Mentor Program Shows What Black Kids Need

Mentor Program Shows What Black Kids Need
Leonard Pitts, Jr.

"I sure hope Timothy doesn’t come to school today."

When that thought came to mind, said Frederica Wilson, surveying the faces at the conference table in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools headquarters, she knew she had a problem. After all, she was a school principal and a black. And Timothy was a student, and black. But Timothy was also a terror and as she drove to school, she found herself hoping he wouldn’t be there.

The thought shocked her. If she dreaded Timothy, she said, how must her Hispanic and white teachers have felt about him? And why was it every time she held a disciplinary conference, it was for a black boy? Why were they the ones who always seemed to be in trouble?

So she started meeting with them, "trying to find out why they were so angry and why they were so disruptive and why they wanted to fight all the time." Then she started calling men in to help her.

Fourteen years and more than 15,000 boys later, Wilson is a Florida state senator and the mentoring effort she started has become the 5000 Role Models of Excellence. It operates in 91 Miami-area schools and claims better than 95 percent success at keeping its boys out of trouble with school officials and the law.

Recently, Wilson and some of the Role Model men were joined at a conference table by boys who became men under the program.

One of them is Kionne McGhee. Child of a single mother, he was suspended from school 47 times, labeled emotionally handicapped and learning disabled. Today he is an assistant state attorney. "The problem was, I was acting out because I needed a black male or somebody that could relate to me," he said, as opposed to someone who understood him only "through theory."

Mentor Program Shows What Black Kids Need
Leonard Pitts, Jr.

"I sure hope Timothy doesn’t come to school today."

When that thought came to mind, said Frederica Wilson, surveying the faces at the conference table in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools headquarters, she knew she had a problem. After all, she was a school principal and a black. And Timothy was a student, and black. But Timothy was also a terror and as she drove to school, she found herself hoping he wouldn’t be there.

The thought shocked her. If she dreaded Timothy, she said, how must her Hispanic and white teachers have felt about him? And why was it every time she held a disciplinary conference, it was for a black boy? Why were they the ones who always seemed to be in trouble?

So she started meeting with them, "trying to find out why they were so angry and why they were so disruptive and why they wanted to fight all the time." Then she started calling men in to help her.

Fourteen years and more than 15,000 boys later, Wilson is a Florida state senator and the mentoring effort she started has become the 5000 Role Models of Excellence. It operates in 91 Miami-area schools and claims better than 95 percent success at keeping its boys out of trouble with school officials and the law.

Recently, Wilson and some of the Role Model men were joined at a conference table by boys who became men under the program.

One of them is Kionne McGhee. Child of a single mother, he was suspended from school 47 times, labeled emotionally handicapped and learning disabled. Today he is an assistant state attorney. "The problem was, I was acting out because I needed a black male or somebody that could relate to me," he said, as opposed to someone who understood him only "through theory."