INDIANAPOLIS — After nearly two decades, leaders at Tindley Accelerated Schools are tweaking the way they serve students and their families.
With the first day of school on Aug. 8, staff is prepping for the new year.
"We are all about preparing kids to not only go to college, but to persist and graduate," said Dr. Brian Metcalf, chief executive officer at Tindley.
This year brings with it new students, or scholars, as they are called at Tindley.
"Ninety-eight percent of our scholars are African American and 2% are Latinx," Metcalf said.
Also this year, the schools are introducing a new way to help those scholars succeed.
"We wanted to make sure we stayed current and relevant," Metcalf said, "but not move away from who we are at our core."
Tindley announced it has scraped the "college or die" motto, which has been used since the schools' founding in 2003.
The new motto is "college is power."
"College is the destination, and we are the path," Metcalf said.
This new path has subtle changes for now. Genesis Academy Principal Ali Ennis said those changes include reworking discipline and better supporting families.
"These shifts will only help students and families, and improve the outcomes for everyone involved," Ennis said.
Ennis said before the rebranding, the expectations at Tindley were intense.
"Tindley is known for being very structured and being very strict on discipline," Ennis said. "Everybody knows Tindley in the Indianapolis area, and you know the high expectations and the rigor with which they approach everything."
However, as the landscape of education changes, so has Tindley.
"Because of that, there were a lot of people who were questioning, 'Wait a second: The old Tindley, if someone was chewing gum, they'd be suspended. Why is that not happening?'" Ennis said.
"We were able to do some amazing focus groups with not only our scholars, but families and teachers and administration to really understand who we are and how we've evolved over the last almost two decades," Metcalf said.
Ennis said this new approach to learning will better meet students where they are, using trauma-informed care and restorative practices.
"We are going to try to work with the student to figure out what's going on," Ennis said. "Rather than put a student out, we are going to work with them and let them know we are not giving up."
"Even though we sort of evolved that a bit, in terms of being able to meet our scholars where they are socio-emotionally, we still hold them accountable for their behaviors," Metcalf said.
According to Metcalf, Tindley fights for underserved students by giving them the means to make generational change and close wealth gaps.
"It's all about curating the opportunities for Black and brown communities, which is what our mission is and has always been," Metcalf said. "We were created to serve the Meadows community because there was a need, and so we want to continue to fill that need."
"We are still the same Tindley. The path might just look a little bit different," Ennis said. "The focus is still getting kids to college. It's still the same high expectations with rigorous instruction and curriculum, but we are embedding things along the way to meet the needs of all students and families to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to get there, not just a select few."
Taran Richardson is a Tindley Accelerated Schools alumnus. He graduated in 2020 after starting with the schools in seventh grade.
"Coming in, I was a little leery of the model because I didn't really know much about the school, but once I became a part of it and learned more, it was more of a motivation type of push," Richardson said.
Richardson said the old "college or die" motto was more positive than negative, despite its intensity.
"For me, it was just a staple there," Richardson said. "It was a part of the school. It's what made the school what it is. It was a little bit rigorous. It was tough at times. It was good."
During his time at Tindley Accelerated Schools, Richardson applied to around 70 colleges and universities. He was accepted to 65 of them and was awarded more than $3 million in scholarships.
"I ended up going to the college with additional credits," Richardson said. "So right now, even though this would be my third year, credit wise, I am a first semester senior."
Tindley's early college program partners with Indiana University, University of Evansville and Grambling State University.
"Our scholars have the ability to earn 56 credit hours by the time they graduate their senior year that they can transfer into their post-secondary institution," Metcalf said.
Richardson is now studying astrophysics at Howard University, a passion he discovered at a young age.
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"As I kid, I always liked watching 'Star Wars,'" Richardson said. "I grew up watching the TV show, 'The Clone Wars' being my favorite TV show. I really love it, and that stemmed me into going into the STEM field and me wanting to discover space and learn about the components within it."
Richardson said he hopes more students will be able to succeed at Tindley thanks to the rebrand.
"By rebranding, they are opening more opportunities for more students to be drawn in," Richardson said.
Metcalf said Tindley's 2022 class had about 40 scholars. Those students were able to collect 450 acceptance letters worth more than $4.8 million in scholarships.
"People know what they get when they come here, although we've evolved a bit," Metcalf said. "It's a household name in the Indianapolis community."
"I think Tindley is very focused on the whole family," Ennis said. "I think we work very hard to make sure that the right supports are in place for students and families on every level."
Richardson asks community members and school leaders to give grace to students.
"If you have a college student or a college student that you know, just send them all the love and support that you can," Richardson said. "We are trying our best, doing the work that we try to do to achieve our dreams."