherald.
com/lowincome/.
OUR VieW
sunny Hill’s
community school
concept is one
worth emulating.
Page 14.
Meeting the challenge
tODaY: chaos to success aLSO iN tHe SeRieS
WatCH ViDeOS ONLiNe
How Tefft Middle School
transformed itself from a school
in chaos to one children call
“life-changing.”
• Before lunch, left, quiet time is
required so students focus more
on studying or reading.
• Students track their own prog-
ress in a journal.
• If homework isn’t done, students
stay after school, and they like it.
• Follow series at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Generations-At-Risk #GenerationsAtRisk
By Melissa Silverberg
msilverberg@dailyherald.com
When Principal Lavonne Smiley came to Tefft
Middle School 15 years ago the Streamwood
school was in chaos.
Gangs gathered on opposite sides of the gym-
nasium during dances. Teachers would jump
in to break up fights. Students were caught with
brass knuckles and knives.
One fall morning during her first year, Smiley
came in to find the window out-
side her office tagged with graf-
fiti. She had tried to crack down
on students making threats and
wearing gang colors at school.
“They were sending me a
strong message that this was
not my school,” she said. “It was
stunning.”
Each year about 100 students
would fail, which some teachers regarded as
proof they were doing their jobs. There were so
many students packed into the in-school sus-
pension room that they spilled out into the hall-
ways. Teachers were grading papers scrawled
with gang symbols instead of answers.
One student saw a newspaper article that
referred to Tefft as a failing school. He asked
Smiley if it was true.
“I had to tell him yes,” she said.
Today,Tefft—whichis75percentlow-income
— has not only turned around its image and test
scores,butitstandsoutasahighachieveramong
schools in the same income level. As measured
by the Daily Herald/WBEZ Pov-
erty-Achievement Index, which
analyzes school performance
through the lens of income, it
has been steadily outperforming
other schools with the same level
of poverty for several years.
According to the 2014 state
report cards, 60 percent of Tefft
students met or exceeded the
expectations on state standardized tests. The
average meets/exceeds performance by schools
with 70-80 percent low income was 47.2 percent,
on average.
The difference, Smiley and her teachers say,
tefft Middle school in streamwood was once gang-riddled and chaotic, and
parents would rather move than send their kids there. How did it turn around?
p H o t o s b y b o b C H w e d y k / bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
Principal Lavonne Smiley with student Jada Carter at Tefft Middle School in Streamwood, another success story involving a
school with a high percentage of low-income students.
KEY TO SUCCESS:
NO EXCUSESOur PrOmise TO Our Kids
Generations at Risk
MONDaY: The strong tie
between poverty and
academics in a state where
more than 50% of students
are considered low-income.
tUeSDaY: How one Carpen-
tersville school with 94%
low-income students is
making the grade.
COMiNg tHURSDaY: Can
the low-income school
success stories be replicated?
“No one slips through
the cracks. It just
doesn’t happen here.”
Principal Lavonne Smiley
See SUCCeSS on Page 4
By Bill Barrow
Associated Press
ATLANTA — Calls to
remove Confederate imag-
ery from public places multi-
plied rapidly across the South
and beyond Tuesday, with
opponents eyeing state flags,
license plates and statues
of Civil War politicians and
generals.
The startling movement,
driven by the killing of nine
black churchgoers in an
apparent racist attack in
Charleston, South Carolina,
has made converts of poli-
ticians who have long sup-
ported or stood silent on such
symbols. Many of the efforts
appear to have the muscle to
succeed.
Statehouse displays such as
the Confederate battle flag fly-
ing in South Carolina are com-
ing under the heaviest fire. But
the familiar banner, with its
star-studded blue “X” over-
laying a field of red, is just one
of scores, if not hundreds, of
state-sanctioned displays that
honor the vanquished Con-
federacy and the era of Jim
Crow segregation that lasted
for more than a century after
the end of the Civil War.
The homages — from vet-
erans’ memorials and stat-
ues of politicians to counties,
streets, government buildings
and public schools named for
Confederate figures and sub-
sequent white supremacists
— haven’t always generated
the same political and social
tensions as the battle flag, and
Confederate heritage groups
say the outcry is misplaced,
despite widely seen images of
what appears to be the church
shooting suspect, 21-year-
old Dylann Roof, holding the
rebel flag.
