S. 02 Ep. 03: No excuses

Jovan Weaver could barely sleep before his first day of school as principal.

“I was like a kid on Christmas Eve,” he said, laughing.

This was August 22, 2016 at Philadelphia’s John Wister Elementary, and the building was brimming with energy. In bright morning sun, small children swarmed the entrance wearing uniforms of Mastery gray and blue, their cartoon bookbags tight on their shoulders. Teachers cheerily greeted the children and pointed them to their homerooms.  Parents idled at the foot of the school doors, watching as their little ones turned into Wister’s main hallway, disappearing from sight.

Every first day of school can be like a rebirth, but this one was especially significant.

The city had just endured a contentious and still controversial debate that led to Wister’s conversion from traditional district school to a charter run by Mastery Charter Schools.  Now, formally, the school would be known as Mastery Charter School at John Wister Elementary.

And Jovan and a staff completely new to the school had worked frantically over the summer to get things ready for this moment.

“Right now, it’s game time. Everything was kind of leading up to today,” he said. “And now the real work begins.”

Coming into the change, a lot of promises and expectations were set:  higher test scores, safer school culture, and ultimately, a school that would help the mostly poor student body defy the odds.

And many parents bought into this promise. Enrollment shot up by 150 students, with more of the families in the neighborhood opting for the school.

The job looked to be getting harder, as statistics showed the student body becoming even poorer and more challenged by special-ed needs.

“I can’t be in 19 classrooms at one time,” said Jovan “My teachers are on the frontline. They’re bearing the brunt of everything, and I just got to make sure that they feel supported, and they’re ready to rock for our kids.”

Mastery is the largest charter organization in Philadelphia. Its motto is: “Excellence. No excuses.” Over the years the organization has become something of a lightning rod. Supporters praise it for creating better neighborhood schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Detractors criticize it for being overly rigid, and too focused on measurable data like standardized test scores.

Jovan became Wister’s principal as Mastery had self-consciously reevaluated its philosophy, and he adopted a different tagline:  “Love and positivity.”

“I do think I represent a shift that Mastery is taking on as an organization, and it’s all about, just, love, building relationships, understanding our kids. While at the same time having super high expectations for academics and not lowering our bar one bit,” said Jovan. “But there’s also a qualitative piece there. You can’t always just be so data driven that you miss the human side of things. So I’m big on that. It’s a balance.”

For Jovan, personally, finding the right balance was very important. He grew up poor in Philadelphia during the crack-cocaine epidemic, and had overcome a childhood of trauma and neglect in no small part because of caring educators who both supported him and demanded more from him.

And now as an principal, he carries his past with him in everything he does, and based on his ability to relate to kids, especially troubled ones, he’s has garnered a nickname: “the student whisperer.”

On the first day of school, I saw this side of Jovan in action.  A student named Kassir had been disruptive and was bullying other students, and Jovan happened to be walking by when a teacher was talking to Kassir in the hall.

“And the first thing I said to him is, ‘I don’t even know what happened. I have no idea what happened, but let’s just sit down and figure out what happened,’” said Jovan.

Jovan explained that Kassir was in “last year’s mode.”

“So me just sitting there and saying that to him, ‘Kassir, this is a new year. That was last year, this is the new you, and I need to see the best Kassir. That was not the best Kassir.’ That resonated with him.”

After his conversation with Jovan, Kassir went from sulking angrily, sitting on the ground, frowning, to smiling and agreeing to rejoin his classmates.

“It’s a new day,” said Jovan.

The story of Jovan Weaver and Wister Elementary can also be experienced as a radio documentary. The tale is told across the four-episode second season of our podcast “Schooled.”  It’s based on more than two years of reporting about the students, the parents, the faculty, and the huge political fight that sprung from Wister Elementary. You can listen by using the play button above. This is part three.