Paramount Schools of Excellence recently received a surprise $3 million donation, which will help the organization open two new schools next fall in South Bend and Lafayette. The financial gift, the largest received by the Indianapolis-based public charter school network, is from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
In the past week, other schools across the country have announced massive donations from Scott, including $25 million to Chicago Public Schools and $18 million to Durham Public Schools in North Carolina.
The Paramount Schools network currently serves roughly 1,500 students in multiple Indianapolis neighborhoods – Brookside, Englewood and Cottage Home, as well as an online academy in partnership with the Indianapolis Public Schools district.
For years, Indianapolis has struggled to get students up to grade level standards. In 2022, only three out of the 11 Marion County school districts had students pass both the math and English Language Arts portions of the ILEARN state standardized test. Those scores were even lower for students who identify as Black, Hispanic, an English Language Learner or someone receiving special education services.
Paramount Schools, which serves at least 50 percent Black and at least 15 percent Hispanic students at its three brick-and-mortar schools, produced some of the highest standardized test scores in the state while also closing its achievement gap. That means Black and Hispanic students’ academic performance is just as high as their White classmates.
Last week, IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson and school board members said they are open to collaborating on a new school with Paramount. Families and local organizations have been pushing the district to help the network expand.
WFYI’s Elizabeth Gabriel talked to Paramount Schools CEO Tommy Reddicks to learn how his schools have boosted the academic performance for students of color. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Elizabeth Gabriel: Over the past decade, Paramount has expanded to three school buildings, an online academy and more than tripled its student population. What is your school model?
Tommy Reddicks: We don’t have a distinct model at Paramount. What we really focus on is, how do we work with our students to achieve Indiana’s academic standards. So looking at what we do as a school, it’s kind of an old school approach to hard work and a strong work ethic tied to data. Though one thing I would say that’s different about our school model is it’s about students doing the work. So if you walked into any of our classrooms, you’ll see a teacher teaching for five to 10 minutes, and then releasing that teaching to student work. And then that teacher will walk around and aid in the student work like a great coach, but the students will be doing the work for the majority of the classroom time. So if you walk into our classrooms, often they look really boring, because there’s no inspirational teacher giving this great long speech. There’s heads down and work going on and a teacher quietly working with individual students as they need a push or a little bit of help.
Gabriel: That’s really interesting, that sounds like a cool model. I’ve heard that some of your schools have animals on-site. Which schools have goats and chickens and how does that help students learn?
Reddicks: We’re big fans of urban farming. I myself – growing up in rural Texas as a young kid – we had goats, we had chickens, we had a garden, we canned vegetables. So going through those experiences growing up really helped me create a love and passion for that kind of work. And what we find with our high rigor approach in our schools is that if we don’t balance all that classroom work with something experiential and fun, then everybody’s going to burn out. And so we like to scaffold our environment for excitement. So you’ve got a time for rigor and a time for…
Read More: Indy charter school Paramount gets surprise $3M donation. It’s from MacKenzie Scott