Premier Charter School in St. Louis: Building Character One Student at a Time

Photo: Motivational speaker Earnest Hart, Jr. with Premier Charter School Board Member Sam Martorelli.

Premier Charter School in the City of St. Louis at 5279 Fyler Avenue is advancing its national reputation for character development one student at a time.

Now in its 16th year of educating kids from kindergarten through eighth grade, Premier is the only charter school in the St. Louis area designated as both a State and a National School of Character by the Character Education Partnership and the Character Plus organizations.

“Character education is at the heart of all we do,” asserts Premier’s Head of School Julie Frugo. In 2011, Frugo was named the Missouri Public Charter School Association “Leader of the Year.” She is a founding member of Premier Charter School, originally known as St. Louis Charter School. She describes Premier’s mission, in part, as providing children of the city of St. Louis with “an individualized education rich in academics and character so the children we serve today can be the leaders of tomorrow.”

In August 2015 Parade Magazine featured Frugo in a cover story called “Operation Good Citizen: Teaching Kids to do the Right Thing in 2015.” In that article, Frugo discussed how Premier strives to sustain a “culture of caring.”

The Parade Magazine article noted: “At Premier Charter School, every one of the 900-plus children in grades K-8 is assigned to one of 46 school ‘families’ that include teachers, custodians, secretaries and administrators. The ‘families’ meet regularly, sometimes eat lunch together and do team-building activities. Students stay with the family’ as long as they’re at the school.”

Frugo observed, “(This) gives students the opportunity to build relationships with students in other grades and with adults…We have a true sense of community, of family.”

The school’s core values of respect, responsibility and caring are “tied to everything we do,” Frugo told Parade. “These values were the result of months of conversation among teachers, students, parents, board members and members of the community, all of them “coming to a consensus on what we felt were the values we wanted to build everything else around.”

“This school draws a very diverse student body,” says Premier Charter School Board Member Sam Martorelli. He taught sixth grade math and coached sports at Country Day School (now Mary Institute/Country Day School) for many years after beginning his teaching career at St. Thomas of Acquin School in the St. Louis Archdioceses.

A Premier board member for three years, Martorelli says, “Our students speak 12 different languages and come from every zip code in the city of St. Louis. Character education is a fundamental aspect of our academic mission.”

Premier Charter School has a 96 percent daily average attendance rate, Martorelli asserts with pride. He credits school leadership and staff commitments to innovative educational programming and creating “a happy, positive environment every day” with achieving that impressive attendance, as well as Premier’s parent-community partnerships that contribute to the school’s “extended family” environment.

“Our kids want to come to school,” says Martorelli.

As part of the educational initiative, Premier’s teachers can elect to invite guest speakers to address students on various aspects of character building in special presentation sessions. This is why Martorelli suggested that Earnest Hart, Jr., a motivational speaker and personal safety coach, be invited to address 100 fifth graders at the school on the topic of building self-confidence and personal respect to live a safer personal life and avoid being bullied. Hart recently gave two, interactive 45-minute presentations to groups of fifth graders in the school multipurpose room.

Julie Leftridge, the Teacher-Leader at Premier who helped arrange Hart’s appearance, explains, “Character education is vital to our academics. If we don’t encourage our kids to foster good interpersonal relationships then our academic programs would not be as successful as they are.”

Bullied by Tough Guys

Earnest Hart, Jr. was bullied by gang members as a kid growing up in urban St. Louis housing projects. As a teenager he mastered boxing, judo and jujitsu and became a world-class kickboxing champion at age 19. Today he is a motivational speaker and personal safety consultant whose clients have included baseball great Ozzie Smith, the St. Louis Rams football team, actors George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, plus businesses, schools and youth organizations in St. Louis.

Earnest’s personal safety programs and seminars for schools and colleges focus on developing self-confidence, awareness of potential risks and knowing how to react in threatening situations to avoid harm. He does not “lecture.” His user-friendly approach uses interactive methods to share and discuss self-confidence, self respect and personal motivation. It is a message that connects with – and resonates -- with students of all ages. When talking with school-age kids such as those at Premier Charter School, it doesn’t hurt that Hart appeared in a number of Hollywood movies, including “Batman & Robin.”

“Earnest’s message to our fifth graders was multi-fold,” says Julie Leftridge. “”He focused on building self worth and self esteem, and how you can use your own personal self worth and self esteem to avoid and dissolve bullying situations.

“We know that people who lack self esteem and self worth often get bullied,” says Leftridge, adding, “Bullying is a systematic imbalance of power. Bullies use that imbalance of power in an effort to (control) and throw off another student or person and keep them in a position of inequality.”

“At Premier, we try to help kids understand that every student can leverage on their strengths, self-worth and self esteem to develop their own character and not ‘play on power.’

“Earnest has an informative, interactive style of presentation that engaged our kids -- he got the message across,” asserts Leftridge, calling Ernest’s presentation a “model of good character development.”

“Kids were taken by the message that they have the power to build self confidence to not only help prevent being bullied but to develop personal characteristics to avoid becoming a bully,” she says, adding, “Ernest put a pre-emptive message in place.

“Interpersonal issues arise in schools and later in life. That’s why Premier Charter School is so dedicated to our character building initiatives,” Leftridge says.

Premier’s approach to character education and academics may be unique: The school does not rely on one specific type of core program. Instead, it utilizes a combination of character education “best practices.”

“These are based on core ethical values of “caring, respect and responsibility, and partnerships with our students, peers, families and the community to help guide students to understand the incredibly positive impact strong ethics can have in every area of their lives,” says Head of School Julie Frugo.

Board Member Martorelli says this innovative approach is advancing Premier Charters School’s reputation for educational excellence in greater St. Louis and across the nation. “I am very happy and proud to be part of this experience,” Martorelli says with a smile.

For information about Premier Charter School, see the website http://www.premiercharterschool.org. For information about Earnest Hart, Jr., see http://www.earnesthart.com/.

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