Chapter Three ----- Spanning the Academic Bridge

I was visiting my mom in Dallas last February 2012 when a call with a “612” area code and “668” prefix appeared on the “missed call” and voicemail functions of my cell phone. I immediately recognized the call, therefore, as being from someone at the Minneapolis Public Schools; a quick look at the other numbers told me that the call was from Rebecca Hamilton of the Funded Programs Office at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

I have found convenient the memorization of some 150 telephone numbers, some of them relevant to people such as Rebecca, but most of them pertinent to family members and others with connections to my students. Telephone numbers of impoverished people change frequently, as folks exhaust the minutes in one plan, can’t pay the bill, and then reestablish cell phone plans with different companies. Land lines are inevitably disconnected for long stretches of time and in any case are on the wane. So in order to keep up with the predictably unpredictable and peripatetic existences of my students and their families, I make sure that I’ve got a bevy of phone numbers and addresses as alternative routes for maintaining all-important communication.

So this call was from Rebecca. Until this academic year of 2012-2013, for which I have moved entirely toward private sources of funding, I had for eight years established an annual contract with the Minneapolis Public Schools as a Supplemental Educational Services (SES) Provider under No Child Left Behind regulations. During the 2011-2012 academic year, there were 42 such agencies contracting to provide tutoring services beyond school hours. Rebecca knew that among those 42 agencies, I was the one most willing to help students who did not qualify for Supplemental Educational Services, so that any arrangement would be on a volunteer, unpaid basis.

Via voicemail, Rebecca briefly told me that she had such a case that she would appreciate discussing with me. Besides knowing about my bottom line willingness to work for free as necessary, Rebecca also understood a great deal about my relationships with my students and their progress under my direction: She had attended the Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet, marveling at the level of skill and talent on display, and bearing witness to the love that flowed among my students, their families, and myself. I talked to Rebecca and others at Funded Programs with considerable frequency; it was as much as a friend as a professional associate that I returned Rebecca’s call:

“Rebecca, it’s Gary,” I said as she answered her phone at the district office, then at 807 East Broadway (now moved to a location on West Broadway in North Minneapolis).

“Hey, Gary. Thanks for returning my call. I just got off a 45-minute call with a mom whose son is in the SPAN program. She was really upset that he does not qualify for SES, so I want to give you the heads-up that I gave her your number.”

“I’m so glad you did, Rebecca. What’s the woman’s name?”

“Shaniah Harrison. And her son’s name is Thomas Benton. She was a lot calmer when I told her that your program might be an option.”

“Okay, so she’s going to call me, right? Does she have a number for me to call her first?”

“She said that her phone was cut off and that she was calling on a friend’s phone. But I’m quite certain that she’ll be in touch.”

“Okay, thanks for calling. I’ll listen to what Shaniah has to tell me, and we’ll work something out.” Rebecca in turn offered generous thanks to me for being willing to work with students free of charge. She asked about my mom. We exchanged other courtesies and closed out the conversation.

Within an hour, I had the call come in from Shaniah, the essence of whose message I already knew. The SPAN program at the Minneapolis Public Schools is for young people with repeated behavioral infractions disruptive enough to warrant being placed in an environment separate from mainstream students. Because such students are already receiving special instruction, they are deemed ineligible to enroll in the SES program. Shaniah explained to me that Thomas was not being challenged enough at school and needed additional help and sufficient challenge to get up to his Grade 8 level, especially in reading and math. The SPAN program had helped him some behaviorally, but she feared that he was falling farther and farther behind academically.

There was no surprise in any of this for me. Virtually all special services programs in the public schools undervalue the capabilities of the students, effectively placing them on a track that is even less worthy to be called educational than is the mainstream course of study that sends the general student population shuffling toward a diploma.

I told Shaniah that I understood her concern and that we would work out a schedule. As we talked, we realized that we had many mutual acquaintances, including a number of her family members who attend New Salem Missionary Baptist Church.

I have ever since my return from Dallas in mid-February 2012 worked with Thomas beginning at about 5:00 PM on Saturdays. Or I have at least faithfully gone by the residence at the appointed time, occasionally to find no one at home--- usually because of some disruptive circumstance but occasionally due to forgetfulness on the part of people whose lives are disordered in the extreme.

Shaniah and Thomas have lived in three residences during the eight months that I have known them. For awhile they had no home of their own and had to shuffle among friends and family members. Nevertheless, Shaniah tried to keep contact with me by using the cell phones of friends or the new ones that she would get from time to time. And, because I knew so many people in the family, I was able to utilize those contacts to keep in touch. Thomas and Shaniah were indeed at home when I showed up early, at 3:15 PM on this Saturday afternoon of 29 September after finding Raul Sanchez-Ruiz unavailable. Thomas and Shaniah now reside in the 3200 block of Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis.

