Inside Storman Academy, the children are not only learning, they are bubbling with excitement and confidence.
Four pre-K students croon the alphabet as Ms. Williams prompts them in sign language. Kindergartners search a wall of words and belt out vowels. Fourth-graders pounce on a trivia match.
“What is the second largest continent?” the teacher beckons.
“Africa!” a girl yelps, taking off in the air.
This may all seem like a dreamland of learning, and that’s because it is.
“This is a utopia, but we prepare students for going out into the world,” Jacqueline Storman Turnage says about the private school she founded 31 years ago, currently serving 100 students from pre-school to 8th grade, located at 10600 Bellefontaine Rd.
Step into Storman Academy and you enter a special place where teachers brazenly invest in every child and students studiously balance technicality with creativity. “My mission is to provide a well-rounded education,” says Turnage.
In doing so, Turnage has created a legendary school and a remarkable legacy of excellence.
A Storman morning kicks off with a character-building power hour, and a student-led convocation in which students learn to become skilled orators. Throughout the day, foreign language classes, drama, computer skills, music and gardening vivify a curriculum rich in reading, math, and social studies. After school, students can stay until 6 p.m. to study, practice lines for the school play, and participate in jazz band, violin, karate and piano.
“We don’t shake a tail-feather without doing our work,” Turnage says. “You have to be terrific academically.”
In addition to academic rigor, read-a-thons, ice cream socials, African Soirees, and galas sprinkle the school calendar like a birthday cupcake, creating bonds between students, parents, and teachers that enrich and inspire.
“This is a partnership education,” says Turnage, who deeply involves parents in the school and makes sure there are drinks and snacks in the activity room where any child can go and eat. “This is a home away from home.”
Further, students must fulfill 200 hours of community service, but a slew of perks are promised. Every fall, students venture to cities like Chicago and Indianapolis to visit museums and other places of learning. In the spring, they partake in a heritage-rich rites of passage ceremony where “we talk about evolving and becoming your own person,” Turnage says. In the past, students have traveled to California, New York, Hawaii, Nassau and Jamaica and now Turnage is planning a trip to South Africa.
With this dynamic education, many Storman students go off to become high achieving communicators, doctors, lawyers, and engineers “who know who they are,” Turnage says firmly.
Turnage bursts with a passion that stirs your hopes. “I go home thinking about my students,” explains the wife and mother of two daughters. “I want every child to have a positive and meaningful educational experience.”
The daughter of a seamstress and a father who led one of the country’s earliest fights to integrate public schools, Turnage grew up among go-getters in East St. Louis who met life’s challenges with a tenacious entrepreneurialism, family-focus, and love of self and community.
What resulted was a nurtured young woman, overflowing with self-pride and a dedication to excellence.
When Turnage began at a predominately white high school her freshman year, she was shocked but not deterred when a teacher gave her a “C” on a writing assignment and refused to change the grade despite her revisions.
“I did not go quietly into the night,” Turnage says. “I wanted her to know that I expected an ‘A’. I was not going to sit back. That was the last ‘C’ I got!”
Knowing how assertiveness and focus inoculates even the most nuanced of life obstacles, Turnage requires students to take public speaking where they learn to define and defend their opinions.
But also, Turnage leads with a deep care, so much so that she personally raised two students whose parents dropped them off at school one day and never came back to pick them up.
“We have to care about someone else other than ourselves,” Turnage philosophizes. “If not, we are a lost people.”
It’s the third day of class, and Turnage swarms the school on foot, greeting bright-eyed students and teachers and cheering on their day.
She points to pre-schooler whose parent she also educated at Storman and radiates pride like a light bulb. She boasts about one young man who was in a gang when he arrived at Storman but after three years of academic prowess, told Turnage “I will make honor society this year!”
Despite her successes, Turnage protests when you call her amazing or special. “This is not amazing. We are just hardworking teachers who have a strong desire to enrich our students,” Turnage says.
As her legacy grows, Turnage wants to increase the number of students, expands Storman to the 12th grade, and invite more community support for Storman Academy.
