A worthwhile struggle

When Caleb Dolan '96 considers what his fifth graders at Gaston College Prep, a new charter school in rural North Carolina, need to learn, he recalls his first year at Colby. "I try to think about what, as a freshman at Colby, I knew, what the kids around me knew. And what it was assumed we knew and were able to do. And then I try to picture how, between when these kids are ten and they're eighteen, we get them there."

It's no small task, in an impoverished area with one of the highest dropout rates in North Carolina. Dolan has taken it on as co-founder, principal and reading teacher at the school, which opened last year in a $1.2-million complex of 12 new trailers. Drawing from four different school systems, Gaston College Prep is funded in part by the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Foundation. Its fifth grade students attend school more than nine hours a day, two Saturdays a month and three weeks in the summer.

It's hard work for all involved as Dolan and his colleagues try to fill what he calls "a huge gap of knowledge." He thinks they're making headway.

It's been awesome," Dolan said. "There are days when we kind of shake our heads and say, 'My god, what have we done?' But the vast majority of days you sit back and know we're at the foot of a very long but worthwhile struggle."

His route to Gaston began in another small town, Dixmont, Maine, where he grew up and attended public schools until he enrolled at Colby.

A self-described liberal, Dolan signed on with Teach for America after graduation. "It really was this case of me and all my buddies, who were always talking about ways to make the system fair and to create true freedom. It was kind of a case where I had talked so much I had better do something."

So he did, teaching in local schools with Teach for America, learning alongside his students as he gained classroom experience. And in the process, Dolan's commitment to his young charges grew. "After two years where you succeed and fail right alongside sixty kids every day, it becomes very personal," he said.

His commitment to education led him to create Gaston College Prep in 2000. The first rural KIPP charter school in the country, the school drew its first students--and a teacher--from area public schools. In the process, Dolan and his partner wrote grant proposals and negotiated for land and portable classrooms. "I learned a lot about finance," Dolan said. "It made me wish I'd paid more attention in Econ 134."

But he apparently learned enough finance because the school opened on schedule--and with a waiting list. "Every kid we enrolled, I visited their house," Dolan said. "It was powerful for me because you step out of your four walls. It's like, 'We're this committed. We're willing to do whatever it takes to help your kid succeed. All we ask is the same level of commitment back.'"

He says he gets it, not only from students and their families but from the school's teachers and staff, who are key to the students' success.

"You have to have teachers and staff who are just dedicated, smart, passionate," Dolan said. "Not just nice, because nice doesn't cut it. Willing to be tough because every day matters and every minute matters."

It's an urgent mission. This is an area where the average combined SAT score now is 780, and that's with only a third of high school students taking the test. Dolan and his colleagues have six short years to make up considerable ground.

How?

This year it's realizing to make every part of a kid's day valuable, to make sure on the bus ride home they're learning valuable things about how to behave and act, to make sure there's no part of their day that's a waste," Dolan said. "It's a huge amount of work and challenge."

–Gerry Boyle '78