I worked with Thomas for awhile on math skills that he should have mastered coming out of the 8th grade and are now crucial as he takes on Algebra I at Washburn High School. I then modeled an introduction to an essay in response to the prompt, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

This is similar to the kind of question asked on the Grade 9 Writing Test that a student needs to pass in order to graduate. Thomas chose Jamaica and identified understanding family life, trying a variety of food, and learning more about holidays and customs as three topics around which to order internal paragraphs. I modeled the introduction, he wrote the second paragraph, I straightened this out for him and explained the importance of keeping on topic within a paragraph, then left him with the task of doing the remainder of the body (paragraphs three and four) on his own. I told him that I would check the paragraphs that he writes at our next session and would model the conclusion for him at that time.

Thomas is still in the SPAN program, his continued enrollment having been determined in a meeting that I attended near the end of his Grade 8 year, just three months after making his acquaintance, at Shaquia’s request. His teachers were adamant that Thomas exhibited enough inappropriate behavior that he should not be returned to mainstream classes until he had proven himself in high school. Shaniah was given the choice of taking Thomas out of SPAN and mainstreaming him, in which case his behavior was likely to get him expelled; or continuing to receive SPAN services until he had proven that he was ready to go the mainstream route. Since expulsion would mean recourse to alternative schools even worse than the public schools and even more wretched than the special services program, I counseled Shaniah to take his teachers’ advice and keep Thomas in SPAN until his behavior indicated that he was ready for regular classes. Thomas is polite, soft-spoken, and eager to learn in my academic sessions with him. I have observed him for one school day, and his behavior was fine. But I fully believe that when presented with unchallenging material he gets bored, and that there are components of his psyche at this point that lead him to act out in given situations on certain school days. So for now I am keeping tabs on the weekly unfolding of events and monitoring Thomass prospects for taking on a regular schedule of classes.

All of this makes Thomas’s sessions with me even more important. He will get most of his education with me during our weekly session. His writing is currently rather rough, but within two to four months he will be writing the quality of essay necessary to earn him a passing grade on the Grade 9 Writing Test. All of my students have passed this test and the Grade 10 Reading MCA, the only other exam the passing of which is necessary for graduation. In the case of the writing test, I take my students through a highly efficient process by which they learn to write introductions and conclusions based on my models, work through the paragraphs of the body until they learn to stay on topic, and--- boom--- they’re ready.

The fact that only 60% of kids from challenged economic circumstances pass the Grade 9 Writing Test would be a head-scratcher if I didn’t know the lackadaisical instruction prevailing in the Minneapolis Public Schools as I do. I stress to my students that they are certainly free to identify more than three main topics for the internal paragraphs, and that there is nothing sacred about the over-prescribed five-paragraph essay--- but that those who grade these exams will be looking for at least five paragraphs, so that at minimum they should identify those three main topics and write paragraphs around these, in addition to introductory and concluding paragraphs.

This formula has led to grade level performance and above on the Grade 9 Writing Test for all of my students. So we’ll get Thomas on a path to pass his Grade 9 Writing Test, his Grade 10 Reading MCA, graduate from high school, and in the meantime train for the ACT and a viable knowledge base to take into a college or university setting. Thomas will not have the academic weight and ballast that students who have spent longer periods under my instruction will have, but he will be prepared for further knowledge acquisition at the post-secondary level.

Thomas remains one of the many student recipients of my volunteer efforts. He is one of a bevy of students for whom I have not yet found a private donor. This past summer my brother-in-law asked me if my work with students in the summer was funded or not. The detailed answer would have included the information that some of the students with whom I continued to work in the summer had private donors supporting their participation, while some did not.

My reply was more succinct and more resonant with my thoughts as to my relationship with my students: “I had a very good spring via the contract with the Minneapolis Public Schools. There is enough money available to take five of these kids to Winona for the Shakespeare festival and to work with others frequently throughout the summer. I don’t worry about whether a particular activity or time span is specifically funded. My bond with my students and families is such that fine distinctions of time and schedule are tangential to our relationship. I call them frequently for various reasons, and they similarly call me. We get together throughout the year, because we like each other and because we’re all bound up in this quest for knowledge thing.”

I take great satisfaction in knowing that Shaniah Harrison thus had a lifeline for her son, and that Thomas Benton is now spanning the academic bridge toward success in the only earthly sojourn we know with certainty that he’ll have.