A school of her own, with the feel of a family

Like Boston's public high schools, Meg Campbell is a fixer-upper. As principal of a successful three-year-old charter school in Boston's Codman Square, she credits her five siblings with turning their shy sister into the activist and educator she is today.

"Basically, I'm an introvert. I'm a poet. My sisters had to kidnap me to shave my legs," says the self-described fashion disaster. "They had a lot of work to do on me. They still do."

But growing up in southern California, she says, the family of eight was a clan, a tribe, "a team from Day 1." In its embrace, Ms. Campbell and her siblings could find their own ways among people who would always love and challenge them.

"Where else but in a family can you have relationships with people you know so well, who know you so well, who you've always got on your back?" she asks. "Maybe nowhere but in a school like this."

"This" is Codman Academy Charter School, three grades and 80 students strong, expecting to reach 110 next year when its first class hits senior year. Modeled after the pushy, loyal Campbell clan, it's an environment students describe in familial terms. "There's Meg, she's Grandma. Ain [Grooms, dean of enrichment] is Mom. [Junior humanities teacher] Thabiti [Brown] is Dad," explains Jonalis Carrasquillo, a member of the school's founding class. "And that's not counting the aunts."

Operating out of a wing of the state-of-the-art Codman Square Health Center, an anchor in the Dorchester neighborhood where Campbell has lived for 20 years, Codman emphasizes students' physical and emotional health alongside a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum.

"We're coming off of years of cuts in [physical education] in urban public schools," says Campbell. "But everything we know says there's a strong connection between academic achievement and physical and mental health."

Codman's students - all of whom are chosen by lottery - are overwhelmingly poor and black; a number are recently homeless. Fifteen percent of last year's entering freshmen needed to get glasses so they could read the blackboard, and many were dealing with emotional or home situations for which they - and sometimes family members - needed counseling. The health center provides these services free of charge.

Now - with guidance from Campbell, seven teachers, three administrators, and an athletic director - the students are wrestling with Shakespeare and James Joyce. Ninth and 10th graders study and perform plays with Boston's acclaimed Huntington Theatre Company; juniors study physics at nearby Simmons College.

"Some of my friends [at other high schools] say they're not going to college, and I'm like, 'What are y'all schools doing, then?' " says sophomore Marlon Thompson, who has his sights set on Princeton.

Campbell's unorthodox approach has already fostered an uncommonly friendly, poised, and resourceful community of young people. "If you see something you want to change, you just write Meg a proposal and you'll discuss it and figure out a compromise," says Jonalis, who has started a drama club, organized an annual international fair, and made the school's uniforms more colorful. "It's fair. The students have as much say-so as the teachers here, and there's a responsibility that comes with that."

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