Although Freeport has no formal advisory program or period, students report that the school feels like a second home to them. Many students say that what is best about Freeport are the teachers and staff. Students can relate to them and feel comfortable talking to them. This becomes clear when students refer to the office staff as their "second moms," and when Ms. Sale-Davis puts her arm around a student and talks to him as she escorts him to class.

Both the emphasis on the development of relationships within the school and the tightly knit structure of its teams ensure that each student is well-known by several members of the faculty and staff. In addition to the academic and behavioral supports students get from the teams, they get an enormous amount of encouragement and inspiration through unusual academic pep rallies, which take place at the end of every six-week semester. During the pep rallies, the principal gives out awards to the teams with the highest attendance, the students with the greatest improvement, and the team with the most spirit, as well as many other awards. All students gather in the school gym, which has been decorated to reflect a particular theme chosen by the planning team. At the rally, teams chant their team songs and the inspirational cheers they have written for the occasion, teachers perform skits and play games about doing well on the TAAS, and the entire community celebrates and encourages students' successes. The noise of students' cheering threatens to raise the roof! Students love the outlet of the pep rallies, which are an important ritual to celebrate the students' hard work and encourage their continued success.

Ms. Sale-Davis meets with new teachers once a month for the first semester to emphasize the importance of relationships. She says, "If the relationship isn't right between the teacher and the student, you can reform until the cows come home but transformation won't take place. Teachers have to show love and affection, and there has to be lots of hugs and touch. Children need to feel our love and caring, in and beyond the classroom - at sports, at academic competitions, at dances."

Parents emphasize the importance of relationships in the school, as well. One says, "The principal welcomes and supports us. She encourages us. Every time she sees me walk through the door, she greets me and remembers my name. It's the same as with the kids. That's important. Names are important."

Strict, Fair, and Respectful Discipline

"Mutually respectful relationships do not happen automatically," says Ms. Sale-Davis. "They depend first and foremost on personal discipline." During Ms. Sale-Davis's first year as principal, Freeport was plagued by violence and fear. Ms. Sale-Davis says, "We had red bandannas on one side, blue on the other. We had children hating children. We had a dead child from a drive-by shooting. Three of the eighth graders were incarcerated for the murder. I thought I had walked into the gates of hell." Since Ms. Sale-Davis has been principal, the school has become a much safer place.

During the 1995 - 96 school year, the C.A.T. rewrote the school's discipline plan. In that year, there were 3,265 discipline referrals, which included such minor infractions as gum chewing and untucked shirttails. In 1996 - 97, the first year of implementing the new plan, referrals dropped to 1,197. In 1997 - 98 the number decreased to 911, and in 1998 - 99, it dropped to 781. In all, discipline referrals decreased by 76 percent between September 1995 and April 2000.

The school has implemented the district's elaborate discipline continuum, which has a clear structure and hierarchy. The process begins with students sitting in the teachers' detention hall, then the principal's detention hall, and then in-school suspension. If these interventions are ineffective, students are sent away from campus for five days to the central school, otherwise known as "the punishment barn." The next step is a one-day "boot camp" run by the county's Juvenile Justice Alternative Placement Education Center. Students may then be assigned to an alternative school for 20 days. They may also be required to perform community service. At the end of the continuum is expulsion, resulting in a judge's decision to send the student to boot camp for 13 weeks.

Recently, the principal implemented a program in which students have the opportunity to help out in self-contained classrooms before (or, preferably, instead of) being sent to an off-site facility. While in the self-contained classroom, these students help the teachers with the school's most severely disabled students. During a visit to the self-contained room we observed a boy whose clothes and demeanor pronounced him "a tough guy" gently knelt down and tied the shoes of a young girl with severe disabilities. Apparently unable to speak, she showed her appreciation by patting his head. By keeping these students within the school's discipline structure, Ms. Sale-Davis is able to maintain control over her kids. "Once they go into the state system," she says, "I have very little say about what happens to them."

While the strict discipline policy has helped to reduce office referrals, teachers and parents say a key element of the reduction is the relationships that Ms. Sale-Davis and her staff build with the students. For instance, one day, an eighth grade student became angry at something and yelled a profanity at the top of his lungs. Because he was standing just outside the principal's office, Ms. Sale-Davis came running out, and powerfully communicated her deep disappointment in his behavior. The next day, the student handed Ms. Sale-Davis a handwritten letter expressing his sincerest apology, requesting Ms. Sale-Davis's forgiveness, and promising that she could trust him from now on. This student was extremely upset with himself because he had disappointed the principal, and feared that he had jeopardized his relationship with her. After he handed her his letter, she hugged him and said, "You know I love you to death."

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