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Teacher sees end of diversity's lesson as Lindbergh transfer program winds down
2009-01-14
ST. Louis (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH) - Demetrious Adams' memories of his first day as a desegregation transfer student run from the number assigned to the bus (TSP006) that carried him from St. Louis, to his first impression of the south St. Louis County neighborhood surrounding his new school.The size of the homes the seventh-grader spotted as the bus made its way to Sperreng Middle School 21 years ago led him to an inescapable conclusion about his new classmates in the Lindbergh School District. "It was culture shock to see how they live," he remembers. "I thought, 'They all must be rich.' " Adams doesn't require a trip down memory lane to recall the English classroom he reported to that morning: Now, in his second year as a seventh-grade English teacher at his alma mater, he spends seven hours in that very Sperreng room every day. Teaching in a district where almost 84 percent of the students are white, Adams infrequently delivers a lesson to a fellow African-American. MORE EDUCATION COVERAGE bullet Get schooled on schools at STLtoday's education page, the definitive site for education news in St. Louis bullet Keep up with The Grade, St. Louis's premier blog on education. Lindbergh, like the Pattonville and Ladue districts, is phasing out its participation in a desegregation program that has bused thousands of students from the city of St. Louis to suburban districts. At its peak, the program, administered by the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation, enrolled about 14,600 transfer students. Now, just under half of that amount are participating, with 11 districts continuing to enroll students. Lindbergh opted out of the program five years ago after the School Board determined that district facilities couldn't accommodate students from St. Louis as well as the influx of children from the growing South County area. Jim Simpson, in his first year as the Lindbergh superintendent, said the desegregation program has been an asset for school districts in St. Louis County. But, he said, "The question about whether there would be enough room in the classrooms superseded everything else." Lindbergh currently enrolls 272 transfer students; the last seven of whom enrolled at the start of the current school year. When the youngest of those students graduates in 2017, a program that has sent over 4,000 students (including Adams' son, brother, sister and at least 12 other members of his extended family) from St. Louis to Lindbergh since 1982, will cease to exist. Adams, 35, can't say what will happen when the Lindbergh district is no longer among the options available to St. Louis families. But as one of a handful of former transfer students now teaching in a county school district, he can attest to what that option meant for him: the foundation of everything he has accomplished. "When I came here in the seventh grade I didn't know anything," Adams said. "I couldn't read very well, I couldn't write or spell very well and I had no math skills." The first year was the toughest. Slowly, starting in eighth grade, the Lindbergh faculty awakened the slumbering intellect of a student who never knew, or appreciated, his own potential. Adams credits Linda Franey, the Lindbergh High School reading specialist who drew out an untapped fondness for the written word, for starting him down a path to a bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, his current enrollment in a Ph.D. program and teaching positions in St. Louis, Hazelwood and, now, Lindbergh. "She knew I could do it, and I didn't know it," said Adams. "And without her, I never would have known." While it is every educator's ambition to be the teacher who defines a student's life, Franey points out it is a two-way street. "All teachers try to connect at a special level with their students," said Franey, now a reading specialist at Lindbergh's Long Elementary School. "But not every student is receptive to it. Demetrius was." Regretfully, says Adams, more teachers today shy away from forging the bond he had with Franey out of fear the interaction might be misconstrued as an inappropriate student-teacher relationship. "When kids come to me, I'll talk to them for awhile, but then I send them to the guidance counselor," he said. What's about to change, too, in Lindbergh, is the diversity that added an essential, if sometimes intangible component, to the education of black and white students alike. The transfer program, said Franey, "has raised the awareness outside of this little community. Crestwood, Sunset Hills. We're pretty isolated out here, and when students come from other areas it helps not only the students who live here but the community, as well. It will be a loss. It enriched us." Adams notes that a few African-American families living in the district will continue to send their children to Lindbergh even after the district's agreement with the transfer program runs its course. Still, it won't be the same. "They'll miss the opportunity to be exposed to the diversity and culture of kids that come from a different background," he said. "Even though African-American kids live out here, they aren't able to share the same life span as kids from the city." After landing a position in the only district where he ever wanted to teach, Adams would like to do his part to keep Lindbergh diverse in the post-transfer program era. As he pursues a doctorate at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Adams is looking beyond his seventh-grade English classroom to a position as an assistant principal. He says the message an African-American in a position of authority sends to students of all colors is as clear as, well, black and white: "If I did it, then so can you."
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