Doug Ross greets students as they head to class.

Staff photos by Angie Baan

Instilling Hope

Doug Ross shapes a school culture that works for Detroit kids.

Judith Doner Berne

Special to the Jewish News

E

very weekday morning at 6:45
a.m., Elizabeth Williams, a
senior at University Preparatory
Academy (UPA) charter school in Detroit,
gets a call from school Superintendent
Doug Ross.
"I'm Elizabeth's alarm clock;' says Ross,
65, who nine years ago retired from a
political career (see related stories) to try
to reform education in his native city one
child at a time.
"We knew the problem was big factory-
like schools," he says. "They work OK for
middle-class kids. For poor kids, they're a
disaster?'
Visits to high-achieving urban schools
across the country helped Ross come up

with a K-12 program designed around
small academic units. Key to it all are
strong relationships between teachers and
students coupled with high expectations
for student achievement.
As a result, the commitment for every
UPA faculty member, from superintendent
to principal to counselor to teacher, is 24-
7, Ross says. "Everybody has everybody's
cell phone number:' he says. "Every parent
has mine. We tell the teachers, 'You're the
aunt and uncle who went to college. Your
job is to do whatever it takes to get them
through!"
That may include going to court, find-
ing a child a safe living arrangement and,
yes, serving as someone's alarm clock.
"Our kids look like Detroit kids:' Ross
reports. "Seventy percent are from single-
parent families."

The Beginnings
Ross co-founded UPA in 1999 with a class
of sixth-graders in a church basement
located in what he describes as a "scary
neighborhood?' The school is chartered by
Grand Valley State University in Allendale.
With the goal of 90/90 — 90 percent of
ninth-graders graduating high school and
90 percent of seniors going on to higher
education — Ross added a grade each
year.
The first class of seniors graduated in
2007 and exceeded those goals.
In 2005, Ross added a preschool and
elementary school to the middle and high
school. Next year, he'll open a second
elementary and start University Prep
Science+Math (UPSM), a specialized
middle school designed to expand into
high school.

Ross picked Margaret Trimer-Hartley,
a former journalist who most recently
was director of communications for
the Michigan Education Association, as
UPSM's superintendent.
"Doug finds people who are often
out of the box for this prep school:' says
Trimer-Hartley. "He's the kind of leader
who embodies confidence in the people
around him. He's always looking for
people with passion who understand how
to take risks?'
Students must apply for all openings in
University Prep charter schools and are
selected by blind lottery. Last fall, 2,000
applied for 150 openings, Ross says, with
no marketing.
"The school is viewed first as a safe

Instilling Hope on page A16

April 3 • 2008

A15

