KIPP Lynn tries fresh approach

LYNN – Tucked away on the second floor of a nondescript office building on Wheeler Street is a charter high school in its infancy.KIPP Academy Lynn (KAL) Collegiate High School enrolled its first freshmen class of 95 students this fall.At the start of the next school year, it will expand, along with the middle-school KIPP Academy that is housed at Holy Family Catholic Church on Bessom Street, to a 68,000-square-foot facility in the Highlands.The KIPP high school will also add a new class every year, until its first graduating class gets their diplomas in 2015.High School Principal Drea DeAngelo said the first semester has been going well.?It?s been fun,” she said. “It?s been an adventure.”Three-fourths of KAL Collegiate?s students in this year?s first class come from KIPP Academy, and one-fourth are new students who were admitted to the school through a lottery system.DeAngelo said 45 children vied for 26 spots. A child must live in Lynn to be eligible to go to the public charter school.?Usually at our middle school, new students come in fifth grade only, and then, technically, we?re part of the same charter, so our middle and high school are the same in the eyes of the state,” DeAngelo said. “And so all of our eighth-graders automatically had a seat in our class here.”The new two-story building will have separate wings for the middle school and high school, and will be able to accommodate up to 850 students, according to KIPP Academy?s website. There will also be a gym and four science labs for the high school.?We?re just excited to have some of the facilities we?ve never had access to before,” DeAngelo said about the new building. “And our kids are proud. They?re going to have a space that they?re truly proud of, that?s their own.”On the floor in the Wheeler Street building, there are four classrooms which share subjects, the computer lab is on the perimeter of one classroom and the cafeteria is also the art room.DeAngelo said KAL Collegiate is different than the other public high schools in Lynn because of the smaller class sizes and overall lower enrollment. Therefore, the teachers know every student?s name and the students all know each other.?You can?t slip through an entire day without someone talking to you, asking you how you are,” she said. “Students know that they can?t hide, it?s just something that they own and that they understand and they feel every day that they?re there.”Classes can range from seven to 30 students, but DeAngelo said classes will average 20 students in the new building.Another difference from other public high schools is the length of the school day.On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, students are in school from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., and from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.?More time in school means more time in class? ” DeAngelo said.But days are not spent solely in the classroom, she said. In the middle of the day, students have an 90-minute elective block.?So if they?re on a sports team, that?s when they have sports practice. We have athletics, arts and academic electives? They?re either at cross country practice running along the beach, or they?re in dance, or they?re in art. So they get that mental break,” DeAngelo said.Ninth-grader Alex Bernadin, 14, who won a lottery spot at KAL Collegiate, said he likes the attentiveness of the teachers.?The teachers here are interactive, and they get to know you on a personal level,” he said.Sherrece Doman, 15, who has been in the KIPP program since fifth grade, said it is exciting to be part of the first freshmen class.?It?s kind of like, I don?t want to say weird, but you don?t really get that real high school experience,” she said. “You know how you first come into high school that already has traditions. You don?t really get that because we have to make it. It?s different.”DeAngelo said one of best parts of now having a high school is that she and a few other teachers have taught some of the high school students in the middle school a