Many students here at Lincoln Park have been missing their arts classes lately due to a course called Comprehensive Math. It is a product of Title One, a federal program which goes towards promoting math and reading.

“This is one of the ways we’re promoting math,” said Lindsay Rodgers, Title One Coordinator, who controls the federal funding at Lincoln Park. “[The goal is] to prepare students to reach a proficient level before graduation…which is a graduation requirement of the school and also falls under both national and state expectations for students.”

There are Title One staff members who teach the math classes—Sarah Marcy and Lynn Parr. Students meet with them two days a week or one day a week based on their individual needs. But how are the needs of each student calculated?

“We’re using an online assessment program offered through Plato Learning,” said Rodgers. “It provides us with benchmark exams [which are given three times a year] to test various proficiency levels in various subjects and can also provide online remediation courses in each subject.” Rodgers explained that they chose the teacher-taught classes over the online courses because junior year is “such a major year.” She also mentioned that the freshman and sophomore classes may also qualify for online instruction time through Plato.

But not all the students were forced into the program. Due to a glitch in the original testing, some were placed in the Comprehensive Math course even though they had proficient scores. Several of them, however, chose to stay.

“I’d rather be in the class than get a low score on my PSSAs,” said junior Cassie Hall. “It is helping me, because a lot of the stuff I didn’t know. It’s not necessarily exciting; I’m educating myself.”

Stelanie Chirgott, also a junior, had similar reasons for staying.

“I felt that it’d be very beneficial to take that class,” Chirgott said. “If you know how expensive SAT and PSSA prep is, to have a free class handed to you, there’s no reason not to take it.”

Chirgott is “really into studying for the SATs and PSSAs.” She is taking an online Kaplan SAT prep course and owns three SAT prep books. She ranks the Comprehensive Math course above all the other methods.

“Nothing helps more than a teacher teaching you. All of these tests are logic-based. I can’t learn from book logic. I have to be taught it,” said Chirgott.

Chirgott also understands the stakes of the PSSAs for Lincoln Park. “If we don’t pass, the arts are going to be gone. For everyone. If you think about the consequences if we don’t pass, it definitely outweighs this class.”

When asked if she would take advantage of the reading course in the spring, Chirgott replied, “There’s no point in not taking something that’s given to you.”

~Taylor Sirko

 

Mr. Poling in 3-D

He went from drilling the O-line to guarding the lunch line, from calling timeouts to putting high schoolers in “time outs,” from play calls to angry parent calls, and from pointing out missed tackles to tackling the job of being a head principal, of a performing arts school.

P.K. Poling, second year principal of Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, has finally found his niche after various teaching and administrative jobs and eleven and a half years of coaching football.  But what is a sports enthusiast doing in charge of arts-minded school Lincoln Park?  He’s doing possibly just what any other family man would do.

“You really hang out with dancers and theater people?” Poling’s friends ask him.  “You used to be an athlete.”  Poling doesn’t see why the two can’t mix.  He defends himself by saying, “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”  

Being principal at Lincoln Park seems to be the ideal job for Poling.  The pay is sufficient enough to support his family, he gets to work with both kids and adults, and the school is not far from his home in Oak Glen, West Virginia.  

When deciding whether or not to accept the position at Lincoln Park, the commute was a surprisingly big factor.  His first administrative job as athletic director and assistant principal at North Gate High School had him on the road for about eight hours a week driving to and from work.  Added up, Poling found that there were better ways he could spend that much time, such as with his children.

For Poling, family life is a priority.  It’s the reason he originally switched from coaching to administration, the pay to raise his growing family, and it is, in part, what made him come to Lincoln Park.  

“I don’t want to wake up one day and [have] my kids older than you guys,” says Poling, referring to the students at Lincoln Park.  More than his football dreams or administrative duties, Poling likes to put fatherhood first. Parenting may be the hardest work in Poling’s mind, so it helps that he enjoys his day job.  

Poling says there is no typical day on the job at Lincoln Park.  The atypical day may or may not, but usually does, include greeting students in the mornings, taking phone calls (not always pleasant ones, he says), and supervising students.  He estimates that four hours of his time each day is spent supervising.    

He says between coaching and being principal at LPPACS, being principal is the much less stressful.  In terms of Lincoln Park’s comparison with other schools’ discipline problems, Lincoln Park barely is on the charts for student issues.  “It’s brains that run a school, not handbooks,” says Poling.  Apparently Lincoln Park has plenty of brains, because it has been running relatively smoothly, especially for its age.

With Lincoln Park’s third year in progress, it is still an infant school.  Poling says one of his everyday tasks is improving it.  This includes making sure the “nuts and bolts” are put together and running the “day-to-day operations.”  He says he was hired less for the arts improvement than he was for the administrative aspects that any school would need.  And that’s all he says he’s there for, too.

Poling says he makes very few choices on the school’s behalf.  He doesn’t really have a say in the board of directors’ plans; he’s just the guy who figures out how they’re going to do it.  For instance, Poling says he is not responsible for the present sports of basketball, volleyball, and golf at Lincoln Park.  When asked about the idea of coaching a Lincoln Park football team, he says “no,” and then for emphasis emits a long string of no-no-no’s.

With that, many a Lincoln Parker’s worries were set to rest.

Poling may be out of his natural element, surrounded by dancers tapping and pirouetting down hallways, musicians gathered in a circle jamming with a guitar and drum, and actors monologuing to thin air, but he can still recognize the talent around him.  Whether he’s in the huddle, at home, or in his office, he says he is ready to give it his best for those he is working for.  He gives voice to the words of co-founder of Lincoln Park and friend, Dr. Trombetta: “We’re here to serve, but we’re not your servants.”