At the least, however, the
flag and other tributes remain
a constant reminder of the
nation’s perpetual struggle
icons of
the South
falling
Church shooting spurs calls
to remove Civil war remnants
Let flag disappear
even a suburban gift shop
known for
the naughty
items it
sells has
banned
the Stars
and bars,
and burt
constable is happy to see
the symbol go, even if it was
flown every day at his high
school that was home of the
“rebels.” PAGE 15
See iCONS on Page 12

2. Page 4 Section 1 Daily HeralD WeDneSDay, June 24, 2015Our Promise To Our Kids
C
has been to stop accept-
ing excuses and demand
accountability from students,
teachers and parents.
If you don’t do your home-
work, you have to stay after
school. If your parents don’t
come to conferences, the
school will go to them. Teach-
ers’ results are shared and
measured against their col-
leagues’, and students track
their own test scores to under-
stand where they need to
improve.
National studies have
shown that without high
expectations and engagement
from everyone in the educa-
tional process of students at
risk, they will fall behind.
“No one slips through the
cracks,” Smiley said boldly. “It
just doesn’t happen here.”
Whatever it takes
The front office at Tefft
is decorated with posters,
including one that says: “Mov-
ing all students forward, what-
ever it takes.”
In the face of rising levels of
poverty — from 37 percent in
2004 to 75 percent in 2014 —
and a per-pupil spending rate
in Elgin Area School District
U-46 that is far below the state
average and that of other sub-
urban schools, Tefft has strug-
gled for its success.
A decade ago at a parents
meeting, one mother stood
up and said she would rather
sell her house than send her
child to Tefft, Smiley remem-
bers. The room of 300 parents
applauded.
Now, the school is a des-
tination in U-46. About 100
Tefft students qualify for bilin-
gual services and should be
at Canton Middle School in
Streamwood where the dis-
trict’s bilingual program is.
They have declined the ser-
vices in order to stay at Tefft.
By 2014 U-46 had the larg-
est number of poor students
of any district in Illinois out-
side Chicago, with more than
24,000 students classified as
low-income.
The changes over the past
decade are visible from the
moment the doors open in the
morning.
Before each day starts, stu-
dents gather in the cafeteria
to read and talk quietly. Above
their heads hang flags from
60 countries representing the
diversity of the school, where
only 17 percent of the students
are white.
Upstairs, a computer lab
opens an hour before school.
All 40 computers are taken
within minutes. A recent sur-
vey revealed 30 percent of
Tefft students don’t have
access to the Internet at home.
When the bell rings for
lunch — normally a hectic
time of note passing, yelling
and misbehavior — Tefft stu-
dents instead file in quietly.
The first 10 minutes of the
period are silent, except for
classical music that plays over
a stereo as students read and
do homework before they
start to eat.
“They need structure. A lot
of them are given a lot of free-
dom at home, so they need
structure here,” said Dan
Proctor, who teaches eighth-
grade history and social
studies.
Part of that structure
includes a strict homework
policy: Not doing homework is
not an option.
“You need to do your job as
a student, and being prepared
with your homework is one of
the expectations,” Smiley said.
“High-achieving schools talk
about high expectations. We
live and breathe that here.”
If a student doesn’t have an
assignment done, he or she is
picked up five minutes before
the end of the day and taken
to the library. There, students
study and work with teach-
ers to get the homework done
until a no-cost activity bus
takes them home at 5 p.m.
Each day 40 or 50 stu-
dents find themselves in “PM
School,” but most don’t mind
and many more come without
being told to. Students in low-
income families often don’t
have the time, space or sup-
port to get their homework
done at home.
“It’s not a punishment;
it’s more like a reward,” said
eighth-grader Jada Carter of
Bartlett. “Now I get A’s and B’s
instead of C’s and D’s.”
Carter knows how much
she is improving because she
and all the other students
track their own progress.
Among their folders and
textbooks is a 50-page bound
data journal that students use
to chart their test scores, mea-
sure growth, track goals and
plan their futures.
