Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
16
High school seniors mentor black students
ORLANDO â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�šÃ”š· Several dozen freshmen amble into the high school conference room. Most wear baggy jeans and oversized T-shirts. A few have attitudes, and hairstyles to match. All have struggled in school.
Just as they pass through the door, some well-groomed seniors dressed in white collared shirts and ties grab the underclassmen, clasp their hands and greet them.
Defying the age-old tradition of older students putting younger ones in their place, a group of two dozen students at Jones High School hope to succeed where the state and most school districts have failed -- in overcoming gene
rations of underachievement among African-American males.
"My goal f
or you ninth-graders is for you all to take another step up and understand that education is serious," said senior Willy Joseph as he stands in front of the conference room on a recent morning.
"My second goal is for us to come together as one."
Willy is the chairman of Florida's first Minority Achievement Committee or MAC. Modeled after a 15-year-old effort at Shaker Heights High School near Cleveland, the group assigns academically strong seniors to mentor struggling freshmen.
Everyone there is a black male.
Like many states, Florida has yet to conjure a magic formula to help black students succeed. Less than a third of the state's black schoolchildren can read at grade level on state tests. By comparison, about two-thirds of white students and almost half of Hispanic students pass stat
e reading tests.
At Jones, the situation is worse. With only 5 percent of freshmen reading as they should, Principal Lorenzo Phillips is ser
ious enough about the MAC idea to let students miss one hour of class for the first monthly meeting.
He wants them to hear the message from students like Willy.
Standing before the room of about 50 young men seated at rows of tables, Willy tells the story of how he attended an English-speaking elementary school in the Bahamas, but his Haitian mother could not help him because she spoke only Creole.
"Not understanding my mom was one problem," he tells the hushed audience.
Willy faced more trouble when his family moved to Florida three years ago.
"When I entered middle school, I was suspended three times -- each time was for fighting because I wanted to get back home," said the former discipline-problem student who is now a varsity football player with a 3.8 GPA.
Leaning against a cabinet on the
side of the conference room, volunteer Albert Goodman whispered: "Each one of them has a story that will blow your mind."
Goodman, a senior tax associate at CNL Financial Group, brought the MAC id
ea to Jones. He had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic when a May rain stranded him in the hotel and made him a captive audience to CNN, which was airing a segment on Shaker Heights' MAC.
For weeks leading up to Jones' inaugural MAC meeting, the seniors planned. They had conference calls with Shaker Heights students and watched a video with clips of MAC meetings in the Ohio school. They talked about which seniors would tell their own stories.
Faculty adviser Valerie Williams helped them select freshmen to be mentored, but it's the students -- not the adults -- who run the show.
Senior Andy Charles beamed as he rested an arm on freshman Brandon Toliver's shoulder.
"He's from the neighborhood. I've been knowing him since he was young,&q
uot; said Charles, who is supposed to watch out for Toliver this year.
"I know what he's been through and he knows what I've been through, so it makes sense to put us together."
Toliver said he was excited to be part of the program. When admin
istrators called to tell him about it, "I thought they were playing," he said. He said he made mostly B and C grades at Lee Middle School and hopes this will help him continue improving.
Freshman Alvin Williams said he sees some potential. He said he was impressed that upperclassmen would even care. "They are taking time out to help the kids who need help," he said.
The key is for the freshman to connect with the senior, said Shaker Heights academic adviser Mary Lynne McGovern, who has worked with that school's MAC program for 15 years.
Advice from fellow students hits home, McGovern said, because struggling teens are "sick of listening to their parents and teachers and other adults."<
br>
No one has tracked test scores, but McGovern estimated that about a third of the underclassmen improve, a third remain the same and a third regress after going through MAC.
************
You might as well look for a magic formula because science indicates the negro's average I.Q. is 85, one standard deviation below the average I.Q. of whites. By
the way, Jones High School is 97.5% nigger.
T.N.B.
