The bell tolls, a school answers: Greenwood makes progress amid turnaround order

Parents are converting a storage room at the Elihu Greenwood Elementary School in Hyde Park into a library. Bulletin boards have returned to hallway walls, showcasing student artwork, essays, and math problems.

And students have been rolling up their sleeves in a new science lab, where one recent morning they shoveled their hands into containers of gooey plaster and sculpted models of their schoolyard.

The changes, overseen by a new principal who started this school year, are the first of what should be even bigger changes to come at the Greenwood - one of 14 troubled schools targeted by Superintendent Carol R. Johnson last month for dramatic turnarounds, in an attempt to stave off a state takeover of the schools. read more...