Carter wants to become
a doctor, a dream she never
thought possible before com-
ing to Tefft. “I’ll be the first one
in my family to go to college,”
she said.
There are more than 800
seventh- and eighth-graders
in the building, and for all of
them it’s make-or-break time.
“Middle school is a pivotal
age,” Smiley said. “Research
shows that if students are not
college- and career-ready by
the end of eighth grade, they
aren’t going to be.”
The data journals started as
two-pocket folders but have
evolved into serious publica-
tions that other schools are
looking to buy and duplicate.
Eight full school days each
year are devoted to working
on the journals, as students
analyze their progress in every
class from math to physical
education.
This can lead to hard
choices. Students at the very
bottom, the lowest 30 percent
of the class, lose art and other
electives to have an extra
period of math or reading.
Under the now mostly
defunct No Child Left Behind
Act, schools like Tefft would
be required to have a school
improvement plan.
“We have more than 800
school improvement plans,
one for every student,” Smiley
said.
The journals also help
teachers identify students who
need extra intervention.
“Good schools don’t wait ’til
the report card comes out to
see if a child is going to fail,”
Smiley said.
First of all, safety
Success in the classroom
would not have been possible
at Tefft without addressing the
behavioral issues first.
Much of that responsibil-
ity falls to Assistant Principal
Dave Harshbarger, who wears
many hats. The school has
only one social worker, one
school psychologist who trav-
els among other U-46 schools,
and no counselors.
One student is living with
an aunt while her mother is
in prison. She has disciplinary
issues piling up from missing
an earlier detention, another
for chewing gum.
Another student is strug-
gling to keep up with classes
because his family pulls him
out of school for trips to Mex-
ico that can last for weeks.
One girl, who became dis-
tracted and withdrawn in
school after her abusive father
returned home, picked up
again after he left.
Harshbarger has a jovial
but firm manner. He reminds
them not to let one deten-
tion snowball into a bigger
problem.
That approach helped
Harshbarger get Tefft’s dis-
ciplinary issues under con-
trol years ago when he started
mediating disputes between
students and even rival
gangs. He would sit both par-
ties down in his office and
let them talk it out until their
issues were resolved, even if
that meant missing classes.
“Unless you have a safe,
secure culture, forget the aca-
demics,” Smiley said. “We
don’t have to like each other,
but we will respect each
other.”
It also meant accepting that
some of their students are in
gangs.
“Students who live in pov-
erty might be attracted to
things they shouldn’t be. Kids
just want to belong,” Smi-
ley said. “I don’t care if you’re
Success: Not doing homework is not an option for students
Continued from Page 1
B o B C h w e d y k / bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
Principal Lavonne Smiley oversees an after-school homework session at Tefft Middle School in Streamwood. Such sessions serve
as a structured place to do homework if students’ homes don’t provide that structure.
dAILy heRALd
Per pupil spending
Instruction: $5,889
Operations: $10,194
Low income*
(Eligible for free
or reduced-
price lunch)
74.9%
LEP
(Eligible for
bilingual
education):
11.5%
IEP
(Eligible for
special ed
services):
8.7%
* Also includes students who live in substitute care or whose families receive public aid.
Source: Illinois State Report Card data
PROFILE
Tefft Middle School
2014 enrollment: 817 | Grades served: 7-8
Student demographics
White 17.6%
Black 9.2%
Hispanic 61.1%
Asian 10.8%
Multiple races 1%
Native American,
native Hawaiian, other 0.4%
B o B C h w e d y k / bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
Assistant Principal David Harshbarger works with seventh-
grader Jose Huerta during after-school homework session at
Tefft Middle School in Streamwood. Much of the responsibility
for addressing behavioral issues falls to Harshbarger. That has
included mediating disputes between students — and even
rival gangs — to get discipline under control.
“they taught me that
help is always there for
you when you need it.”
Marbella Quiroz,
Tefft eighth-grader
“i wasn’t considering
college — i just wanted
to get my GeD and
leave. But i realized
i need to step it up
and get my bachelor’s
(degree) to have more
doors open for me down
the road.”
