Issac J. Bailey | Empowering kids through education

Bethel Zion Ministries has had to delay the upgrades needed to get its parking lot up to code.

A play area behind the Green Sea church is home to a lone basketball court that needs to be redone.

Other portions of the church, crafted out of a former welding warehouse, need touch-ups as well.

The Rev. Phyllis Spain, a co-pastor of Bethel with her husband Lester, would have it no other way.

Sure, they want to upgrade the church building and grounds. But the money that would have gone into those repairs has been funneled instead into something called Empowerment Kids Cafe, an after-school program Spain founded six years ago.

The church’s small, physical scars illustrate a commitment begun in 2005 to save the children under its charge from the fate of former Green Sea-Floyds High School football player Antonio Haywood, who was a standout on the field but got lost in the classroom.

Haywood admits that he needed intensive tutoring and didn’t work hard academically early in his high school career, but also believes the school’s decision to place him in classes with severely impaired students robbed him of a chance to move onto college.

“I’m not gonna say it didn’t hurt me, because it did. It was kind of heartbreaking,” he said. “They know I was an intelligent person. All those [football] plays I remembered, I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I’m not gonna say I just been used to run a football, but sometimes it’s hard not to think about that.”

The efficacy of such placements has been at the heart of educational research that suggests that students such as Haywood are too frequently cordoned off from so-called mainstream classes, a move that can limit a graduate’s post-high school options. Horry County Schools officials say such decisions are made after extensive consultation with students and their parents.

“We said, ‘how did this happen?’ ” Spain recalled of the church’s reaction to finding out about Haywood’s predicament. “We are not gonna blame anybody, not the school or the parents, but we said it’s not gonna happen again.”

That’s why instead of focusing on church upgrades, Spain is focused on finding additional funds to expand the program created in the wake of Haywood’s revelation into the summer months.

It’s the type of commitment community activists trying to combat pockets of crime along the Grand Strand said must be duplicated from the grass roots up across the area in conjunction with broader efforts being funded and supported by public officials. A program similar to Kids Cafe was launched weeks ago in the Booker T. Washington neighborhood at Mt. Olive AME Church by the start-up grassroots HANDS.

“I just want to be able to serve more children,” Spain said. “We have a responsibility to the community. Our church family has sacrificed a lot for this vision. It gets hard but we want our children to see they have options. Not being able to serve even more kids, that is what hurts me.”

Confusion all around

Just what happened in Haywood’s case is unclear.

When attending middle school in North Carolina, he was fascinated by the dissection of frogs and the composition of leaves and won a science award, he said. Learning various fabric textures in a sewing class was also memorable.

At South Columbus High School in North Carolina, Haywood said he was assigned a tutor.

When his family moved from Whiteville, N.C., so his mother could be closer to Bethel Zion Ministries, he began attending Green Sea-Floyds High School.

Initially he was placed in mainstream classes but was switched into special education courses a week later.

“Me and that reading, I wasn’t too down with that,” Haywood said. “I really wasn’t focusing on that then. I was just thinking about football.”

He has two brothers and a sister, and for most of his life, his stepfather lived with his mother, though they never married. His mother asked as many questions as she knew to ask, he said, but she is not well-versed in the educational process. And his parents believed things were going well because he stayed out of trouble and because his name was being mentioned several times in the local papers.

Haywood for a 29-yard romp down the left sideline for a touchdown

Haywood broke free for a 41-yard touchdown with 9:11 to play against Carolina Forest

Haywood is one three area players who got off to outstanding start during the first three games of the season by carrying the football 44 times for 451 yards

In addition to the special education courses at Green Sea-Floyds, he learned construction skills at the career center and is now an employee of a roofing company trying to build up his 401(k) and saving to buy a manufactured home.

But in high school, he dedicated himself more to a weightlifting class in the morning and perfecting his football skills than thinking through his academic future.

Then, as he was entering his senior year, word got back to him that maybe a few college scouts had taken notice of his game-day exploits. That’s when he got excited about the possibility of college.

When he asked his teachers about his progress he was told he would have to take a number of different classes and tests to possibly qualify for a junior college.

Students in special education classes have a team of teachers and administrators who meet with students and their parents multiple times, said Teal Britton, spokeswoman for Horry County Schools.

“It would seem highly unusual for a student to get to the time of graduation to learn they were not even on track to receive a diploma,” Britton said. “The education of our children is a shared responsibility between the home and the school, and in this case, the community. This shared responsibility requires active participation and ownership by multiple parties.”

Haywood’s mother may not have understood what she was told or not been in enough of the discussions, which typically begin in middle school, said Mary Eaddy of PRO-Parents, a nonprofit advocacy group for parents of children with disabilities.

“It is also the school’s responsibility to ensure that the parents understand,” Eaddy said. “The student is part of these meetings and the team must listen to the student’s goals and wishes.”

It’s unclear how much or what Haywood’s mother, Wanda, was told by school officials. When questioned by The Sun News during one of the after-school program’s sessions, she couldn’t explain what happened.

Haywood’s coaches frequently told him about the importance of academics but did not speak to him about what he needed for college or inquire about what he wanted, Haywood said.

“I took it lightly,” he said about his academic focus. “When I started taking it serious, it was too late. I never blame anybody for nothing, about the things I do, but I still say the school could have done more.”

