THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509130089
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
THE IDEA WAS BORN last spring, when some neighborhood kids in Park Place told local civic leaguer Rodney Jordan that some teachers at Blair Middle School were not ``respecting'' them.
Jordan, a Park Place resident and business owner, said he tried to explain that respect is a two-way street. But, concerned, he contacted Blair Principal George Boothby to ``try to change the dynamic.''
Out of that grew ``Park Place 100,'' an effort by Jordan and the Park Place Civic League to involve more of the community's parents in their children's education.
As a first step, Jordan said last week, members of the civic league tried to convince 100 parents to accompany their children to the first day of school. They hoped to forge a bond between home and school that ultimately would improve performance among the predominantly black, low-income kids who live there.
``I believe that if you expect your children to learn and you are involved in their learning that's going to make a difference,'' Jordan said. ``I'm a firm believer that people live up to expectations regardless of their socioeconomic background or the other excuses we create that set up these children for failure.
``If teachers don't expect them to make A's, and if parents don't expect them to make A's, they won't.''
The opening day ice-breaker was a rousing success, said Boothby and Barbara Hargrave-Higgins, principal of James Monroe Elementary, one of the city's 10 majority-black community schools.
``It was like our cup runneth over,'' Hargrave-Higgins said. ``I saw folks that I had never seen before.''
``We've had more parents here than we've ever had on the first day,'' Boothby said.
Boothby liked Jordan's idea so much he asked teachers to invite all parents. It was a good way to start the year, Boothby said, allowing teachers and parents to put names to faces and opening the door for partnerships between home and school.
Jordan, who coordinates a new Youth Committee formed by the civic league, said he hopes to turn around the negative image many people outside the community hold of Park Place, which has a reputation for crime and other social ills.
``I sincerely believe that Park Place has the opportunity to provide leadership for the whole city of Norfolk. I see value there, I see hard-working people there,'' said Jordan, a computer software engineer and co-owner of a family-run convenience store on 35th Street.
Jordan, 30, who grew up in Virginia Beach and graduated from First Colonial High, studied computer science at Hampton Institute, now a university.
Roots brought him to Park Place. The family store once served as a law office for his uncle, the late Joseph Jordan, a former city vice mayor and general district judge. His mother, Janie Jordan, retired from Norfolk State University as a math professor.
``I came to live here because I wanted to be part of a community where I could roll up my sleeves and work and, hopefully, make a difference,'' Jordan said.
Part of the challenge is changing the way neighborhood residents view themselves, Jordan said. And that starts with education, which doesn't get much respect in some quarters: Students who do well in school get teased or taunted by peers, he said.
``I want to change the dynamic so that when they do well they are upheld as an example of how to be,'' Jordan said.
Monroe is making changes this year to help students succeed. Hargrave-Higgins said teachers have been given freedom to try new strategies, including some of the innovations that have won Bowling Park Elementary national accolades.
Monroe, for example, is experimenting this year with same-sex classes, which Bowling Park Principal Herman D. Clark Jr. swears by. Hargrave-Higgins said boys and girls each have one separate class in the fourth and fifth grades. And a few parents have bought uniforms for their children, hoping they will catch on.
The school also is easing an education reform model into place at Bowling Park called CoZi, named after James Comer and Edward Ziegler, the Yale University professors who developed it. CoZi emphasizes community outreach and pre-school education.
But nothing, Hargrave-Higgins said, not even money, replaces parental involvement.
``It is probably the single most important factor in student achievement,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Rodney Jordan is spearheading an effort called ``Park Place 100,''
which is involving more parents in their children's education.
by CNB