Robert Jackson,
Tefft eighth-grader
See SUCCeSS on Page 5
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3. Daily HeralD Section 1 Page 5WeDneSDay, June 24, 2015 Our Promise To Our Kids
A
Success: ‘We’re not going to give up’
in a gang, but from 9 a.m. to
3:30 p.m. you’re not in a gang.
You’re a Tefft Trojan.”
Administrators also short-
ened passing periods to three
minutes from four, minimiz-
ing the most vulnerable times
for clashes to spark. Even so,
as students change classes,
the school’s police officer and
other administrators are in
the halls as extra eyes and ears
looking for trouble.
Now, Tefft has the high-
est attendance rate and low-
est suspension rate in U-46.
Teacher referrals for disci-
pline are down 40 percent
from just last year. But they
stay proactive on behavioral
issues to make sure the school
doesn’t slip back to where it
was when Smiley began.
“At any given time we know
we’re just a moment away
from total chaos,” she said.
‘Hounding’ parents
Tefft doesn’t take excuses
from parents, either.
Student-led conferences
are held twice a year with stu-
dents walking their parents
through their data journals,
showing where they are suc-
ceeding and struggling, in
whatever language their par-
ents best understand. Those
conferences are mandatory.
Years ago Smiley would
walk through Tefft on con-
ference night and the school
would be empty.
Now the school bustles with
more than 1,000 people each
time as parents bring younger
siblings and grandparents to
what has become a commu-
nity resource night.
“Parents know if they don’t
come, I’m going to hound
them,” Smiley said.
Parents who don’t show up
get a letter and an invitation
to a makeup session on the
weekend. If they don’t have
a ride, an administrator will
pick them up.
That’s helped Jada Cart-
er’s mom a few times, when
she didn’t have a car on
conference night.
“I don’t think she would
have come otherwise,” Carter
said.
If parents still balk, Smiley
and her assistant principal
will go straight to the student’s
house, knock on the door and
hold the conference at the
kitchen table. She once did a
conference with a mother still
in the hospital after delivering
a baby.
Conferences start in Octo-
ber and sometimes go until
Christmas, if that’s what it
takes.
“No excuses. We are very,
very serious about this and
our parents know that,” Smi-
ley said. “We’re modeling that
persistence, your learning is
so important to us that we’re
not going to give up.”
Teachers, too
Getting students in a mind-
set for success is one step,
Smiley said.
“Intelligence is not fixed,”
she said. The school has been
studying research from Stan-
ford University psycholo-
gist Carol Dweck on having a
mindset focused on growth,
which she said can improve
motivation and productivity.
“Students of poverty think
their world is their world and
it’s not going to change,”
Smiley said. “We give them
hope that they can change,
but it takes perseverance and
resilience.”
Teachers also talk with
their students about grit, the
strength it will take them to
overcome the challenges
they face in and out of school.
Those “emotional domains”
are important, Smiley said.
Smiley said she has heard
administrators from low-
income schools like hers say
their kids are unmotivated.
“My response is, ‘Well, it’s
our job to motivate children,’”
she said.
A report from the Center for
American Progress found that
students whose teachers have
higher expectations of them
were three times more likely
to graduate from college than
their peers.
When Dan Proctor started
at Tefft 18 years ago teach-
ers stayed in their classrooms.
They didn’t often come out
and compare notes.
“And when they did they
would talk about how many
students they were failing,”
Proctor said. “Failing was a
badge of honor.”
English teacher Val Albuck
would get papers turned in
with gang symbols drawn on
them.
“It wasn’t an easy environ-
ment to teach in,” she said.
Now, at the end of each
quarter administrators send
out a spreadsheet showing
how every teacher’s students
did on tests.
The idea was to compare,
contrast and learn from one
another, but the practice was
controversial. Some teachers
quit over it.
“It’s a learning tool for
us, not what we did wrong,
but what we can do better,”
Albuck said.
While the classroom expe-
rience is under control, many
student home lives are as dif-
ficult as before.
Proctor still gets emo-
tional discussing students
who come into his class talk-
ing about the poverty, abuse
or unstable homes they face,
as if these situations are nor-
mal. It drives the staff to keep
pushing.
