Michelle Thompson and Dmitri Snowden are unlikely business partners – she a veteran Indiana educator, while he describes himself as a creative integration strategist, a fellow who seems as if

The Paramount School of Excellence is located at 3020 Nowland Ave.

he would be more at home with Windows 9x, Linux systems or robots than with challenging elementary school students.

But the two have come together to create and launch the city’s newest charter school – the Paramount School of Excellence, which was set to greet its first students at the end of August in a renovated and expanded former Masonic lodge on the city’s Eastside, just across the street from the west end of Brookside Park.

The school is breaking new ground on several fronts – from being a “green” school complete with wind turbines, a “Give Forward” garden and a “Green 360” Room, to featuring classrooms with theme-based discovery zones and interactive fully electronic “whiteboards” in each room.

But its most unique feature, perhaps, is its commitment to serve its new community as the first charter school to sit within the boundaries of NESCO, the Near East Side Community Organization. Snowden, for one, doesn’t believe Paramount will have much trouble filling the desks – especially since it doesn’t have any desks. More on that later.

“There is an abundance of children,” Snowden said, quoting educated estimates of about 20,000 school-age children within a mile radius of the school. Many of those students are identified as “high-needs,” which is exactly the type of student Paramount is geared to serve. Many families within the NESCO area are families in crisis, with children who Thompson refers to as “revolving door students.” Their parents move frequently, the children bouncing around different schools.

Dmitri S. Snowden shows off the Discovery Zone as he eagerly describes some of the hands-on features which will soon be added to the space. “Kids are kinetic learners,” he said. “They want to touch and feel things, not just read about them.” Snowden is also keenly interested in robotics, which will be integrated into many phases of the curriculum.

“We’re not going to have the impact we need,” Thompson said, “if we can’t get those the families stabilized.”

To that end, a integral piece of the Paramount model is the Home & Solace Program, which Thompson said “our goal is to place families of need in below-market-rate, rent-to-own homes. Doing so will help in stabilizing the child and allows for more focus on educational achievement.”

The Home & Solace Program is based on firm guidelines and incentivized credits that, when met, will place transient families into sound, stable, and affordable housing environments. “This is a win-win for the community, the child and the family,” she said.

The Paramount School of Excellence does not have any fiscal commitment in the Home & Solace Program. That role is played by some of the school’s partners, including the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership and Indy-East Asset Development.

That goal, it has become evident, will require a long-term effort, the educators have discovered.

Michelle Thompson

Snowden pointed out that, within a three-block radius of the new school, 30 homes sit vacant for one reason or another. But even determining who owns those homes can be a daunting task, as can be the red tape involved in securing those homes.

Snowden, nevertheless, remains undeterred. “We want to be more than an 8-to-3 school,” he said, talking about traditional school hours. “We want to be a beacon in the neighborhood.”

The main task at hand, of course, remains one of educating the children who enter Paramount’s doors. The new charter school can handle 585 students in grades kindergarten through eight. As of mid-August, 462 students had enrolled, although Snowden has hopes and expectations that number would grow. Last year, he pointed out, there were about 9,000 students unaccounted for when the school year began. Factor in the idea that Paramount’s target families are harder to reach, so that traditional media and other outreach methods don’t work.

“It’s all about how you reach out – and how you speak to people,” Snowden said.

Once they’re through the doors of the Paramount school, the task falls to Tommy Reddicks, another veteran educator who is director of the Eastside school. Reddicks is entering the year very optimistic, based on an energized teaching staff. “It is critical to bring in a staff who ‘get’ the concept,” he said. “They are eager, ready to go.” (Eager or not, teachers and students were forced to wait two weeks, because of construction delays. School officials said the late start on Aug. 30 wouldn’t be a problem, because they had scheduled 190 classroom days, 10 more than required by the state.)

Reddicks, who spent 14 years as a music teacher in public schools in Colorado, Arizona and Washington, has spent the past few years working in curriculum development – specifically developing a model which ties all disciplines together within one curriculum. He met Thompson and Snowden, in fact, when he was presenting a program on the West Coast. “We were talking the same language from the beginning,” he said. u u Thompson, who holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Indiana State University, points out that it is that concept of integrated subject matter which is at the heart of Paramount’s teaching strategy. The school, she said, “offers a

Each of Paramount’s classrooms will feature giant “white boards” used much like a computer monitor.

unique vision for developing students as caring young adults that respect themselves, their environment and learn as independent thinkers. Students will receive a broad palette of integrated subject matter, giving them a solid foundation for real-world problem solving.”

Paramount is not Thompson’s first experience with a charter school. She was involved with The Challenge Foundation Academy and Hope Academy – The Recovery High School at Fairbanks. From 2002 to 2006 she served as executive director and superintendent of Christel House Academy, while also working with Christel House International and as global director of education and programs. In that job, she was involved in the creation of learning centers in Mexico, India, Venezuela, South Africa and the United States.

In 2007, Thompson founded the Institute for School Excellence, an organization which works to equip educators with the knowledge, skills and capacity to develop “21st Century Schools of Excellence.” Thompson’s institute has worked with charter schools such as Herron High School, The Project School, Hope Academy and KIPP Indy.

And then she met Snowden, owner of ion360, a consulting firm which works with, among other things, growth strategies, marketing, web strategic planning, communications and networking, and environmental policy. Snowden also has a keen interest in educating youth – a goal he hopes to advance through Paramount.

Inside the 55,000-square-foot building (which is more than twice the size of the original Masonic

Students will be able to see how their own building works, thanks to cutouts similar to this section. The cutouts will be covered in plexiglas.

lodge), “everything is a learning resource,” Thompson said. There are color-coded green electrical outlets, exposed pipes painted blue to illustrate that they carry water. Walls have 2×2-foot cutouts so students can see how the building works.

The Green 360 Room features butterflies, plus a floor of grass and recycled tires. “They’re learning every single moment they’re in the school,” Thompson said.

The learning areas look less like classrooms and more like what Snowden calls “a cross between home and ‘healthy office’ space.” Students rotate within each trifurcated classroom – a third of which is dedicated to computers, another third with lounge-type seating for reading, and the third area for direct instruction from teachers.

The school sits amid a nine-acre campus which includes areas for outdoor classes, a new KaBoom! Playground, the “Give Forward” Garden, Paramount Pond, and a fitness trail.

Thompson said a great deal of time will also be spent on character development, including learning by service to the community. The focus in early grades will be on reading skills, then shift in grades three and above to showcase technology as a global resource for enriching curriculum and exploring content. That strategy is rooted in Snowden’s belief in technology.

“Kids are kinetic learners,” he said, pointing out that they learn better by touching and feeling, rather than by reading or watching videos. He also wants to “create a symmetry between what you learn and how you live your life.”

Charters: They’re free

Charter schools are secular, tuition-free public schools that are freed from many of the regulations governing traditional schools. They control their own curriculum, staffing, organization and budget. In exchange for this freedom, they must maximize student potential and meet and exceed Indiana’s new academic standards.

Like other public schools, charter schools must be open to every child regardless of race, religion, disability or academic ability.

Charter schools differ from traditional public schools in that they are established by teachers, principals, education experts and/or parents, and are exempt from many state and school district regulations, making them essentially autonomous in their operation. Also, students who attend charter schools do so by choice; likewise, educators who teach at charter schools do so by choice. Finally, charter schools can be closed for producing unsatisfactory results.

Charter schools in and around the Urban Times area include Herron High School, The Project School, Fountain Square Academy, Southeast Neighborhood School of Excellence (SENSE), and Fall Creek Academy.