State grant helps district target ninth-grade boys

Black male teens are the most likely to drop out of school.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district is launching a BOAT designed to encourage ninth-grade boys to achieve academically and graduate from high school.

Beating Our Achievement Gap Together will be funded with a $545,632 state grant that is renewable for a second year at the same funding level.

Dawud W. Abdullah, safe and drug-free schools manager for the district, told the school board Tuesday that the program is part of Gov. Ted Strickland’s initiative to address the graduation and achievement of all first-time ninth-grade males in general, and black male teens specifically.

That’s the group most at risk for dropping out of high school, he said.

State statistics show that only 60 percent of black males in Ohio’s nine largest urban school districts graduate, compared with 73 percent of white males and 71 percent of Hispanic males.

Securing the state funding was a competitive process, and the school board will be asked to formally approve the program at its Oct. 23 meeting, Abdullah said.

The program objectives are to increase academic achievement, decrease suspensions, increase graduation rates and improve school/community relations.

The district will be required to hire two community “linkage coordinators,” one to work at East High School and one to work at Chaney High School. Both also will spend time at Youngstown Early College.

Dr. Wendy Webb, superintendent, said the program also must win the approval of the state oversight commission regulating district spending because it involves adding personnel. Youngstown is under state fiscal emergency because of a budget deficit.

Youngstown has 277 first-time ninth-grade boys at East, Chaney and YEC, and that will be its target group, although the district hopes to expand some of the effort to all 366 males in the ninth grade.

BOAT will take an “intensive/nurturing” approach, Abdullah said, building relationships with the target group and their families.

The program will create a support network around the young men that will engage parents and students in the educational process, making sure they understand the requirements for advancing to the 10th and 11th grades, he said.

There will be special academic support, monitoring and coaching for the students.

The goal will be to help build self-esteem and provide intellectual stimulation activities, Abdullah said.

There also is a component designed to enhance the cultural competency of the educational staff, he said.

gwin@vindy.com