BY RON COLE
THE VINDICATOR - YOUNGSTOWN SCHOOLS
It didn't take Patricia Pernell long to recognize that Marvin Kelley was going to be a challenge.
When 10-year-old Marvin came into Ms. Pernell's fifth-grade classroom last year at Harvey Rice Elementary School on Cleveland's East Side he was undisciplined, unruly and generally unaccustomed to following orders.
"He wouldn't sit still and he would rebel against just about everything," Ms. Pernell recalls.
"His grades started to plummet at one time, but I knew if he could catch on to this program, he could achieve."
Change: By the end of the school year, after going through the school's Passages program Marvin was a determined, disciplined student who excelled in the classroom and participated in community service projects outside the school, Ms. Pernell said.
This fall, he was among a select number of sixth-graders accepted to the Garrett Morgan School of Science, a magnet school on Cleveland's Westside.
"It taught us discipline; it taught us that we couldn't just do anything we wanted and act a fool," Marvin said about the Passages Program.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Seven values:
The Rites of Passage program that will start this fall at McGuffey
Center is built around the seven principles of Nguzo Saba, which
represents an incorporation of philosophy and customs common among
many African groups:
Ms. Pernell added, "Marvin made a choice, based on what he learned in this program, to be a success."
Coming to city: Youngstown school officials hope to duplicate that success.
The school district, along with Associated Neighborhood Centers, will start a Rites of Passage program at McGuffey Centre this fall that will be expanded into the schools next September.
The program, developed by social worker Paul Hill of East Cleveland in the early 1980's, is an Afrocentric curriculum based on the seven values of Nguzo Saba, designed to boost the self-esteem, test scores and school attendance of inner-city youths and make them into productive adults.
The curriculum, focusing on African history and culture, is in place in seven public schools in Cleveland, including one that this year was recognized by Gov. George Voinovich as a BEST practice school, Hill said.
Success: Hill, executive director of the East End Neighborhood House in Cleveland, said the program has resulted in significant improvements in grades and behavior for children.
"It does work, and that's the one thing that sold Youngstown on it," he said.
The program, which requires parental participation, will begin this fall with two-hour, after-school sessions for 40 to 50 fourth graders at McGuffey Center, said Wendy Webb, Assistant Schools Superintendent.
Next fall, it will be introduced in a fourth-grade classroom, most likely at North Elementary School on the Eastside, she said. A classroom will be added in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades in each of the subsequent years.
Culturally specific: The program, which features playing African drums, dressing in traditional African garb and participating in African customs and rites, will not only help African-American students get in touch with their history but it's the type of culturally specific program that Ms. Webb said could possibly help attract students back to the city schools.
"In our school district, either you fit in with the typical structure of a school or a classroom or your out of luck" she said. "What we need to do is to allow choice within the schools to meet the needs of kids, and this program does that."
Although the program, paid for with federal funds, will be open to all children, Ms. Webb said she expects mostly black students to enroll. She emphasized, however, that the district already has specific programs for Hispanic children and that she would like to develop others for other minority groups.
Right path: While critics say the program is just another feel-good, do-nothing education reform, supporters say it's a proven way to help put at-risk, inner-city black children on the right path.
"If you're lost in the woods and aren't sure where you're going, at least you need to know where you came from," said Bob Beal, work study coordinator and one of four city school officials who visited Harvey Rice Elementary School last spring.
In order for people to come of age, they need to know about themselves, who they are and where they came from," said Jennifer Miller, executive director of the Associated Neighborhood Centers.
And where they came from is Africa, Ms. Webb said.
Academics: She said the Rites of Passage curriculum, while emphasizing values, is strongly founded in academics and will follow the school district's basic core curriculum, with an emphasis on the accomplishments of blacks in all subjects, from science and math to literature and music.
"We have to try to help kids feel good about themselves because we and they live in a socially toxic environment," Hill said.
"We need to let them know that there is a critical mass of adults who
want to take care of them and help them through the educational process."