Why the new director of KIPP Memphis calls the city’s charter landscape ‘beautiful and elegant’

KIPP Memphis Collegiate Schools is welcoming its third leader in three years, and at a time when the seven-school charter network could use a boost.

Kendra Ferguson became executive director in December, after spending most of her career with KIPP, and most recently KIPP Bay Area Schools in California. She replaces Kelly Wright, who had the job for two years.

With a presence in Memphis since 2002, KIPP now operates four charter schools through Shelby County Schools and three under the state-run Achievement School District.

Ferguson took the helm at an especially challenging time. The nonprofit network was preparing to close its first Memphis school due to low enrollment. And its student achievement is also under a microscope. While KIPP schools fared generally well nationwide in a new high-profile study out of Stanford University, its Memphis schools did not. KIPP Memphis was among only two KIPP networks that appeared to have negative academic growth.

Ferguson sat down recently with Chalkbeat to talk about the challenges, with an eye toward bolstering academics and student retention. This Q&A has been lightly edited and condensed for brevity.

The latest study from CREDO, a Stanford-based research group, shows negative results in math and reading for KIPP Memphis students. What are your immediate and long-term plans to raise the academic bar?

The CREDO study cites data from 2014-15. KIPP Memphis has already begun making adjustments to better support our schools. For example, we shifted to Common Core-aligned curriculum (Wheatley and Eureka) and continue to provide training and support across our schools. At one school, we moved to a co-leader model to provide additional leadership support. With my background in academics, I’m excited to focus our team’s time this year on teaching and learning, which is our top priority. Our intensive professional development work this summer will tap into instructional coaching support from the KIPP School Leadership Programs. We are also excited to have a director of teaching and learning to lead work throughout the year. We are optimistic about what’s ahead.

You’ve been with KIPP since 2002. Tell us about your most recent role, and why you’re coming to Memphis.

I was the chief of schools for KIPP Bay Area Schools and then most recently the chief people officer, where I focused on all areas of talent: development, recruitment, leadership pipeline, determining excellence in teachers — whatever helps you grow in your craft. I’m bringing all of that experience with me as I think about our teacher development and pipelines here.

Knowing that supporting new to KIPP teachers so that students hit the ground running, we developed a new teacher onboarding that included specific teacher moves and best practices in socio-emotional learning.

I’ve been a KIPPster forever, and I’ve worked before with several KIPPsters in Memphis through the KIPP network training and partnership across regions. I came for a visit and loved the city. It’s unique to see so many agencies around education. Instead of me chasing people to say, “Will you care about education?” there’s so many people already caring here. There’s Memphis Teacher Residency, anything under the Memphis Education Fund umbrella, TFA, City Year … everyone’s trying to be in a coalition together because of the need and love for the city.

What are your immediate priorities?

Academic attainment. It’s hard to get a good picture of where we are with the state test malfunction last year. But even looking at some of the scores in our K-12 grades, there’s work to be done.

We have a 100 percent graduation rate, but that’s not where it ends. Last year, 83 percent of our students went on to a two- or four-year college. Our estimated college completion rate is at about 42 percent. …That’s more (than the local school district), but not enough. (For comparison, Shelby County Schools has a 79 percent graduation rate and a 63 college matriculation rate during the 2015-16 year).

We’re also relatively new to the elementary school arena, so I’m looking there to what we can do to be stronger.

Another piece I’m thinking about is: What does it mean to be a KIPPster? What’s our brand, our identity? What do people see us as? We have a real opportunity here to define who we are. To me, what’s important and what I hope we’re known for is loving kids, learning our data and practicing excellence.

Maintaining or growing enrollment has been a challenge for many Memphis schools, and KIPP hasn’t been an exception. How are you addressing that?

At the end of each school year, we have folks spending more time looking at who’s a flight risk and why they’re thinking of leaving. Is there assistance we can provide? Is there a transportation issue? … What is it that’s causing folks to want to leave?

We’re also pushing re-enrollment as part of our end-of-year activities. We had a field day where parents had the opportunity to re-enroll. We had a Parents Summit, where we asked people to come in from the community — vendors like Memphis Lift, a local dance academy, camp options and health options. We also had principals there with information on enrollment and reenrollment. We’re being more aggressive.

I don’t actually know all the answers, but I’m looking to parents and teachers to help us fill the gaps. We do a parent survey at all KIPP schools at the end of the year, and I expect those to be helpful.

I’m also wondering about how the city is developing. When I first came, I heard a lot about apartments being demolished or renovated that could affect our kids. … (I wondered) are we connected with community leaders to better understand the urban planning that’s going on? Someone’s planning something to support our neighborhoods? I would love to be on front part of that.

Memphis parents are used to seeing educational leaders come and go. Given the turnover of KIPP’s leadership here, how will you build trust in the communities that KIPP is in?

Trust takes time to build when people don’t know you. I think the best thing I can do is just be me.

In our north Memphis community, I’ve definitely heard people asking, “Will she stay?” I understand that and know it’s not personal. That has nothing to do with Dr. Kendra Ferguson. It has to do with a history of people coming and going, coming and going. That’s the cycle, too, in other communities like New York or the Bay Area. But here, people want to know and be known. It’s much more familial. And for me, part of that trust-building is learning the city. In going to the Civil Rights Museum and thinking about all the history that’s occurred in Memphis, it’s important for me to know that history informs the city.

We’ve talked about students, but KIPP also has to retain teachers. Last year, 66 percent of teachers stayed within KIPP schools, compared to 73 percent nationally. What’s your plan there?

Excellence in teaching is the be all and end all. I really want to focus on teacher coaching. Every teacher wants to be observed. Everyone wants to be successful and get to the next level. This summer, our educational leaders will spend a week at an instructional bootcamp at the University of Chicago. They’ll be learning how to support and give teachers feedback.

I also think we need to define excellence in teaching. We can’t take for granted that people just know what it means to be a great teacher. There are measures out there that define excellence. I’m looking at Danielson or the New Teach Project rubric. It’s helpful to determine a way to measure our teachers so we’re all talking about the same thing. It’s also important for parents to understand what we’re talking about when we say this person is a great teacher.

Coming from the Bay Area, which is an innovation capital, you’ve got Google, Facebook and just about every startup you think. You can throw a stone and hit a startup. When I came here, I found a group coming together that wants to do things, that wants to innovate. Our teachers can benefit from this culture. How do they want to innovate in their classrooms? What ideas do they have? I want this to be an open environment where teachers can really pitch ideas.

KIPP Memphis has schools authorized by both Shelby County Schools and the Achievement School District. How will you balance your work with two districts?

In the Bay Area, we had 11 schools under seven different authorizers. Here, I have seven schools under only two authorizers. To have just two authorizers, that seems absolutely beautiful and elegant, and much more of a plus than a minus.

That’s not to say there aren’t differences we have to think about with the Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools, For what I’ve experienced so far, the ASD provides more hands-on support, while Shelby County is more in a more traditional authorizer role.

I believe everyone here when they say that they want what’s best for students. I hear that when I talk to either Brad Leon with Shelby County Schools or Malika Anderson with the Achievement School District. It seems very consistent.