Let Brotherly Love Continue: An All-Male Public School Opens

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Equity & Diversity Audio

Let Brotherly Love Continue: An All-Male Public School Opens

By Kavitha Cardoza & Cory Turner 鈥� October 18, 2017 1 min read

Equity & Diversity Audio

Let Brotherly Love Continue: An All-Male Public School Opens

By Kavitha Cardoza & Cory Turner 鈥� October 18, 2017 1 min read

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Raising Kings: A Three-Part Audio Series From 91直播/NPR (Episode 1)

Introducing Washington, D.C.鈥檚 newest high school: the roughly $60 million Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, the capital city鈥檚 first all-male traditional public school.

The school is designed specifically to meet the needs of its young black male students 鈥� who are called 鈥渒ings.鈥� And for many of the young men, their needs are profound.

Two reporters, 91直播鈥檚 Kavitha Cardoza and NPR鈥檚 Cory Turner, spent hundreds of hours with teachers, students, and parents from the school for a three-part audio series on Ron Brown鈥檚 first year.

In this episode, we鈥檒l meet Dr. Benjamin Williams, the principal, who personally recruited each of the 100 young men who enrolled as freshmen.

The principal at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, Dr. Benjamin Williams, talks about the challenges facing his students- all of them African-American young men and many of them from low-income families. His school focuses on developing students' social-emotional skills, which he believes is the foundation of learning. A robust "CARE" team--most of them black men--includes a psychologist, a social worker and counselors. It鈥檚 a far bigger team than exists in most schools, but Principal Williams believes the poverty, violence and trauma that many Ron Brown students experience requires professional help with a manageable ratio of staff to students. It鈥檚 the CARE team鈥檚 job to keep students on-track--emotionally and academically. The CARE team begins each morning in a schoolwide circle, navigating conversations that include neighborhood violence and police shootings, protest and poverty. Many schools do one or two of these things, but few do them all 鈥� and with the conviction of Ron Brown鈥檚 staff. For the past year, 91直播's Kavitha Cardoza and NPR's Cory Turner visited Ron Brown weekly -- and some weeks, daily -- to witness the birth of this new school and to see how its staff tackles some of the toughest challenges. We spent hundreds of hours there, from the earliest days to the last bell. Read more: http://www.edweek.org/raisingkings

We鈥檒l also meet two of the men at the center of what makes Ron Brown so unusual: Dr. Charles Curtis and Dawaine Cosey, members of the school鈥檚 CARE team.

"They feel like it's a place where they can take chances, where they can grow." 鈥� Benjamin Williams, principal	鈥淚 tell the guys here: You鈥檙e gonna get love and there鈥檚 really nothing you can do about it.鈥� 鈥� Dawaine Cosey, director of culture, empowerment, and restorative justice	"When we look at these young people, we鈥檙e looking at them from a place of godliness, of kingliness, of royalty." 鈥� Charles Curtis, school psychologist

In the first few months of the academic year, the educators at Ron Brown work with an almost single-minded focus on establishing a school culture and ethos that few of the kings, and in many cases even teachers, have ever experienced.

They spend hours every week in restorative justice circles, putting offenders and their wronged parties together to talk through what鈥檚 happened and find ways to set things right. And the students resist. And some parents and school faculty push back too.

For Principal Williams and the CARE team especially, it鈥檚 an effort to convince many skeptics that this approach to educating young men of color is worth fighting for.