New Moyer leader: 'Give us a chance'

WILMINGTON -- Keenan Dorsey patrolled the hallways of the Maurice J. Moyer Academic Institute's high-school building as students shuttled between classes.

"Let's go, let's go. Lunch or class," Dorsey commanded in a booming, authoritative voice. "Get to where you need to be. Let's go."

Under the watchful eyes of Dorsey and the school's teachers, the transition between classes went smoothly. By the time the second bell had rung, the hallways were almost entirely empty.

"That's how it's supposed to go. To me, this is normal," Dorsey said. "But compared to last year, this is a big difference."

When Moyer's board named Dorsey the school's leader this summer, they were giving him a steep challenge. The school, which serves almost entirely students who are black and from inner-city, low-income families, had churned through three principals during the previous year, and its test scores plunged.

Last year, only 23 percent of students scored "proficient" in reading on the state exam. Only 10 percent were proficient in math.

In addition to low scores, officials have for two years warned that Moyer is violating state rules on a number of fronts: its curriculum is out of line and its teachers don't understand the state's academic standards; there have been too many "unsafe incidents" and too many suspensions; too many students have been missing class; and the school hasn't adequately served special-needs students.

In July – less than a month after Dorsey took over – the state placed Moyer on formal review. Last month, the Department of Education's Charter School Accountability Committee recommended the school be closed.

Should both Secretary of Education Mark Murphy and the State Board of Education choose Thursday to follow that recommendation, Dorsey's first year at Moyer could be his last.

He knew the school was on thin ice when he left his job as principal at Red Lion Christian Academy to come to Moyer. He was previously a guidance counselor and administrator in the Brandywine School District, and he says he could have either stayed at Red Lion or taken a job at Brandywine or Red Clay.

"I was sitting there shaving one morning, and this feeling just came over me," he said. "I knew I had to go to Moyer. This is my neighborhood. I have a chance to give back to where I came from."

Dorsey grew up six blocks away from Moyer, on East Seventh Street in Wilmington. At Howard High School, he was not a good student, not because he wasn't smart, but because he didn't find a reason to care, he said.

"People would ask me about college, and I'd say, 'Me? No way. My parents didn't go to college; we're broke," he remembers.

But one day, a mentor told Dorsey he could be a success. He laid out a plan, step-by-step, that he could follow to get to college.

Do you think the state should close Moyer Academic Institute?

Today, he is working on his doctorate and has a career he loves.

"I want to be that for these kids," Dorsey said. "Did I know what I was getting into when I came here? Absolutely. But this is my community, and I have a chance to give back."

Dorsey has already made a number of changes.

He replaced 90 percent of the school's teachers. He switched the school to a "block schedule," which means longer classes and less time in transition.

He has kept the middle school and high school entirely separate, allowing middle-schoolers into the cafeteria only as a way to build a sense of anticipation to make it to the next level.

When Dion Hutt, a math teacher who was one of the few Dorsey kept on board, is asked what has changed, he has a one-word response.

"Everything," Hutt said. "It's like a completely different school. There's a culture here now that students are expected to take learning seriously."

To show how seriously the school is taking its transformation, its board decided on a new name, changing from the Maurice J. Moyer Academy to the Maurice J. Moyer Academic Institute.

"We have the leadership team in place that we need to be successful," said Bebe Coker, a longtime Wilmington education advocate who has been on the school's board since its inception.

State officials have acknowledged that Dorsey and his new leadership team could be a big improvement for the school.

"If this team had been in front of us years ago, we might not be here," Deputy Secretary of Education David Blowman told Moyer officials the day the committee recommended the school close. "But how many times can we accept 'We'll get it right this time?' "

Whatever optimism the school's leadership may have about this year, the body of evidence from the past two years is simply too damning, Blowman and other committee members said.

Moyer leaders say they have taken on an extremely difficult task, serving at-risk kids that are often many grades behind academically and who sometimes find little to no support at home.

"We're not going to try and hide the fact that we haven't had the results we wanted. We know we need to do better," Coker said. "But you can't expect us to have it all figured out right away. You've got to give us a chance."

Dorsey argues closing Moyer won't necessarily improve the students' situation.

"These families chose to come to us because they weren't satisfied with what they were getting," Dorsey said. "If they close us down, they're just going to go back to the place they left. What sense does that make?"

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com or at (302) 324-2428. Follow him on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.