“Every child who comes
here has the opportunity to
go to college and we let the
students know that,” Proctor
said. “Yes, it might take some
work, but it’s possible.”
Robert Jackson hopes it will
be possible for him.
He used to be in PM School
every day for either behav-
ioral issues or not doing his
homework. Now, Jackson is
moving on to high school, but
he wants to go to college and
become a pilot.
He says the teachers made
the difference.
“They expect a lot of you,
more than you expect of your-
self,” he said. “They see your
true potential and want you
to break past and do greater
things than you think you can
do. They try to push you to
your limits so you can get bet-
ter. They’re helping you out
every step of the way.”
Like a second family
What was once a school
where parents didn’t want to
send their children has now
been designated — twice — as
a Breakthrough School by the
National Association of Sec-
ondary School Principals.
In 2010, Tefft was one of
nine schools in the nation so
honored, and it was redesig-
nated in 2013.
When Marbella Quiroz of
Hanover Park entered Tefft
as a seventh-grader, she got
poor grades and landed in
detention.
“I would lie to my parents.
They would fight a lot. That
was really hard for a child to
see. My sister moved out,” she
said.
“I didn’t even care about
anything. I would do whatever
I wanted if it would get me
away from the problems I had
at home.”
Quiroz didn’t see a bright
future for herself, but the
teachers and environment at
Tefft have changed that.
“I really didn’t think I was
going to go to college, but now
I realize we all have chances.
You just have to push your-
self,” said Marbella, who just
finished eighth grade. “This
school changed my life.”
The school can’t elimi-
nate the problems she has
at home, but she said she’s
learned to focus on her aca-
demics, control her anger
and reach out when she’s
struggling.
“They taught me that help is
always there for you when you
need it,” she said. “I feel like
Tefft isn’t just here to teach
you about school. It’s like a
second family.”
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100%
NEW ISAT
CUT SCORES*
ABOVEAVERAGEBELOWAVERAGE
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
NEW ISAT
CUT SCORES*
ISAT percent
meets/exceeds
Percent
low income
Percent
minority
Tefft Middle School
With 60 percent of their students “passing” the ISATs in 2014,
Tefft’s results don’t look remarkable.
However, compared to other schools with a similar percentage of low
income students, Tefft has been consistently above average and in
three out of the last five years has been in the top ten percent in the
state among schools in the same low-income range.
How Tefft compares to the average
How high or low Tefft’s ISAT score is compared to the average for all
schools with similiar percentages of low-income students, according to
the Daily Herald Poverty-Achievement Index.
dAILy heRALd
* Starting with 2013 scores, the state raised test “cut scores,” making it harder for students
to meet or exceed minimum state standards.
Source: Daily Herald analysis of Illinois State Report Card data
0 = AVERAGE
B o B C h W e d y k / bchwedyk@dailyherald.com
Students keep their own journals to track their own progress at
Tefft Middle School in Streamwood.
Continued from Page 4
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cost me?”
1
DETAILS OF OFFER – Offer expires 8/8/2015. Not valid with other offers or prior purchases. Buy 3 windows, get the fourth one at 60% off and 12 months no payments, no interest when you purchase 4 or more windows or patio doors between
6/14/15 & 8/8/15 with approved credit. The 60% off window or door must be less than or equal to the lowest cost window or door in the project. APR of 16.510% as of 5/1/15, subject to change. Repayment terms from 0 to 12 months. Interest accrues
from date of purchase but waived if paid in full within 12 months. Available only at participating locations. See your local Renewal by Andersen location for details. License number available upon request. Some Renewal by Andersen locations are
independently owned and operated. “Renewal by Andersen” and all other marks where denoted are trademarks of Andersen Corporation. ©2015 Andersen Corporation. All rights reserved. ©2015 Lead Surge LLC. All rights reserved. *See limited
warranty for details.
WITH
FOR 1 YEAR
1MONEY DOWN
NO NOPAYMENTS
NOINTEREST
Minimum purchase of 4 or more. Interest accrues from date of
purchase, but is waived if paid in full within 12 months.
Call before July 11th!
60% OFF
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BUY 3 WINDOWS,
GET THE 4TH WINDOW