School Spotlight: Cherokee Park
By: Leslie Draffin
Updated: February 7, 2012
The title one school has 422 students from all walks of life, but when they're here, they're a family.
They are striving to make good a little better and better, the best.
"The teachers here, the faculty, staff always strive to do best at all times, not in a competitive way so that its bad but always strive to do best for interest of boys and girls," says principal Tyrone Burton who's been here for 11 years.
Tyrone says the one program making sure student's aren't the only ones learning here is the job imbedded professional development program. It's a place teachers join forces to practice educating in the best ways possible.
"If they are better teachers student achievement goes up and if student achievement goes up then students become lifelong learners because they enjoy learning process," says Burton.
The extra step is paying off. In recent years the school's gotten multiple grants to house after-school and summer programs.
They even have one of the best attendance rates in the state, compared with other title one schools.
"We want the students to really enjoy coming to school," says Burton.
To make sure they do staff members decorate in bright colors, reach out to students who struggle, encourage kids to love learning and believe it doesn't just take a village to raise a child, "In fact it takes a competent caring village to raise a child and that's what Cherokee Park family brings together a competent caring village."
A village, that's a school and really just one big family.
