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D.C. resists mentor program

Success shown in other cities

By David C. Lipscomb | Monday, June 23, 2008

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The creators of a mentoring program that has reduced school violence and truancy in Milwaukee and several other cities have grown frustrated trying to pitch the plan to school officials in the District, where it was developed.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty last year resurrected the Violence Free Zones program, created in the late 1990s after a high-profile gang truce, but organizers said they cannot fathom why D.C. school officials have largely ignored the successful program.

"I have no idea why it hasn't been embraced in the city of its origin," said Bob Woodson, founder of the District-based Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), which created the initiative. "I haven't met with a superintendent yet in D.C."

Mr. Fenty, a Democrat, reinstituted the program in February 2007 at Anacostia Senior High School and Johnson Junior High School, both in Southeast. But Public Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has been unresponsive to requests to continue and expand the program, Mr. Woodson said.

He understands that Mrs. Rhee "has her hands full" with the school system, but still feels disheartened by years of being ignored, Mr. Woodson said.

The nonprofit LifeStarts group, which runs the program at Johnson Junior High, is being vetted to expand and likely will return next year, D.C. schools spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway said. The District-based Peaceoholics group, which operates the program at Anacostia Senior High, also will return, she said.

Miss Calloway did not say whether there were plans to expand the program to any of the nearly 100 other schools in the District.

The Washington Times reported Sunday that Milwaukee school officials have praised the program, which mentors 900 students in seven schools across the 87,000-student system.

Milwaukee police responded to more than 11,000 calls to public schools in the 2005-06 school year.

The public schools created their own Gang Intelligence Unit and began the Violence Free Zone program in 2006. Violent incidents since then have decreased by 23 percent and school suspensions have fallen 9 percent, school and CNE officials said.