A perfect MATCH

Each morning, Principal Charles Sposato of the MATCH Charter School on Babcock Street greets each student at the door with a handshake and a personal note.

Whether Sposato is congratulating a student on receiving straight ‘A’s arranging lunch plans, or asking about a nagging cold, he treats each student as an individual.

‘The teachers here really care,’ says Naman McDaniels, a 16-year-old MATCH junior. ‘It’s a loving atmosphere.’

The word ’empathy,’ printed in large red letters, hangs from the school’s front doors. It is the word of the day.

At 3:30 p.m. as Principal Sposato is frenetically dashing around his school’s foyer making sure some students are in homework lab and reminding others to tuck in their shirts or pull their pants up McDaniels is at a nearby Starbucks picking up leftover treats the coffee shop would otherwise throw away.

McDaniels’ grades are good. When Sposato sees him, instead of sending him to homework lab he asks him to help out in the office answering phones.

Having been at MATCH since the ninth grade, McDaniels attributes much of this success to his teachers, administrators and classmates. The signs that decorate the walls of the school tell of MATCH’s attitude toward its students. ‘We will not give up on you, even if you give up on yourself,’ one reads. Another: ‘What you are doing is important.’

‘I come here every day with a smile on my face,’ he said. ‘Everybody is fun to be around. They make me laugh every day and I make them laugh in return.’

McDaniels, whose father is deceased and whose mother does not work, is one of six children. While a normal day for MATCH students begins at 8:30 a.m., he leaves his Dorchester home by 6 a.m. so he can be at MATCH by 7:30. After arriving at school, he volunteers for numerous morning tasks, such as checking students in to breakfast or signing off campus lunch passes tasks that have earned him the nicknames ‘Mini Sposato’ and ‘Commissioner’ amongst his classmates.

He has already passed his MCAS. He explained he was confident before he took them because MATCH paid for its students to be tutored. He plans on attending college, probably outside the Boston area, and eventually hopes to become a politician.

‘I’d like to be big time like a mayor or president,’ McDaniels said.

‘I think when politicians say ‘No’ to more charter schools, they are being hypocritical,’ he said. ‘They say they want smaller class sizes, and that is what it’s like here.’

McDaniels’ classes have about 17 students each. He said the sizes work because ‘no one laughs when you ask a question.’

‘Sometimes other students explain rather than even the teacher,’ he said.

‘We were reading this book called ‘The Tipping Point,’ and in it, they talked about the close relationship you can have with about 150 people. Here there are about 160, and that book is pretty close because I know almost everybody here.’

‘If I had different classmates I’d probably be less happy,’ McDaniels said.

When he isn’t devoting his spare time to MATCH, he is busy as the assistant manager of the R’B group, Eratic.

McDaniels said his job with the group is ‘to keep their heads in the game.’

‘I suggest music, takes notes at meetings and answer phone calls,’ he said.

McDaniels also travels with the group when they perform, which lately has meant trips to Baltimore.

However, the majority of McDaniels’ days are spent in his school’s new Boston location. After operating for two years out of a Brookline synagogue, keeping track of so much space in their new Boston location is a welcomed change for the MATCH community.

‘At the temple in Brookline, we were sometimes in the basement or on the top two floors; it was really small. This is better than Brookline because it’s big and nothing is off limits. The colors are great, and I like that we can stay late if we want,’ McDaniels said.

Although MATCH boasts technology and media oriented assignments, Naman explained that these aspects of the program have been trimmed down to occasional ‘Media Weeks.’

Straight academics are now the focus, but students are assigned projects like creating films about their neighborhoods, and the school provides students with access to video and digital cameras.

Passing classes at MATCH means earning a 70 percent or above. During homework lab, the students’ drive to succeed is apparent in their enthusiasm and focus. Few students have to be asked to get to work, and the glass windows on the Commonwealth Ave. reveal a cafeteria full of focused and engaged students.

Marvin Hernandez, Naman’s algebra II teacher, said his students need more contact time, therefore the faculty usually stays until 4:30 or 5 each afternoon.

‘It’s whatever is necessary for the kids,’ he said.