A ‘Life-Changing’ Week for Students at Blue Springs South (KS)

May 19, 2011

Fourteen successful suburban teenagers found their ideal spring break getaway in a decrepit school with creaky floors, uncooled hallways and classroom air-conditioning units blasting over teachers’ voices.

Harriet T ubman Charter School in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans was not situated on a sunny beach, and the kids there were not in party mode.

Yet it was the perfect match for the Blue Springs South High School Student Senate members, who had been corresponding with a class of eighth-graders at the New Orleans school. They chose this site for the trip, hoping to help children they knew to be underprivileged.

Ninety-eight percent of Harriet Tubman students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Some live in the projects or in homes where high school graduation is not the norm. Their teachers rotate in and out a lot.

Their school’s charter had been revoked when test scores didn’t measure up previously. The students had achieved only a fourth- or fifth-grade reading level, and they were preparing for the LEAP test, Louisiana’s required exam for advancing to high school.

Accompanied by their adviser, Susan Bubalo, and her husband Mark, the Blue Springs students packed the week’s agenda with in-class assistance and after-school tutoring. The Bubalos’ daughter, Katie Bubalo, was the eighth-graders’ teacher in New Orleans through the “Teach for America” program of AmeriCorps.

Just as important as the tutoring, said Susan Bubalo, was for her students to model the attitude that school can be enjoyable, not just a pathway to a better life. Another goal was to instill the idea that the younger students don’t have to wait for outside help to make changes.

The experience was “genuinely life-changing” for the Blue Springs crew, Bubalo said. “They’ve just been really touched by what they saw and by what they read in letters.”

“These kids are so desperate to open up to somebody,” said senior Tucker Moore.

Senior Vi Nguyen’s first poignant letter from Angelique made her cry.

“I’m not trying to tell her how to run her life, just to take these bad thin gs and turn them into something positive, to not let them hold you back,” she said.

In New Orleans the two groups also bonded on a nursing home visit. Although anxious in anticipation, they were soon mesmerized by the life experiences of residents like 90-something Gloria.

“She taught us life is short. We all just have our stories in the end,” Nguyen said. “I looked up, and it was a big eye-opener for me, seeing everyone leaning in and so focused on these older people’s stories.”

“This was magic happening,” said her teacher.

Gastronomical delights were also in store for the eighth-graders, who received 100 pounds of a much-craved crawfish picnic lunch one day.

It doesn’t take much to make some kids happy. Even a goofy accident will do the trick.

Junior Marcus Kranz tangled with a fence while chasing a basketball one day and ripped both his jeans and his leg.. Eighth-grader Juan wanted a piece of the material as a souvenir. That led to shredding the jeans into swatches for the visitors to sign with encouraging messages for all the kids.

Kranz also remembered Keith, a second-time eighth-grader and a fabulous drummer. “He’s got potential…but he has no one to tell him that … I take for granted the opportunity we have at school they don’t get. I’m very privileged to go to a school like South. Our question is ‘Where are you going to college?’ Their question is ‘Are you going to college?’ ”

Senior Ellen Sherman was most affected by tutoring Nadia, who immediately trusted her with a journal containing “amazing poetry,” as well as the entry, “Nobody sees me for who I am.”

“It just touched me, because at that school the kids don’t get a chance to show off their talents. Their creativity isn’t utilized,” Sherman said. “You wouldn’t expect such great poetry, such creativity from such a young person. It gave me inspiration to continue my creat ive outlets.”

Said Susan Bubalo: “We all came back with the sense that we went to give, but the reality is we got as much as we gave.”

Katie Bubalo agreed the rewards worked both ways. “The South kids came back with a better understanding of what education in our country looks like, as well as their responsibility to improve it. My kids got a new friend and a model of what they want.

“I also think my kids gave the South kids joy. I’ve never seen a group of high school kids so excited about something in my entire life.”

And the high schoolers reported they’d barely made it back to Blue Springs before their “pen” pals were keeping in touch via texts and Facebook. They intend to keep that connection going, and several hope to return for graduation day in four years.

“I’d go back in a heartbeat,” said Kranz.