30005: Hermantin(News)Delray school that's vital to Haitian community has shaky future (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Delray school that's vital to Haitian community has shaky future




By Tim Collie
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

February 8, 2007



ince its founding six years ago, Toussaint L'Ouverture High School for Arts and 
Social Justice has faced obstacles worthy of its namesake, a former slave who 
led the revolt creating the nation of Haiti.

The charter school has been forced to move four times, each location more 
humble than the last. Its current site is hidden in a Delray Beach strip mall 
that can be entered only from a rear street.

The bulk of its students are poor Haitians who have just arrived in the United 
States, often don't speak English and are years behind in schooling.

Now its founder and his partners are trying to determine whether they can 
continue operating "from paycheck to paycheck" for another year, or whether 
they should close virtually the only center of community for Palm Beach 
County's growing Haitian community. It is the only charter school in South 
Florida addressing the needs of Haitian students.

"Every day we're open it's on a wing and a prayer,'' said Joseph Bernadel, a 
retired U.S. military officer who once served as the U.S. government's military 
attaché in Haiti. The last move, after their old building was razed to erect a 
parking garage in downtown Delray Beach, caused the loss of more than a third 
of the school's enrollment, from 180 to about 115 today. Students could no 
longer walk to the school.

Much of the school's $948,000 annual budget has had to pay for rent, moving and 
electricity. After salaries for a staff of 13 teachers and assistants, there is 
little left to develop programs for students frequently on the brink of 
dropping out. The school labors to perform adequately on academic tests like 
the FCAT, while nearly half its students aren't fluent in English.

Many of the teenagers have had little schooling in their native country, the 
poorest in the Western hemisphere, and quite a few work several jobs to support 
relatives still living in impoverished Haiti.

Diane Allerdyce, the school's chief academic officer, recently noticed that 
many students couldn't follow what was written on the black board. After 
examinations, 30 students were found to need eyeglasses.

If the school shuts down, Haitian community leaders say, it will leave a huge 
vacuum in the immigrant community. In addition to education, the school hosts a 
Haitian church on Sundays, art exhibits and civic meetings at which Creole 
speakers feel comfortable asking for help and airing grievances. Haitian 
parents frequently use it for meetings and continuing education classes.

"When you're talking about Haitian community centers, that school is basically 
it,'' said Jean Lexima, a Haitian community activist who is a member of 
Florida's Juvenile Justice Foundation. "There aren't really any other 
organizations that focus on Haitian teenagers."

Bito David, liaison to the Haitian community for the Palm Beach County schools, 
said Toussaint L'Ouverture's been plagued with financial and academic problems 
common to charter schools. Charter schools are public schools run by private 
individuals or groups that get operating money -- $5,100 per student -- from 
the state.

"It wouldn't surprise me if this was their last year because they've been 
struggling for a long time,'' David said.

"They are fulfilling a very important role taking in students who may have just 
arrived here, kids who don't fully understand the culture here yet. ."

Students at the school from a variety of backgrounds say they like Toussaint 
because of its small class sizes and teacher accessibility. Though at least 80 
percent of the students are of Haitian descent, there are Hispanics, Asians, 
whites and African-Americans attending too.

"When you come from Haiti, you don't know what to expect in the schools,'' said 
Sem David Alvarez, 19, who arrived in the United States seven months ago. 
"You're afraid, and you don't know if you'll fit in. You worry about gangs.

"But here I fit right in and I got to know everyone,'' said Alvarez, who speaks 
fairly fluent English learned from hip-hop and reggae songs. "It's just easy 
being Haitian here."

Non-Haitian students agree.

"Let's just say I wasn't getting along that well at my old school, and I really 
didn't want to come here,'' said Ricardo Smith, 18, a senior. "I really thought 
I'd be in this Haitian school, that I'd be alone. Yes, most of the people here 
are Haitian, but it's very welcoming in the classroom. You get to know your 
teachers, and you have good friends."

Smith, and Ross Ramos, 17, a Japanese-American student, were the school's two 
delegates to a recent Anti-Defamation League youth conference in Washington. 
Smith plans to study computer animation at a school in Orlando next year, while 
Ross is looking at a career in the U.S. Air Force.

The most difficult task the school faces is assimilating students like these 
two in classes with students from a staggering array of educational backgrounds 
in Haiti.

Some of the "just comes"--the slang term for newly arrived Haitian teens--have 
attended private schools in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. But others, 
like Haitians from the agricultural villages of Haiti's Artibonite Valley, have 
had little, if any, schooling.

"In Haiti, they put you in the classroom based on your educational level, 
regardless of your age,'' said Nicole Toussaint, a Creole language liaison at 
the school. "Here, they put you in the same grade as your age group, regardless 
of how much education you have. That's hard for Haitians to understand."

Toussaint, who is studying secondary education at Lynn University, attended 
Palm Beach County public schools after arriving in the United States as a 
teenager 10 years ago. She graduated from Boca Raton High School but remembers 
how difficult it was.

"My first months, I begged my father to send me back to Haiti because I 
couldn't speak English,'' she said.

"The public schools are big, and so many Haitian students get lost in them. 
They drop out. What we do here is quickly assess our students, determine their 
needs, and get them with the right teachers."

Staff Writer Tim Collie can be reached at 954-356-4573 or at 
tcollie@sun-sentinel.com

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