At free Baltimore academy, urban boys learn to hope

BALTIMORE -- The boys write modern-day parables. In one, Jesus heals a drug addict; in another, an AIDS patient. Other boys describe Jesus living in an urban neighborhood, bringing a dead man to life, and feeding a few dozen homeless people, miraculously, with a couple of meals from a McDonald's ''Dollar Menu."

The allegorical accounts reflect what the authors -- students at a tuition-free Jesuit middle school -- see in their daily lives, in some of the tougher neighborhoods of Baltimore. Still, theirs are stories not of heartbreak, but of hope.

The seventh-graders wrote the biblical adaptations for a religion class at the all-male St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, which relies entirely on contributions to cover the costs for 75 students who otherwise could never afford private education.

In Baltimore, where many residents struggle with poverty, violence, drug addiction, and failing public schools, St. Ignatius helps its students overcome tough odds.

Some live in neighborhoods where gunfire and drug-dealing make it dangerous to venture out at night. A few have friends or relatives who have been murdered. Most are being raised by single parents, grandparents, or others struggling to fill in for absent parents; a few live in group homes. Before coming to St. Ignatius, many of the students had known only crowded public schools with unruly classrooms and fighting in the hallways.

But the Rev. William J. Watters, a soft-spoken Jesuit priest, had a dream that children from some of the toughest backgrounds could succeed, given the right ingredients: a rigorous curriculum, high expectations, and a disciplined environment steeped in the Jesuit tradition of excellence in education.

''The academy is an oasis," says Watters, the academy's founder and president. ''All our young students have come from Baltimore City, and regardless of their income or neighborhood, they have shown us again and again that they have the capacity and the wherewithal to excel . . . when we offer them a real challenge."

Indeed, since the academy opened in 1993, graduates have received scholarships to attend top private high schools, including boarding schools, in the Baltimore/ Washington area. Of the college-age academy graduates, 81 percent now attend college, including Loyola College in Maryland, Georgetown University, Boston College, Vanderbilt University, and Rutgers University.

Tyrek Jones, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from the Harlem Park neighborhood, said a lot of the young people in his neighborhood take weapons to their school, skip classes, or drop out. ''I'm happy to get out of there," he said.

Tyrek's mother keeps him off the streets and away from the drug culture. Two of his older brothers who never finished high school have been arrested on drug charges and are on probation. Tyrek, by contrast, is preparing to attend a boarding school in Virginia.

St. Ignatius is part of the Nativity Network, a national association that includes 43 schools -- almost all of them Catholic -- for students of middle-school age. Each Nativity school has a distinct identity, mission, and character, but all are patterned on a model developed in 1971 by the Nativity Mission Center in New York City.

Jeffrey R. Sindler, the academy's headmaster, said that regardless of students' backgrounds, St. Ignatius accepts no excuses for less than their best. ''If you set high expectations, they'll jump for them, provided that you've got the right people working with the kids," he said.

The boys -- all dressed in crisp blue shirts, maroon ties, and khaki pants -- follow a rigorous routine. It begins each morning at 7:30 with breakfast, followed by public speaking or chores like washing blackboards. Small classes -- about a dozen students -- allow teachers to give each boy individual attention.

Required subjects include English, Latin, Spanish, religion, math, science, history, geography, art, music, and so-called health and life issues, as well as community service. Sports and other activities round out the regular school day, which ends at 5 p.m. All the boys also participate in reflection periods and student-run chapel services (although most of the students are not Catholic).

In summer, the boys attend school for a month and go to a two-week camp in Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.

Students greet each teacher with a handshake and a smile, line up single-file before leaving a classroom, and proceed in silence through the halls and narrow stairways of the six-story building.

In Christopher Wilson's classroom with yellow walls and high ceilings, a dozen seventh-grade boys recently scrutinized medieval and Renaissance paintings, as well as how the paintings and the periods differ. Their hands shot up in the air throughout the class as Wilson explained the idea that humans have inherent value and are worth studying. ''This changes the world, gentlemen," he said. ''Without the Renaissance, life would not be at all what it is today."

Then the boys pondered Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of a flying machine and a horseless carriage and talk of what it means to be a Renaissance man. ''See," Wilson told the boys, ''we're trying to fashion you into Renaissance men."

Elizabeth Iarrapino, a Boston College graduate in her second year of teaching religion and Spanish, said she sees much of what shadows the boys' lives in the New Testament adaptations they write for her class: ''They come in with experiences that in some ways could be so depressing, but they're very resilient."

She is one of five volunteer teachers, who receive a small stipend and free housing. Six full-time teachers and a social worker also work at the school.

The academy invites students from public schools throughout the city to attend an open house. To be considered for admission, students must document financial need and attend 12 Saturday sessions of tutoring in math and English in their fifth-grade year. About 45 of 80 to 100 students will be invited to attend summer school, and of these, 20 to 26 will be admitted to the academy.

Reginald Carter-Thomas had doubts about attending. He had been doing well in public school. But he said, ''I always thought private schools were snobbish."

''My mother made me change my mind," he said, ''telling me, 'You're going to be the first one to get to a private school,' and that hopefully I'd be the first one to go to college in the family."

The 14-year-old will be graduating from St. Ignatius, and plans to attend Georgetown Preparatory School in Washington this fall.

Students' families, too, play a key role. Each year, parents or guardians must sign a pledge saying they will abide by academy policies and participate in school programs and projects.

Willis Gray, a security guard from West Baltimore, had not heard of a Jesuit school before 2000, when his son Paris began attending St. Ignatius. Paris is now finishing his junior year at an acclaimed private school outside Baltimore, and his younger brother, Chris, is a seventh-grader at St. Ignatius. Their father beams when he speaks of the academy.

''The other day," he said, ''a lady pulled Chris aside and she said, 'Look, son, whatever you do, keep doing what you're doing.' On the bus, people look at him . . . with a smile of approval and respect."