When Sheila Dixon set out on her path to success, she didn’t intend on becoming Baltimore’s first female mayor. She wanted to become a teacher.

“I had a bad experience in school after a teacher told me I would never amount to anything,” Dixon said. She said she took that experience to become a teacher herself so that she could inspire in students that they could achieve.

Such were the sentiments Dixon conveyed Tuesday at Johns Hopkins University, where about 500 middle school students from Baltimore City public schools gathered for the start of the summer 2007 Middle Grades Partnership.

Now in its third year, the partnership — a collaborative effort among the Baltimore City Public School System, independent schools, colleges and universities — helps prepare academically promising students for high school and college.

This story continues below
Advertisement

Beth Casey, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Community Foundation, said the partnership is a fund at the foundation.

“It is made up of gifts, grants and donations from other foundations and individuals around Baltimore City,” Casey said. She said the BCF has raised $3.5 million since it began in the summer of 2005.

“We turn around and make grants to public school teams who create summer and after-school programs for the Baltimore City Public Schools System,” Casey said.

Students in this year’s partnership attend 11 middle schools and 11 independent schools.

“Today, when you have ninth-graders entering high school, an average 240 to 250 [from among approximately 800 students] will go on to graduate from college,” Dixon said. “So the challenge is really before you. You want to be a statistic of being successful.”

Joe Jones Jr., executive director of the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, also took the opportunity to commend participants and to encourage them to excel.

Jones, who became involved with drugs at 14 and was incarcerated soon after, told the students how he turned his life around and earned degrees in accounting and social work.

Because he had not been successful in middle school, “I missed out on social activities and lessons needed to be an effective adult,” said Jones, a married father of three children. While “you can’t determine the hand you’re dealt in life,” at the same time, “you can’t allow [mishaps] to determine who you are as a person.”

drowley@baltimoreexaminer.com

How can city schools ensure success? Respond below in our comment section.