By B.A.D. TCHR
Students step through the doors of Phoenix Academy of Excellence in Miami Gardens, Fla., with skepticism. For many, school is a place that has already shut them out, or one they have learned to shut themselves out of. They arrive guarded, mistrust visible in posture and tone. Some have been suspended so often that classroom norms feel unfamiliar, boundaries are distorted, and disrespect must be unlearned before respect can take root. Others are multiple grade levels behind, and each year their futures are shaped by someone else’s low expectations, sometimes even their own.
Before lessons or test scores, LaToya Tucker-Robinson confronts that mistrust directly. Drawing on years in alternative education and a honed intuition, she begins with trust, laying a foundation sturdy enough for possibility to take hold.
“Before you can educate them,” Tucker-Robinson said, “you have to undo what they believe about school and about themselves.”
At Phoenix, she said, the work must be intentional. Acts of insubordination, absences, and learning gaps are not treated as proof of inevitable failure. They are signals that demand steady expectations. Those expectations serve as scaffolding through clear rules, consistent consequences, and visible follow-through, making care and responsibility inseparable.
Tucker-Robinson does not look away from the world Phoenix students inhabit, a reality rarely acknowledged in policy debates that label children as misfits without naming the conditions that shape them. Instead, she names the forces that make schools like Phoenix necessary.
For many students, and in some cases most, cyclical chaos forms the backdrop of daily life: family conflict that never cools, aggression passed from one generation to the next, and the weight of economic strain.
“They’re living without a real support system,” she said. “What looks chaotic to outsiders is normal to them.”
Those realities shape Phoenix’s daily work. The school functions as a classroom and a stabilizing force, a place where discipline and structure coexist, not to excuse behavior, but to see the child behind it, still hoping to be seen.
Expectations are easy to declare and far harder to sustain. The emotional labor required to maintain them is often overlooked.
For Tucker-Robinson and her staff, upholding standards demands patience, consistency, and endurance. Teachers confront academic gaps while navigating distrust, trauma, and disengagement. Progress is broken into steps that students can realistically reach.
“We build the steps,” Tucker-Robinson said.
Phoenix is not a fit for every teacher, no matter how polished the résumé. On paper, experience can impress. In practice, classroom management determines who stays.
“Educators struggle when they lack classroom management, resist consistency, or fail to center students,” Tucker-Robinson said. “Those who see children as obstacles rather than responsibilities do not last.”
Traditional measures often miss what matters most at Phoenix. Report cards and test scores rarely capture the quiet, hard-won progress students achieve.
When a student begins at the lowest level in reading or mathematics and makes even modest gains, that progress is recognized. Growth, regardless of scale, matters.
“We don’t allow our students to fail,” Tucker-Robinson said. “Failure is not an option.”
Some decisions test the limits of leadership. For Tucker-Robinson, the most difficult are often the most counterintuitive: releasing students who need Phoenix but whose actions threaten its vision.
“They were sowing seeds that could undo everything we were creating,” she said. “We’ve come too far to let a few students destroy it.”
The cost is personal. Removing a student runs against the purpose of a place like Phoenix. Yet at times, the survival of the broader community depends on that choice.
Tucker-Robinson is held accountable for outcomes shaped by years of instability that precede students’ arrival. She and her teachers are evaluated on attendance patterns, behavioral data, test scores, and graduation timelines that extend beyond a single academic year.
“Every student wants to learn, whether they admit it or not,” she said. “Their success drives me.”
Standing at the center of that work, Tucker-Robinson rebuilds trust where it has been broken, offers structure where there was confusion, and holds firm to the conviction that every student, especially those written off elsewhere, can still move forward.
“Without Phoenix, many of our students would fall through the cracks, and the system would move others into settings with fewer supports,” she said. “But accountability matters here. We meet students halfway. The system hasn’t kept pace with their needs, but students still have to buy in. When they do, we stand in that gap with them.”
Leave a comment: