Students prepare to answer call for success

VIRGINIA BEACH

The Rev. Todd Davidson, a Virginia Beach School Board member, called parents to action at a summit for African American middle and high school boys on Saturday at Tallwood High School.

"Don't wait until it's your child that's shot in the streets," Davidson said during a keynote address. "Don't wait until it's your child having a problem. If you think that it's not your child, that's a threat to every child. We must regain our sense of community."

As the Virginia Beach School Board continued its goal to improve academic performance of African American male students, Davidson's speech was one of several messages for hundreds of students from 11 schools throughout the city at the second annual Realizing the Dream summit.

Through a series of workshops covering topics such as building positive relationships with teachers and avoiding peer pressure, the symposium aims to help bridge the achievement gap for black males, who fall below city averages for graduation and college entrance test scores.

About 1,350 were invited to participate in the program, which delivered a blueprint to overcome obstacles and tap into students' hidden potential to help boys excel in the classroom. It also served to inspire.

Larry Ames, principal at Seatack Elementary School, talked about growing up during segregation, always seeming to land in the principal's office for fighting at the city's only all-black high school, Union Kempsville.

Playing sports changed him a bit, but one conversation with William "Dick" Price, who went on to become the winningest football coach in Norfolk State University's history, finally set him straight. He told Ames no colleges would pick him up with all the trouble he was getting into.

"One person will tell you something in life, you will need to listen," Ames said. "If you believe it, you can achieve it."

Educators said this year's summit was fitting as the nation prepares to celebrate the efforts of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president.

"We hope we enlighten at least one to greatness so they can realize their dreams," said Green Run High School Principal George Parker.

In Tallwood Principal Jobynia Caldwell's own "Yes we can" address, she said that while progress is slowly being made, the summit was only part of the School

Board's charge to increase the graduation rate to 95 percent by 2015 and close the disparity in academic success.

"We can do it," she said. "Yes, we can. This summit is the right thing to do."

Several students agreed.

Tallwood sophomore Jahshim Turnbull acknowledged the efforts being made to promote his peers as student leaders despite familiar images of violence.

"When someone looks at a black male the first thing they see is our clothes and they think we're gangsters," he said. "We are more than that. It's about changing those ideas. Some of the stuff I learned today I didn't know."

"My parents and teachers all want me to try to do my best so I will be successful," said Antonio Robinson, an eighth-grader at Brandon Middle School. "We need this."

This year, the summit also was designed to help parents to be advocates in their children's education and help them at home.

"It is an excellent start in helping boys given all the obstacles they face," said Tonya McClarty, whose son is a freshman at Tallwood. "Some people may ask why single out black males? But we need this. I hope it will motivate these young men academically."

Duane Bourne, (757) 222-5150, duane.bourne@pilotonline.com