There are educators and then there is Alice Faye Roach, principal of Carnahan High School of the Future.
She began teaching as a youth leading Bible study classes for her peers at Cote Brilliant Church of God. She initiated the church’s tutoring program and even gathered a clean-up group for her O’Fallon Park neighborhood.
Her ambition to help others carried into college, where she worked with the Urban League to teach unmarried teenage mothers about health and nutrition.
By the time she entered the classroom, Roach already had years of experience in showing youngsters how to make good decisions.
“Teaching has always been in my heart,” Roach said. “It’s just a natural fit for me.”
Roach’s motherly approach and devotion to her students helped her win the 2008 Outstanding Principal of the Year award from Teach For America-St. Louis. She was recognized for the school’s dedication to closing the academic achievement gap.
“Dr. Roach really is on the forefront here in St. Louis, as far as realizing what urban education can be like,” said Scott Baier, executive director of Teach For America-St. Louis.
“If you walk in her school, you see an environment that is amazing. She has the complete support of her staff, and she is active at teaching and learning in the classroom.”
‘High School of the Future’
Located on the corner of Broadway and Gasconade streets in South St. Louis, Carnahan is a school undergoing a transition into a high school that will graduate its first class of seniors in 2010. The building has 277 students.
When Roach arrived as principal of Carnahan three years ago from Marquette/Carr Lane VPA Middle School, she assumed control over a school strained by discipline, academic and attendance problems.
“Kids just came to school late all day long,” Roach recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘How could they learn when they’re not here?’”
She set out to change the school’s culture.
To attack the attendance problem and challenge of chronic truancy, Roach hired an attendance officer, Charlie Bean, to patrol the hallways and monitor the 40 percent of kids who did not show up to school on a regular basis.
Each absence without notification or reason meant a phone call home or a knock on the door from Bean and his team of social workers, counselors and administrators.
“My basic belief is that what gets monitored gets done,” she said. “I believe that you have to monitor everything.”
Her efforts paid off.
Carnahan’s attendance rate, approximately 57 percent in the 2005-2006 school year, was 94 percent in 2008. The Special Administrative Board adopted Carnahan’s plan and placed attendance officers in 10 other high schools.
To improve academics, a Ben Carson Reading Room, furnished with audio books, novels and magazines, colorful graphics, beanbag chairs and a sofa, was set up to encourage students to read on their own.
Roach even went as far as setting up an after-school-tutoring program and “Saturday School” to give students extra help. Under the program, tutoring is mandatory for all athletes.
Her efforts paid off once again.
For the first time in the school’s five-year history, it made adequate yearly progress (AVP) in 2008. It was one of only two St. Louis Public high schools (the other was Metro Academic and Classical High School) to meet the state’s progress standards.
“We see the students not as they are but what they can be,” Roach said of Carnahan’s accomplishments thus far. “I might set the tone, but I let the students know they make this school. Many of our kids could not believe that they could really have a school like this where nobody is fighting, kicking, pushing, running around with their pants sagging and all kinds of stuff.”
A visionary
Greg Laposa, one of three Teach For America members at Carnahan who nominated Roach for the award, said as a first-year teacher last year that he was impressed by Roach’s transparency. Her door is always open to invite ideas on how to make the school better.
“The thing that stands out about Dr. Roach is her vision,” said Laposa, who teaches 9th and 10th graders English. “She has a very strong focus on college and has made it clear that we need to do everything that we can to reach our students.”
Roach received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Southeast Missouri State University. She went on to get a Master of Arts in counseling from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and completed her doctorate in educational administration from Saint Louis University in 2005.
In her 37 years, Roach has been a teacher, counselor, instructional coordinator, high school administrative assistant, executive assistant to the superintendent, chief of staff, and special advisor to the superintendent.
Over the years, Roach has garnered a long list of awards, including the 2008 Metlife Foundation Ambassadors in Education Award.
“I tell teachers to treat these kids the way they would want someone else to treat their kids,” Roach said.
“I live by that because I believe that. Even as I make decisions about them, whether they stay or go and what kind of punishment they will have, I still say, ‘What would I want somebody to say to my child?’ And it really makes a difference.”
Roach is a proud parent of two adult children, Kimberly Renee and Brian.
