Meeting Street Schools leaders share keys to success in high-poverty schools

Story by Jen Jordan / July 11, 2016

When interviewing prospective teachers to work at Meeting Street Elementary at Brentwood, a high-poverty North Charleston school run by a public-private partnership, Principal Sarah Campbell asks job-seekers two key questions:

“Do you think that all kids can learn?”

“Do you think that all families care?”

The school sifted through 2,000 applicants for 30 open positions in the fall of this year, and, according to Campbell, the No. 1 reason why teachers didn’t make it past the interview was that they hedged or said no to one of those questions.

“You’d think that those would be pretty simple questions,” Campbell said. “If you’re in education, you should assume that all kids can learn. But there’s a lot of implicit bias in teachers that we’ve found (toward) kids in poverty, kids of color.”

Charleston County school principals and district staff gathered at the district office Monday to hear what was working for Meeting Street Schools, a private group that places two teachers to a classroom and offers an extended school day that lasts until 5:30 p.m. With one private-public school partnership underway at Brentwood and another beginning in the fall with kindergarten students from North Charleston’s struggling Burns Elementary, the district is looking to emulate Meeting Street’s success at traditional neighborhood schools across the county.

At Brentwood, Meeting Street Schools set some ambitious goals for its students, including a goal that 75 percent of students will graduate with Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test scores in the 75th percentile or higher. This spring, with the school serving only pre-kindergarten through second grade students, 67 percent met their growth goals in reading and 73 percent met their growth goals in math.

 

Make A DifferenceJoin Us!

Join a community of incredible, passionate people working to change the lives of our students. Our compensation and benefits are a cut above the rest: the most competitive total compensation in the region.

Start Your Career!

News & Notes93% of MSA-Charleston Alumni Are College Going This Year

Read More

Our Schools

MSA – Charleston

Pre-K3 To 6th


Downtown Charleston, SC

Learn More

MSA – Spartanburg

Pre-K3 To 5th


Downtown Spartanburg, SC

Learn More

MS – Brentwood

Pre-K3 To 8th


North Charleston, SC

Learn More

MS – Burns

Pre-K3 To 6th


North Charleston, SC

Learn More

MS – Jasper & Beaufort

K To 1st


Jasper County, SC

Learn More

CommunityVoices

  • 1/3

“Meeting Street Academy is my family. They taught me that I am valuable. I am an asset to the world…They asked me, ‘What is your dream?’ I had never been asked that before. The MSS community gives me the strength to pursue my dreams.”

— Kadelyn SteedStudent

  • 2/3

“We come into work everyday truly believing that our students are capable of achieving anything that is put in front of them. Here at MSS, students are provided the opportunity to achieve success through the facilitation of well-educated teachers, resources, and a responsive classroom school environment.”

— NikToshia GilesTeacher

  • 3/3

“MSA is a family. Once you’re in, you’re in. They said they would follow our kids from K-3 to college and they actually lived up to what they said they would do. Not only did MSA challenge my daughter academically but it also exposed her to new things that she probably wouldn’t have been exposed to at our previous neighborhood school. Our journey at MSA was exciting and rewarding. They actually walk the walk.”

— Tyeka GrantParent

-->