SOUTH : Attendance and Good Grades Pay Off

Music teacher Reggie Andrews teaches Locke High School students that it pays to attend school and to learn--literally.

“Some people on campus don’t like the idea of kids getting paid to go to school, but I know some of these kids wouldn’t be here otherwise,” said Andrews, 45, who has been teaching at Locke since 1968.

About 600 students participate every year in Andrews’ programs to improve attendance, grades and self-esteem. The $75,000 programs are funded by a grant from the Herb Alpert Foundation. Most students from the 2,100-student high school are referred to Andrews by other teachers or counselors.

“I’ve seen a direct improvement in attendance and grades,” said Principal Edward Robbs, who estimates that there has been a 50% increase in attendance and a letter-grade increase for students involved in the programs. “It’s really been a tremendous thing.”

Under Andrews’ 3-year-old Student Incentive Program, students with truancy problems can earn up to $15 a week if they are at school on time for each class every day. Each time a student is absent or late for a class, $2 is deducted from the $15 maximum. Students are dropped from the program if they go below $7 for two weeks in a row. The program accommodates 35 students.

“During ninth grade basically I never went to class,” said junior Shemica Thomas, 16. “But the program helped me clean up my act. The money helped motivate me into going to class.”

Students can also reap financial gain in the Grade Incentive Program: $7 for every A, $5 for every B, and $3 for every C they receive in each of the four grading periods. But they also lose $3 for every D and $5 for every F. Students are eligible as long as they take part in an extracurricular activity and attend two weekly meetings where problems such as classroom attitude and study habits are discussed.

And yet the program that Andrews is proudest of doesn’t pay cash--it teaches respect.

Men of Locke Delegation, or MOLD, was founded by Andrews two years ago when he realized that many of the area’s problems were the result of the lack of self-esteem and poor role models for young men. The group brings in lawyers, police officers, former mayoral candidate and Rhodes scholar Stan Sanders and other men to talk to male students about their responsibilities and the importance of education. “Boys will be boys,” their motto goes, “but men must be men.”

“MOLD has changed my life,” said Larry Smith, 17, a senior who has been in the program for two years. “I didn’t really have a father figure, and MOLD provided me not just with that, but with other people in my situation.”

One of the program’s goals is to unite Locke’s black and Latino youths. Locke is about 49% black and 51% Latino, Robbs said, and problems arose with the increase of Latinos in what had been a predominantly black neighborhood.

“There were problems with gangs,” said junior Juan Villalobos, 16, who has been in the program since last fall. “But in MOLD, they put Hispanics and blacks in one room and let us talk about better ways to get along. We don’t get too many other opportunities to do that.”