A national education program is planting its first seeds in First State.
Educators and City Council members joined community residents Tuesday to welcome the state’s first Freedom School, the Peter Spencer Freedom School, to Wilmington.
The Children’s Defense Fund created the Freedom School program in the 1990s. The summer school initiative is now in 25 states. It teaches literacy and cultural enrichment while attempting to develop self-esteem and positive attitudes toward learning in its students. In its first year, the Peter Spencer Freedom School is working with 50 students at Wilmington’s Mother African Union Church.
West Side Grows Together president Henry Smith says he believes the school can help lower Wilmington’s drop out rate.
“There are about 60 percent of minority kids who live within the city limits who are not graduating. That’s an issue that we owe it to ourselves to tackle," said Smith. "I believe that the Freedom school is a great opportunity for us to begin that process. This is the first freedom school, we hope that it’s not the last.”
Wilmington Councilwoman Maria Cabrera says she expects the program's emphasis on manners and values will allow it to have an even impact beyond academics.
“The things that we used to learn at home we now have to teach in school and the community. So when you see young people at the age of 9 and 10 being disrespectful, that to me shows that we have lost our value system all the way around and schools like the freedom school instill those values in addition to the academic curriculum,” said Cabrera.
The Freedom School is modeled after the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. The Children’s Defense Fund started the first Freedom schools in Bennetsville, South Carolina and Kansas City, Missouri in 1990.
The Freedom School also works young teachers through its intern instructors program. Instructors are between 19 and 30 years old and spend a week in training coordinated by the Children’s Defense Fund.