–Logan Thomas

Mr. Poling in 3-D

Lynn Swann proved it every time he jumped up and caught a football. Alex Karras proved it in his successful roles of Mongo in Blazing Saddles and George Papadopolis in Webster. Now, Principal P.K. Poling proves it just by showing up to work every day.

Yes, all these men were football players. But they are not just football players with a period after it. They are football players who proved that arts and football can coexist peacefully and even benefit from one another. Where would Lynn Swann, Super Bowl X MVP, be without his pointe shoes and knowledge of jetés? And where would Alex Karras, the four-time Pro Bowler of the Detroit Lions, be without his brawn for the majority of his roles?

The same goes for P.K. Poling, who coached football for 11-and-a-half years before finding his way to the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, PA. When asked what he applies from football to his career, Poling says, “As a head football coach…I worked with both kids and adults, which gave me the experience needed for this job [as principal].”

Patrick K. Poling graduated from Oak Glen High School in the 1980’s and still resides in Oak Glen with his wife and two children today. In 1988, Poling graduated from college with the hopes of finding a job where he could coach football.

“Teaching jobs were tough to come by,” he says, “so I asked my college advisor, ‘What kind of teachers do you need?’ and he said, ‘They don’t need phys ed teachers, they need science or math.’ So I said, ‘OK, I’m a science teacher!’”

Poling’s teaching jobs led to an principal’s job in East Liverpool where he met Rebecca Manning, the current CEO of LPPACS, who was then a special education director. Poling also knew Dr. Nick Trombetta, founder of LPPACS, since high school. Trombetta was able to see the way Poling worked when Poling was his daughter’s middle school principal. When the position at LPPACS was opened, Poling applied and was unanimously selected for the job. But it should be known this job isn’t the same as most principal jobs. Since this school isn’t necessarily traditional, things run differently at LPPACS.

“Normally, a principal makes a lot of decisions, but it’s not like that here, it’s not a dictatorship. It’s a team effort. I’m like the guy who figures out how we’re going to do [what we’re going to do]. They just tell me, ‘You do this and that.’ And then I figured out the logistics,” says Poling.

But what about a football team? Poling says he doesn’t see football in the near future here at Lincoln Park, nor necessarily in the far future.

“We don’t need a football team. No, no, no, no no no no,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve been there. I’ve got enough to do, and we don’t need a football team. There is absolutely no discussion to start a football team. I always joke and tell people we’ll have football by 2010, and next year, I’ll say 2011,” he says. “I know what headaches go on with that, and I don’t need anything else to worry about.”

The ex-head football coach seems at peace with the way things are going at the school. He’s here every morning (rain, snow, sleet, or hail), standing outside for an hour with his fellow administrators for the “morning greeting.” He shows pride in his students and their work by being at multiple performances and shows.

“It’s funny,” he says. “When my friends see me now, they ask, ‘You really hang out with dancers and theater people? You used to be an athlete!’ And I always say, ‘I died and went to heaven.’”

–Taylor Sirko

Mr. Poling in 3-D

With a background geared more toward the athletic than the artistic, many find P.K. Poling to be an odd pick for principal of an arts school.  Even those close to Poling have taken notice.

“You really hang out with dancers and theater people?” friends ask.  “You used to be an athlete!”

“I died and went to heaven,” Poling responds.

Poling found his way to the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in the fall of 2007.  He has known the school’s founder, Dr. Trombetta, since high school.  Poling had even been principal at the middle school Trombetta’s daughter attended.  Poling was added in LPPACS’s second year, but not for anything artistic.  “I was hired for the nuts and bolts, the everyday operations,” he says.

In his youth Poling had been an athlete.  After graduating he had initially gone into coaching, but as his situation changed, so did his career.  There was more money in education and he had a family to raise.  

Next came a choice of subject.  In 1988, teachers were not in high demand.  Poling had an interest in physical education, but worried about limited job opportunities.  After talking to his college advisor, he decided on science.  

Teaching was not Poling’s only job at that time.  “If you go to be a teacher, you’ll find yourself doing all kinds of odd jobs,” he says.  Some of those odd jobs included cutting grass, washing cars, and even demolition.

As time wore on Poling climbed the ranks from football coach, to teacher, all the way up to his current position as principal.  On the trip up he has learned a lot from those around him, whether it be through positive experiences or not so positive.  

For example, he says, “Let’s just say I didn’t have the best experience with my high school coaches.”  From these coaches Poling says he learned what not to do, particularly when dealing with people.  “You deal differently with adults and kids, especially when you’re in charge of them.”

At LPPACS Poling spends a lot of his time with students.  He spends four hours every day supervising them.  So how do the students at LPPACS compare to students at other schools where he’s worked?  “Students at this school are so much better than what I’m used to. I can’t even put it on a scale for you.”  Though he does admit to some minor setbacks.  “You know kids act like kids; you’re not going to be perfect.”

It’s fair to say that his move to LPPACS has been for the better.  “I used to hate coming to work on Mondays like everybody else, but now I know it’ll be Friday before I blink,” he says.  “Days are anything but typical.”

With the addition of a school basketball team, sports have been a hot topic throughout the halls of LPPACS.  Many are wondering if there are plans for more athletic teams for the school.  Poling insists that if there are, he has nothing to do with it.  “It’s not a dictatorship,” he says.  “It’s a team effort.”

When asked if he would coach a Lincoln Park football team, Poling adamantly refuses.  “I know what headaches go on with that, and I don’t need anything else to worry about.”

–Emma Jayne Stabbe