BY DOUG CLARK
7/11/2012, GREENSBORO NEWS & RECORD
The Glenwood neighborhood kids who will enroll in the new Hope Academy next month can’t wait to start. They might change their minds about that.
“We’re going to work them to death,” Edgar Zimmerman said Monday.
The kids and members of their families already are working hard. They’re carrying in desks, painting and pitching in with other chores to help prepare classrooms at Florida Street Baptist Church. Most of the renovation work is being handled by professionals, but Hope Academy is pretty much a community project.
It is operated by Glenwood Family Ministries as “a private, nondenominational Christian school for at-risk youth in grades 5-9 in the Glenwood neighborhood of Greensboro.” It will start small, with about three dozen children in grades 5 through 8 and a handful of teachers.
Zimmerman, a veteran of 18 years with Guilford County Schools, this past year as assistant principal at Guilford Middle, is head of school. He jumped at the chance. “It’s a faith walk,” he said. “I walked away from 18 years. I’m trusting in God.”
Regina Clark (no relation), executive director of Glenwood Family Ministries, said her first question to Zimmerman when she interviewed him was, “Do you love Jesus?”
“With all my heart,” he told her.
The second was whether he wanted to help struggling kids get a great education.
“I’m all over it,” he said.
Zimmerman’s taking a somewhat awkward position for a career public-school educator: He’s going to lead a private school that exists because neighborhood kids need better options.
The faith approach is a big part of that. He wants those children “to hear and experience God’s love from every adult they come into contact with at school.”
The school won’t exclude children who aren’t Christian, Clark said, although its religious values will be obvious. “They don’t have to believe what we believe to come, but they have to know what we believe.”
An ad seeking a reading specialist and language arts teacher requires a “committed Christian.”
Helping students make positive, faith-based decisions and maintaining a strict but loving learning environment are part of the plan.
So is strong academics.
The school year will run for 200 days, with each day beginning at 8:30 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m. The last couple of hours will be an extension of the Glenwood Tutoring Program, which has been offered for about a decade. Classes will be small: fewer than 15 students for each teacher. Students will get individual instruction as needed in reading and math. The goal, said Zimmerman, is to bring incoming students to grade level as quickly as possible and prepare them to enter high school in Guilford County Schools.
The school is leasing 11,000 square feet of space at the church, whose aging congregation has welcomed the new project. The school will occupy parts of three floors, including large classrooms, offices and a dining room. Breakfast and lunch will be provided but not transportation. Most students will be able to walk to school.
The first-year cost per student is more than $10,000. Parents are expected to pay something, plus give at least 10 hours of their own time to help out in various ways, but the school is raising money through donations to cover about 95 percent of total expenses. That will be a continuing challenge, but what the school offers might be worth investments by local foundations and philanthropists.
“Generational poverty is like a racetrack without an exit ramp,” Clark said. “We want to build an exit ramp.”
The parents of these children desperately want that exit ramp, Clark and Zimmerman said. So much so that they’re willing to pay what they can to send their children to a school called Hope rather than pay nothing for schools they feel already have failed their kids.
It may not be the fault of those schools or the teachers and administrators. It might be that no one has had time, in a crowded classroom, to make a difference for each child.
That’s one way this school can do better. Students will get plenty of one-on-one attention. And their parents will be encouraged to stay involved.
“We told parents, this is not just you drop your kid off and we do it for you,” Zimmerman said. “This is a partnership.”
“We want them to love to learn,” Clark said. “Right now, they hate school. We want to give them that love of learning and make them feel successful.”
As long as they are willing to work for it.
Contact Doug Clark at dgclark@news-record.com and 373-7039.