The mission

And finally, just what is the goal of Epiphany School? Rev. Daly explains it this way: “I think bottom line, the thing that we do is that most schools’ work with inner city urban, low-income kids is merit-based, so they take the kids that are the brightest or at least the brightest according to these conventional and, I think, stupid markers that we have in our society about who is bright.

You know, I love teaching kids that do well in those conventional markets. It is exciting. But there are also a lot of others kids who are exciting to teach, kids who struggle in school, kids who are really artistic but who have a lot of difficulty in the traditional learning environments. The thing that really made me excited about Epiphany was the idea of a school that wanted to try and be all things to all people, which a lot of people still say is impossible that with the 80 kids we have and the cognitive spectrum, the athletic spectrum, the background spectrum, the racial spectrum is so wide that you can’t succeed with all of them. And quite frankly, a lot of my motivation becomes theological because I really, really believe in the idea that Jesus was saying very emphatically over and over again that all people have infinite worth. I think that our society is so hierarchically based.”

Ms. Daly goes on to say that, “The way I say it is that a lot of our kids have every burden that poverty can lay on you. So they can be brilliant and attractive and gifted and on and on, but if their house isn’t warm enough, or if they come in and say that they’ve been bathing in the sink with cold water because the heat has been shut off or their dad has been living in the car because they are homeless and they are living with grandma or they don’t have enough clothes or there is domestic violence at home or whatever, I think it is very, very difficult to think about school.

And we have kids who are phenomenal who have had very little academic stuff for like two years and then suddenly make these huge leaps and my explanation is that something dramatically changed in their family, or made them feel safe enough in their family that allowed them to concentrate in school and sometimes it is that these kids have been bounced around in one way or another for so long that they just can’t be in that place of safety and trust. So you can teach them what a verb is in every creative way in the world but they just are not in the place to take it in. And then finally, when they are feeling loved and safe enough you can just teach it to them once and it is just like ‘oh yeah, a verb.’

And that is why I think education has really become two dimensional in understanding because what people think is that you just have to present the information more clearly and that’s B.S. You need to make the child feel loved and then maybe they can learn. And so the full service idea is to try to remove any obstacles that is in their way, and if they are homeless then you work like hell to get them a voucher and housing, and if their family is about to go bankrupt you get them a financial planner.

Every kid in the school is screened annually for vision and those that need glasses are given glasses and every kid is screened for hearing and scoliosis and they are taken to the doctor and dentist because that’s an area that they are in a lot of trouble. That whole ‘It Takes A Village’ proverb feels pretty real to us here. But that is not at all to say that we don’t feel at times as though we can be doing a lot better.

There are times when we try to figure out who doesn’t have a turkey for Thanksgiving or who doesn’t have money to buy Christmas presents and we try and help. We’ve paid off people’s heating bills to get that back on and we’ve taken them out to buy clothes. In the best circumstances we feel like we have this amazing partnership with the families.

For Vice Principal Michelle Gomes, one of the four original Master Teachers hired, it is the mission that led her to choose Epiphany over her desire to work in public schools. “I read through a pamphlet of this idea of the Epiphany School and I was like ‘this doesn’t sound right, it’s too good to be true’, you know, 10 kids in a class, full service – I was thinking ‘what’s the catch? There’s got to be something here.’ And so I applied. I was going to be in BPS [coming out of college]. I was going to work in the public school system and I definitely would not have been [working] in private school. It was not what I was interested in doing. But this is very different from any other private school – its low-income students and it doesn’t cost them anything. Its public school children in a private school setting.”

As a former Intern Teacher at Nativity Prep, Principal Robert Dais was a logical choice for the Epiphany faculty. Though he had originally been a business major with plans to pursue that end of his education he, like Ms. Gomes, found the mission of the school irresistible. “We have tremendous opportunities to impact people’s lives that are beyond comparison,” says Mr. Dais. “Conversely, after all, it is twelve hours. This is higher intensity but ultimately we think it is going to affect them positively. This is a great place, but there is a high price. I call it a war of attrition. Either that child who is walking toward you is going to tuck that shirt in or you are going to stop asking him to do it. But you see change in these children and they make mile-long strides but you only see them one inch at a time.

As a group, we are trying to remove all of the obstacles so that there are no more excuses not to learn. We want to be able to say ‘you don’t have heat? We’ll solve that problem. You don’t have a quiet place to study? We’ll solve that problem. You need food to eat? We’ll take care of that, too. Now let’s get down to business and do some work.’ I am very motivated to be here. We have stellar faculty and incredible donors and supporters.”

With regard to any changes in academic structure or class size, Ms. Daly has seen no reason to meddle with success. “Originally, we started with two classes and now we have four. We have no plans to add more grades. We are still pretty convinced about being a middle school although we do have dreams of running an after school program for younger kids in our building which our kids would be involved in running because we think it would be a really good experience for them.”