High school seniors mentor black students
ORLANDO â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�šÃ”š· Several dozen freshmen amble into the high school conference room. Most wear baggy jeans and oversized T-shirts. A few have attitudes, and hairstyles to match. All have struggled in school.
Just as they pass through the door, some well-groomed seniors dressed in white collared shirts and ties grab the underclassmen, clasp their hands and greet them.
Defying the age-old tradition of older students putting younger ones in their place, a group of two dozen students at Jones High School hope to succeed where the state and most school districts have failed -- in overcoming gene
rations of underachievement among African-American males.
"My goal f
or you ninth-graders is for you all to take another step up and understand that education is serious," said senior Willy Joseph as he stands in front of the conference room on a recent morning.
"My second goal is for us to come together as one."
Willy is the chairman of Florida's first Minority Achievement Committee or MAC. Modeled after a 15-year-old effort at Shaker Heights High School near Cleveland, the group assigns academically strong seniors to mentor struggling freshmen.
Everyone there is a black male.
Like many states, Florida has yet to conjure a magic formula to help black students succeed. Less than a third of the state's black schoolchildren can read at grade level on state tests. By comparison, about two-thirds of white students and almost half of Hispanic students pass stat
e reading tests.
At Jones, the situation is worse. With only 5 percent of freshmen reading as they should, Principal Lorenzo Phillips is ser
ious enough about the MAC idea to let students miss one hour of class for the first monthly meeting.
He wants them to hear the message from students like Willy.
Standing before the room of about 50 young men seated at rows of tables, Willy tells the story of how he attended an English-speaking elementary school in the Bahamas, but his Haitian mother could not help him because she spoke only Creole.
"Not understanding my mom was one problem," he tells the hushed audience.
Willy faced more trouble when his family moved to Florida three years ago.
"When I entered middle school, I was suspended three times -- each time was for fighting because I wanted to get back home," said the former discipline-problem student who is now a varsity football player with a 3.8 GPA.
Leaning against a cabinet on the
side of the conference room, volunteer Albert Goodman whispered: "Each one of them has a story that will blow your mind."
Goodman, a senior tax associate at CNL Financial Group, brought the MAC id
ea to Jones. He had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic when a May rain stranded him in the hotel and made him a captive audience to CNN, which was airing a segment on Shaker Heights' MAC.
For weeks leading up to Jones' inaugural MAC meeting, the seniors planned. They had conference calls with Shaker Heights students and watched a video with clips of MAC meetings in the Ohio school. They talked about which seniors would tell their own stories.
Faculty adviser Valerie Williams helped them select freshmen to be mentored, but it's the students -- not the adults -- who run the show.
Senior Andy Charles beamed as he rested an arm on freshman Brandon Toliver's shoulder.
"He's from the neighborhood. I've been knowing him since he was young,&q
uot; said Charles, who is supposed to watch out for Toliver this year.
"I know what he's been through and he knows what I've been through, so it makes sense to put us together."
Toliver said he was excited to be part of the program. When admin
istrators called to tell him about it, "I thought they were playing," he said. He said he made mostly B and C grades at Lee Middle School and hopes this will help him continue improving.
Freshman Alvin Williams said he sees some potential. He said he was impressed that upperclassmen would even care. "They are taking time out to help the kids who need help," he said.
The key is for the freshman to connect with the senior, said Shaker Heights academic adviser Mary Lynne McGovern, who has worked with that school's MAC program for 15 years.
Advice from fellow students hits home, McGovern said, because struggling teens are "sick of listening to their parents and teachers and other adults."<
br>
No one has tracked test scores, but McGovern estimated that about a third of the underclassmen improve, a third remain the same and a third regress after going through MAC.
************
You might as well look for a magic formula because science indicates the negro's average I.Q. is 85, one standard deviation below the average I.Q. of whites. By
the way, Jones High School is 97.5% nigger.
T.N.B.
