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Black lawyers feel the call to mentor in Pinellas' failing schools

 
Jamarcus Watkins, 9, tussles with lawyer Dyril Flanagan during their mentoring session at Lakewood Elementary last week. Flanagan is one of the Fred G. Minnis Sr. Bar Association members mentoring students at Pinellas schools.
Jamarcus Watkins, 9, tussles with lawyer Dyril Flanagan during their mentoring session at Lakewood Elementary last week. Flanagan is one of the Fred G. Minnis Sr. Bar Association members mentoring students at Pinellas schools.
Published March 31, 2016

ST. PETERSBURG

At Lakewood Elementary, a third-grader goes up for a jump shot over a garbage can. He misses.

"Argh," Jamarcus Watkins says, dramatically crumpling on the ground in front of his opponent, Dyril Flanagan. Taking the ball — a rolled-up piece of newspaper — Flanagan tries to make the shot. He misses.

"The wind got that, the wind got that," he says.

Flanagan, a criminal defense lawyer, and Jamarcus, 9, are something of an odd pair, playing makeshift basketball, goofing around and talking near a picnic table on Lakewood's campus. But when the Fred G. Minnis Sr. Bar Association put out a call for mentors to work in five failing elementary schools in St. Petersburg, Flanagan was one of about a dozen lawyers who responded.

The bar association recruited mentors after the Tampa Bay Times published a yearlong investigation, "Failure Factories," which showed how the Pinellas County school district abandoned integration efforts in 2007 and then failed to follow through with promised resources for schools that became predominantly poor and black. The five elementary schools — Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Melrose — are failing at rates worse than almost any other schools in Florida.

Flanagan said the group, the only predominantly black bar association in Pinellas, was looking for a way to get involved in the five schools. As mentors, the lawyers spend about an hour a week with a student selected for them by the school district. Before they can meet with a student, mentors must complete a basic background check and attend a two-hour workshop. They aren't allowed to exchange contact information or meet with the student's family members. They only meet with students on campus with supervision.

Flanagan said he hopes to see the school district find a way for mentors to be even more involved.

"An hour a week is not enough," he said.

Alvin Foreman, another member of the bar association, lives in Palm Harbor and works in Clearwater, but he volunteered to be a mentor at Melrose. The trip takes 40 minutes each way, but he said that he was moved by what was happening in the schools and the "need for positive role models in these students' lives."

After getting trained, he was paired in the fall with a 6-year-old boy. He said that he often brings games to play over lunch, such as chess, checkers and UNO. When the first-grader sees him waiting, his face lights up, Foreman said.

"It's a good feeling to get involved," he said.

Bridgette Lester, president of the association, said she signed up to mentor at Melrose, despite being paired already with two high school students. At Melrose, she eats lunch with a third-grade girl and then walks with her to her physical education class.

"I love it when I go," she said.

Lester said that she started volunteering as a mentor in the school system three years ago. The first student she was paired with is now in college, she said. A former Pinellas teacher who went to law school at night, Lester explained why she became a mentor: "There were a lot of people who took an interest in me along the way who didn't have to," she said.

"I'm trying to pay it forward."

Playing makeshift hoops at Lakewood, Flanagan sneaks in questions about school in between jump shots.

"So what class are you having trouble in?"

"Are you getting all A's and B's?"

"What class you got this afternoon?"

Sometimes the boy starts off shy and then turns into a clown. Sometimes he doesn't want to talk. But Flanagan said that he hopes his presence at the school, throwing newspaper balls at a garbage can and encouraging him to do well in school, will let Jamarcus know that he has one more person cheering for him. Ultimately, he hopes Jamarcus will see how important education is to his future.

"You don't see many professionals, many black male role models in his neighborhood," he said. "I think if he sees that, it will make a difference."

Contact Cara Fitzpatrick at cfitzpatrick@tampabay.com. Follow @Fitz_ly.