Civils Rights Activist Joins Town, County Officials In Discussing Century’s Woes

March 5, 2008

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Civil rights activist H.K. Matthews (pictured above) met with officials with the Town of Century and the Escambia County School District Tuesday morning in Century to discuss the plight of the town.

Century’s combined elementary and middle school, Carver/Century K-8 School, is rated as an “F” school by the state’s education department. Unemployment is very high. As of the last census, about a third of the town was living below the poverty level. Only 63 percent of adults over 25 were high school graduates. Homes are visibly falling apart in many areas of town. The list of dismal facts about Century just goes on and on.

No one from the town or the school district denied any of those problems at Tuesday’s meeting. Rather, the frank discussion focused on how to get Century out of the mess it is in.

“We are an ‘F’ school,” Carver/Century Principal Jeff Garthwaite said. “We are not going to run from it. We are not ignoring it.”

He said any child, from any social or economic background, could attend Carver/Century and get a good education, if the student and parent or parents applied the effort. But many times, there is no parent or other responsible adult looking out for the children at Carver/Century.

“Some of these children…only get the two meals a day that we serve them at school,” Garthwaite said. “Some of them are coming from dismal, abnormal and dysfunctional conditions.”

Those children often lack goals, Garthwaite said. “They don’t even see the tunnel, much less the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“There are a lot of things that are lacking as far as living in Century goes,” Matthews said. “We are trying to find some answers to the problems that exist.”

“We didn’t come in here to invade anyone’s territory,” he said. “We come not to take over. I’m just a facilitator.”

“We are very concerned about the school’s declining enrollment and achievement level,” school district Title One Director Mary Nowlin told the group. Carver/Century is down to just 15 students in the eighth grade, 80 total students in middle school. Due to the school’s ‘F’ status, students are allowed to transfer to other non-failing schools in the county. Many have transferred to Ernest Ward Middle School in Walnut Hill. That is a situation that Nowlin said she does not see changing this year.

“The federal No Child Left Behind legislation allows the transfers,” she said. “I don’t think the the school will make adequate yearly progress this year.”

“This was a flourishing area,” Matthews said. “In order to preserve those kids, preserve this area, you’ve got to do something to stop this exodus here to Pensacola or here to the streets.”

Former mayor Benny Barnes, now director of the chamber of commerce, said the failing school was not a reflection on the current or past principal.

“These kids are starting out with a minus,” Barnes said. “How do they ever catch up? They are coming from single parents. They are being raised by grandparents. There is a lack of discipline. It’s a problem that I don’t know the solution to. But we’ve got to start taking care of our children at home. We depend on the school system to do too much. We’ve got to do something for ourselves.”

Citing drugs, crime and pregnancy as major problems among Century’s youth, Jesse McCants said.”We are setting up our children to self destruct, and we are the victims,” she said.

“This is by no means to minimize the effectiveness of your school,” Matthews said. “It has to begin at the house. Parents can’t shift the blame and responsibility to the schools.”

“We can offer all the programs in the world, but if the community is not united together, it won’t work,” she said. She said the problem extends beyond Carver/Century into Northview High School, the high school that serves Century. She said when her daughter began Northview four years ago, there were 198 students in her class. Now there are just 96 students in Northview’s class of 2008, she said, because students are dropping out or transferring elsewhere.

“The community has to come together, all working together pulling in the same direction,” Matthews stated.

Step one to solving Century’s woes is economic development, according to Art Rocker, who described himself as Matthews’ facilitator at the meeting.

“No one place is the beginning; there is no single solution,” said Wayne Odom, the school district’s director of elementary education. In order for children to work toward a goal, they must know what that goal is, he said. But sometimes even the best plans for Century simply just don’t work. Odom said that while he was the county’s Title One director, a family literacy program was established in Century. He said he vowed then that the program would not go way. But it closed, not because the county did not support it, but because very few people enrolled.

“This problem did not happen overnight,” Century Mayor Freddie McCall said. Century is in great need of economic development, he said, because Century has one of the poorest economic bases in the state.

But sometimes economic development in Century might not have the intended effect. McCall said that when the town’s new Whataburger restaurant opened, they hired 62 people. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. Until you learn, McCall said, that several of the employees are young people that dropped out of high school for the Whataburger jobs.

“They left school. They are not going to be anything but hamburger snatchers, serving hamburgers for the rest of their lives,” McCall said.

Like most at the meeting, McCall related all of his comments back to the problem many students have with their home lives. “I’m old school,” he said. “The King James (Bible) says spare the rod and spoil the child. There has to be something done at home.”

The next step for the group will be to follow up on preliminary contacts with Governor Charlie Crist’s office. They will meet again and formulate a plan.

“We are in trouble here,” McCall said. “And we are going to do something about it.”

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News