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9 academy boys selected for 2-week study-skills camp
By Denise Dick
youngstowN
Nine Stambaugh Charter Academy students are among 50 Ohio eighth-graders who will spend two weeks this summer honing their study skills.
Ryan Parker, Alex Thompson, Derek Sanders, William Eldridge, Deon Shuler, Shaquez Griffin, TyRan Grier, Kyle DeWitt and Landin Temple were selected from more than 1,500 students from across Ohio.
They’ll spend Sunday through June 24 on the campus of Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, at the Chase Bank W.E.B. DuBois Talented Tenth STEM Education Academy. The camp is sponsored by Central State’s Institute of Urban Education. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.
“The camp is for eighth-grade males who are going into ninth grade,” said Melissa Eppinger, a graduate assistant at the Institute of Urban Education.
Most of the students are from urban schools.
“Statistics show that if they go through a program that gears them to pass the ninth grade, their chances to graduate are really, really high,” Eppinger said.
The camp is discipline-based.
“It focuses on disciplining them to learn how to study, be responsible and grow into mature men,” she said.
The boys are looking forward to the camp.
“I think I’ll get a lot of experience out of it, and it will make me more mature,” said Ryan, 14.
Alex, 14, said he’s looking forward to all of the activities available at the camp.
“It’s a good opportunity,” he said.
TyRan, 15, hopes it exposes him to different fields so he can decide what he wants to do.
“I want to be an archaeologist, but I’m also artistic,” he said. “I hope this will be a small step for helping me decide what I want to do in life.”
The nine boys who will attend the camp are part of the school’s peer-leadership team, said Chris Gilchrist, the school’s student-family liaison, who will attend the camp with them.
Team members provide mentoring to younger students and perform community service. To be part of the team, students must apply, be interviewed and accepted, Gilchrist said.
Those students intervene to try to resolve disputes among younger peers before the involvement of a teacher or administrator, he said.
Team members are selected based on grades, attendance and test scores.
Others who were part of the peer-leadership team this year include Denise Young, 13, Shelia McGee, 14, Elexa Khoury, 15, and Brianna Dorsett, 13.
Alan Harper, school principal, said the school works to prepare students for success in college and beyond.
“We’re about developing the whole child,” he said.
One way to do that is to provide role models, the principal said.
Gilchrist “has been instrumental in that,” he said.