THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406260116
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: NORFOLK
``It seems to have worked,'' Arlene Campbell said, standing to snap a photo and beaming Saturday night as her 17-year-old son accepted a $1,500 college scholarship. ``I'm real, real proud of him, being a young boy in this day and age. You read about kids getting into trouble all the time.''
{REST} But this night at Norfolk State University was not about failure. It was about overcoming obstacles and meeting success. It was a night to honor young public-housing residents like Ishmael Campbell who did not allow stereotypes or social ills to prevent them from graduating and going to college.
At its third annual banquet for public-housing graduates, the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the Norfolk Resident Organization handed out $8,700 in scholarship funds to 14 students.
In all, 60 graduating seniors who live in 10 public-housing projects and a few students already in college were recognized.
For Campbell, Rosita D. Burrus and Lanelle E. Walcott - who were interviewed before the banquet - the secret of their success is not so difficult.
They are filled with hope and dreams of the future.
In the fall, Burrus, 17, enters Old Dominion University and will double major in pre-law and accounting.
Campbell wants to study electrical engineering, starting at Norfolk State University with plans to transfer to ODU.
Walcott, 20, whose goal is to become a medical doctor, begins her junior year at Norfolk State, where she has maintained a high B grade point average.
Those are lofty goals for these children of the inner city, where poverty, drugs and crime permeate the neighborhoods. Just in the past week, Campbell said, a fight on an outdoor basketball court in the project where he lives erupted into gunshots.
Then there are the expectations of failure. Too many kids in public housing fail because, tragically, that's what people expect. In effect, Burrus said, the negative images held by the general public become self-fulfilling.
And there are the taunts. Sometimes, school-smart kids are ridiculed by lower-achieving peers, sending a not-so-subtle message that street smarts are more valuable.
``People in my neighborhood didn't believe I was smart because I hang with everybody,'' Campbell said.
In 1992, when Walcott graduated from Booker T. Washington High School with a four-year scholarship to Norfolk State, well over half of the students who lived in public housing flunked out. More than 30 percent simply dropped out.
Those numbers fit a distressing pattern of failure of public-housing students that Norfolk Public School officials have tracked over the past three years.
By most objective measures, Walcott, Burrus and Campbell easily could have become more disheartening statistics. Yet they overcame the odds, seized opportunities and embraced success.
How did they do it?
``I think success resides in oneself,'' said Burrus, who graduated as an honor student from Booker T. Washington with a solid B grade point average. ``It's just a matter of having a goal and working to achieve it.
``What really influenced me was how people tried to put me down because I lived in a low-income housing area, and they told me I couldn't do it,'' she said. ``So I'm doing this to prove them wrong.''
A positive attitude helped. Each cited the influence of adults - a relative, a teacher or a family friend - who showed an interest and kept after them to do their best. And they avoided temptation by keeping busy: All of them work at part-time jobs.
Self-reliance is a shared trait. Burrus earns spending money doing office work in the Norfolk school system's cooperative office education program. Campbell stocks shelves at a grocery store. After four years with a downtown fast-food restaurant, Walcott is now second assistant manager.
``I'm so used to working now, I don't think I could go without it,'' Walcott said.
Burrus lives with her mother, an older sister and three nephews at the Tidewater Gardens housing project. Her aspirations to become a lawyer were sparked largely by the late Thurgood Marshall, one of her heroes.
``I feel like we have a lot in common,'' Burrus said. ``He grew up with not a whole lot but he succeeded and became a justice of the Supreme Court.''
Walcott resides with her grandmother, an older sister and her son, and a younger cousin in the Young Terrace housing project. Her mother, who served a career in the Army, provided inspiration. Walcott is attending Norfolk State on an Army ROTC scholarship and hopes to earn a commission when she graduates.
``She was a strict disciplinarian, but she always stood behind us in everything we did,'' Walcott said of her mom. ``She made sure we didn't slack off.''
Campbell, who lives with his mother and a younger sister at North Wellington Place, earned his diploma from Norview High with a 2.9 grade point average - 1/10 of a point from a B average. In 1993, only one black male who lived in public housing earned a B average, 12 maintained C averages and 127 - 65 percent of the males - flunked out.
Campbell took as many advanced classes as he could in school. He discovered his interest in electrical engineering while taking a vocational-technical course at Norview.
``My mother and father always influenced me to have good grades,'' Campbell said. ``They always rewarded me for my good grades and they would go see my teachers if there were any problems in school.''
But Campbell said he stayed out of trouble. He still remembers how angry his mother got when an elementary teacher called her at work because he'd been talking too much in class.
Too many kids in public housing fail because they buy into public expectations of failure. In effect, Burrus said, the negative images held by the general public become self-fulfilling.
``I think some of them make excuses,'' Burrus said. ``If they don't make good grades, they say they live in the projects and nobody expects them to.''
The three said more effort is needed to instill in public housing children the long-term importance of education. Some turn to crime or drugs for quick money in a society that glorifies material well-being, Walcott said.
Campbell said students share the blame for academic failure, but the schools could do a better job of teaching.
``I feel I could have gotten even better grades, but sometimes I think school is boring,'' he said.
``They need smaller classes, because sometimes I think these kids get dropped through the cracks and they don't learn in elementary school, when education should be fun,'' Walcott said. ``You need to get them when they're young.''
While many young residents are motivated to succeed because they want to escape public housing, Walcott said she hopes she can use her education to help the community where she grew up. She wants to work in an inner-city neighborhood in a hospital trauma unit, in part because people she knew at Young Terrace were shot and killed.
``You can't just grow up in a public housing project and not come back,'' Walcott said. ``I feel if I make it to a certain station in life, I want to give back. If everybody gives something, it's going to add up to a lot.''
by CNB