Meet Ms. Mills: Miracle worker
Published: June 5, 2005
Rose-Marie Mills wasn’t sure she wanted to be principal of Middle School 222 in the South Bronx when the job was offered to her in December 2003.
She had made anonymous visits to the school on Brook Ave. and was shocked by what was going on in its classrooms. “What I saw was an injustice to everyone in the building — kids were just running wild and it was out of control,” she told the Daily News.
But all that has changed — and parents and school officials credit Mills as the reason MS 222 has become one of the most successful turnarounds in the struggling school system.
“I like to call Ms. Mills the miracle worker,” said parent Shirline Little. “She came in with a plan and it worked.”
The results have been astounding.
Crime inside the school is down 92.3%, with only a single crime committed in this academic year compared with 13 during the 2003-2004 school year.
Teacher turnover also has slowed tremendously. Last year the school spent more than $100,000 to cover teacher absences. This year the cost has been cut to only $4,000.
To understand the significance of the changes Mills and her team of teachers and administrators have ushered in, one must understand just how bad the school was.
Eight principals had come and gone over five years. Good teachers often left for better schools, and MS 222 was such a miserable place to work that teacher absenteeism was sky high.
There were rarely any textbooks in the building, which also happened to be rat infested.
“It wasn’t like there was one or two things wrong here … everything was wrong,” Mills said.
She had been a part of resurrecting another failing school, MS 301 in the Bronx, but there she was an assistant principal.
Before joining MS 222 she fretted about whether it would be the right career move to try to do it again. “It was so bad that I figured it couldn’t get any worse,” Mills conceded.
She started as principal on Jan. 20, 2004, and right off the bat was in regular contact with Rose DePinto, an aide to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein who was tasked with helping Mills find ways to keep the school from self-destructing.
Only weeks before, MS 222 was named one of 12 Impact Schools by Mayor Bloomberg, who vowed to restore order to dangerous schools by flooding them with cops and exposing reasons behind the chaos.
MS 222 underwent a top-to-bottom security assessment with great input from police.
Mills examined everything — hallway lighting, dismissal procedures and whether the custodian was stocking paper towel dispensers in the bathrooms.
A new alarm system was installed, along with camera surveillance and student ID card systems — making it easier to monitor students.
“In the first few weeks, we made sure everyone knew what the rules were,” Mills said, noting that a code of conduct was posted throughout the building.
Proper attire was required, a student detention room was created and children were suspended for major infractions.
Instead of having all 1,100 students enter through the same door, students were told to enter through various, specific doors. Guidance counselors greeted them while safety agents made sure students were properly dressed. Ineffective teachers were removed, some being transferred and others fired — not an easy feat because of a tangle of union rules. Even a custodian was fired for not doing basic tasks.
The Education Department sent in new teachers who were certified in their subject areas.
“You had some people who wanted chaos, because in chaos they don’t have to get anything done,” Mills said. Much of the early work involved making sure all of the adults in the building were doing their jobs.
“If there is a problem with kids roaming the hallways, some adult is not in the right spot,” Mills said.
For the first time in years, teachers said, it feels like actual learning might take place there.
Turning around student performance still has a long way to go. Reading scores went up 2 percentage points this year, but still only 6% of eighth-graders are reading at grade level.
But school officials believe the scores will improve now that Mills has created order out of chaos.
“She had a mission and a vision to really shape up this school, and she has sustained it,” DePinto said.
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