Twenty-seven of them are still here, laboring over long division. Teacher Pat Surver swoops from desk to desk, occasionally calling out, "Show your work, my darlins!"

Suddenly, two boys blow through the door. They'd had to dash home first.

"We do anything to get here," explains Kyle Poe, 10. "We need the extra help."

Such is the spirit at Ninth District Elementary, where teachers work late, the principal comes in on Saturdays, and students turn stereotypes upside down.

Located one block from public housing, Ninth District serves the kinds of children who are supposed to be difficult to educate. Eighty percent of them live at or near the poverty level, and many of their parents struggled in school. Only 12 percent of Covington adults have college degrees, the U.S. Census says.

There are children at Ninth District who do all the laundry for their households. Or get their younger siblings up and dressed every morning. Or don't know what it's like to have parents read them a story.

"One weekend two years ago, we had one parent murdered and another one shot 10 times and survived," Principal Rick Ross says.

Difficult circumstances

He and his staff understand difficult circumstances. But they don't tolerate excuses. And last spring, Ninth District delivered the highest test scores in the history of the Covington school system.

Its reading score of 90 ranked in the top third statewide, matching levels achieved in suburbs like Florence, Burlington and Erlanger, state records show.

The school's population is 27 percent African-American, but there is no gap between the scores of those children and their white classmates.

Even nationally, Ninth District holds its own. Last spring, its third-graders performed better than 54 percent of students nationwide on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. That's a 25 percent improvement over last year.

What's going on?

Staff members point to high expectations, help from a state teaching expert and good ideas adapted from other schools. They credit a family-like atmosphere that keeps the focus on kids.

"Mr. Ross is a big part of it," science teacher Paula Roll says.

Colleague Lisa Mackin agrees.

"What he says is, 'Don't come to me complaining. Give me solutions that have to do with student achievement,' " she says.

Ross arrived at the school in 1999 as an assistant principal. When the top job came open a year later, he made an unlikely candidate: He was 27, and his teaching experience was limited to four years at a high school.

Ninth District's Old Guard grumbled. At a daylong meeting, the school's site-based council - two parents and three teachers - haggled over whom to hire.

Roll fought for Ross. She had a feeling about him, she says now, a grandma's intuition. She wouldn't budge, and Ross got the job.

He quickly made it clear that Ninth District's students would achieve, and anyone who harbored doubts should consider moving on.

A half-dozen teachers did. At the same time, the school's test scores triggered a state audit, followed by the arrival of Dewey Hensley.

Upbeat help

When Kentucky schools falter, state officials send in a "highly skilled educator" to help out. Hensley, now principal of Bates Elementary School in Louisville, had an upbeat attitude that was contagious, teachers say.

He also made radical suggestions, such as combining third- and fourth-grade classes.

That's not the norm. Many Kentucky schools have "ungraded primaries" in which first-, second- and third-graders are mixed together for some lessons. But fourth grade is typically treated as a separate animal, because that's when Kentucky students begin taking state tests.

Hensley's idea was to prepare kids better by introducing the material in third grade.

It was a hard sell at first. Teachers hated the upheaval, but when Ross said they could go back to the old way, nobody wanted to admit defeat.

Now the combined classes work so well that other schools send teachers to observe.

Ninth District also benefits from grant money that flows to low-income schools. Overall, the Covington district receives about $12,000 per student in state, local and federal funds, according to the Kentucky Department of Education. That's about $4,500 more than suburban districts like Fort Thomas.

Using its resources

Among the ways that Fourth District uses its resources, the human and cash variety:

• A week before school starts, teachers visit the homes of every child in their classes, handing out supplies and introducing themselves to parents. This helps parents see teachers as allies, in contrast to the adversarial relationships they may have experienced as kids.

• Every morning, children break into 32 small groups for a reading program known as direct instruction. Following a script, teachers and other staff, including the school nurse, lead them in sounding out and repeating words. Children are tested every five sessions, moving to higher or lower groups when skill levels change.

Before this program, maybe 5 percent of students left kindergarten able to read, Ross said. Now it's 85 percent.

• Once a week, Ross reviews a sample of each student's work and writes a comment in the margin. Kids who are faltering get a "pep talk" from the principal.

• On Saturdays, children come to Ninth District for one-on-one help with their writing.

• Three times a week, as many as 30 of them stay after school for "masters class," a math review with teacher Pat Surver. The next day, the youngsters explain the homework to classmates, a coveted responsibility that motivates others.

"We have very bright students here, and we see our children that way," says Surver, a veteran teacher who retired from the Cincinnati public system. "We're doing the work we're supposed to be doing."

Trey Drake, 11, is one of the regulars at what he calls Surver's "college class."

To him, it's perfectly natural to keep learning after school. "Work comes before playing," he says.

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com