A fresh approach to new freshmen

The Rev. David Stewart remembers what it was like when the threshold between middle school and high school seemed more like a chasm.

He wasn’t ready.

“That was in 1968, when I went from Dunbar Middle to E.C. Glass,” said Stewart, now the pastor at Holcomb Rock Baptist Church. “The place seemed so big, and I was lost. I didn’t know what to expect.”

Now, Stewart and his wife, Diane, have a daughter, Simone, preparing to take that leap of faith. And in the process of prepping her, it occurred to them that there were hundreds of other nervous ninth-graders out there in need of similar coaching.

“I hear that from young people in my congregation,” David Stewart said last week. “They would just like to have some more information, and they’d like to feel better prepared.”

So the Stewarts came up with the concept of Dorema Academy, a two-week-long pilot program scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon July 27-30 and Aug. 3-6 this summer. “Dorema” means “gift,” and that’s what this is — there is no charge, and any rising ninth-grader in the city can attend.

In practice, Dorema Academy is geared to the average student.

“Some ninth-graders don’t need this,” David Stewart said, “because they’ve already got everything figured out.”

At the other end of the spectrum are kids who may already be on the slippery slope to dropping out. With this summer program, the Stewarts hope to keep others away from the edge.

“The first year in high school is so important,” Diane Stewart said. “If it doesn’t go well, it sets the tone. We want these young people to take responsibility for their future. We don’t want to send any more kids to the Blue Ridge Regional Jail or the detention center.”

As residents of White Rock Hill, one of the less-advantaged areas of the city, the Stewarts have seen that scenario all too often.

Yet the Dorema Academy is not, they insist, designed to be either academic or preachy.

“We’ll spend probably one-third of the time going over things they’ll need to know in the fall,” David Stewart said. “With the other two-thirds, we’re going to have fun. There will be recreational activities and team-building things, a lot of it outside.”

It’s a great idea, but the Stewarts need a few things. Like a place to put it into practice.

“We can use our church, if we have to,” David Stewart said, “but we’d like to find a place more centrally located to downtown, with better outside space.”

They would also like to supply every young participant with school supplies, which will take some donated money.

“It’s always amazed me how many kids showed up the first day of school with no supplies,” said Diane Stewart, who works with a literacy program in the Lynchburg City Schools. “Right away, they’re behind.”

The city has a program to help ninth-graders prepare academically, but there is more to the transition than grades. At 13 and 14, social bonding and respect from peers are at least equally important.

“We’re going to do some role playing about what happens when you get in certain social situations,” said David Stewart. “Among other things, we’ll try to teach them how to work out disagreements.”

There is also a plan in the works to track these students during the school year and make sure they are staying afloat in the deep end. And the Stewarts hope that an orientation they have planned for parents and caretakers on July 20 will give the ninth-graders more support at home.

“I just wish they’d had something like this when I was in ninth grade,” David Stewart said.

For further information, call 528-4459.