‘Individualized diploma’

All Spain and the church knew at the time was that Haywood was a star on the first Green-Sea Floyds football team in what seemed like ages to change the school’s fortunes against an arch rival.

“He helped us finally beat Loris,” Spain said through a broad smile.

Spain may not have known that Haywood ran a 4.4 second 40-yard-dash – comparable to some of the fastest players in the National Football League – but she watched him come within 5 yards of a 1,000-yard season as a starting tailback during his senior year. He was a 160-pound player who could bench press 295 pounds and squat 500.

That combination, along with his explosive offensive production and multi-faceted defensive skills, would have made him a potential target for successful small- to mid-level college teams, and a few major programs.

Fellow Bethel Zion members witnessed Haywood score seven touchdowns in a single game while running past defenses as a starting tailback and intercepting footballs thrown towards opposing receivers. It was a Green Sea-Floyds record and one of the highest individual game touchdown totals in S.C. history.

It was equaled three years later by another Green Sea-Floyds tailback; but Haywood doesn’t want anyone to forget why his feat remains unique.

Haywood’s record was attained in just three quarters of play; it took Kentrell Dewitt four quarters in a game against Johnsonville to match it.

“That was some good days,” Haywood said. “I used to have a lot of people look up to me.”

But the church didn’t know that Haywood, in between the long touchdown runs, including a 90-yarder against Socastee High School, needed help academically.

“He was going to this church, having Bible study, Sunday school, but he slipped through,” Spain said.

“Knowing he was part of this church and I’m the pastor, how can I allow this to happen?” she asked herself in 2005 after getting word Haywood would graduate with what was an Horry County Schools high school certificate or “individualized diploma,” which was designed to teach select students to live independently as adults.

It is now known as an occupational diploma.

Haywood walked across the graduation stage with the rest of his classmates – including a football teammate who Haywood said had been tutored and earned his way into a junior college – while knowing Haywood’s own dream of playing on the next level was out of reach.

Only a small number of Horry County students receive an occupational diploma, “an alternative course of study that focuses on independent post-school employment and living skills” for students with disabilities, according to the school district. Less than 50 Horry County students graduated with an occupational diploma last year, compared to almost 2,200 who received the standard high school diploma.

Neither Horry County nor South Carolina education officials could provide a demographic breakdown of the students who received such diplomas in recent years, but many researchers have said black students such as Haywood are overrepresented in such classes.

The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found “that grossly disproportionate numbers of minority students are identified as eligible for services, and too often placed in isolated and restrictive educational settings.”

In South Carolina and North Carolina, black students are more than four times as likely to be identified as mentally retarded than white students. That classification later reflects their higher percentages in the juvenile justice system and has “devastating results in communities throughout the nation,” the researchers found.

“Some minority children do need special education support, but far too often they receive low-quality services and watered-down curriculum instead of effective support,” the Civil Rights Project at Harvard found.

The classes included the study of English, math, science and physical education and the students in them were overtly disabled in ways he wasn’t, Haywood said.

“The work was easy,” he said. “It was basically stuff you just knew.”

Horry County officials declined comment about Haywood’s case because of privacy concerns. Britton stressed that students and their parents are counseled several times during their high school careers by a team of trained teachers and administrators.

Never giving up

The church could have done more and should have been more aware of what was going on with the children who help fill out the congregation every week, Spain said.

Churches can’t just be concerned about filling the pews or about having “Sunday mornings pumped up,” she said.

After hearing about Haywood’s story, she sat down with the staff at Bethel. They all agreed that the church had to play a role in the educational process, particularly given that not every student in Green Sea has been blessed with two active parents and the school system couldn’t do it alone.

And for Spain, it was even more personal than the heartache she felt while watching Haywood go into a depressive state after graduation.

Spain’s parents separated when she was a fourth-grader. Her mother was an alcoholic, her father a drug dealer and abuser. She was raised by her grandmother but essentially was her own primary caretaker from an early age.

She eventually moved to New York, where she began to get in trouble with her father and girlfriend. The trouble involved drinking and illegal drugs. After a few years, at the age of 18 or 19, she returned to South Carolina to visit her mother. She didn’t want to stay but couldn’t leave after witnessing how her mother was raising her two younger sisters, who were in the fourth and fifth grades.

Frequently, they had no electricity or running water or food. They lived in an unkempt two-bedroom mobile home.

Spain got a job at a sewing plant in Loris, bringing home about $130 a week to add to the $300 monthly welfare check her mother was receiving.

She paid the bills and became her sisters’ de facto mother – even as she continued getting into trouble.

Some nights she’d stay out late and decide not to go to work on a Monday, then go on a Tuesday to not return again until Friday, maybe.

But the plant manager never gave up on Spain, declining to fire her, knowing Spain needed the money to help feed her younger sisters, one of whom is now a full-time housekeeper and the other an engineer in Florida.

Spain never forgot that act of unearned kindness.

“I didn’t even do good work,” she said. “That’s why I wanna give back so much.”

A new opportunity

Empowerment Kids Cafe is at the heart of that giving, to save kids growing up in conditions in which Spain and her younger sisters grew, and to prevent young church members from experiencing the heartbreak felt by Haywood.

Kids are dropped off at the church by a school bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

They usually rush inside and quickly drop their book bags to get to the snacks Bethel provides. They are allowed to unwind a bit before delving into about an hour and a half of homework time, which is directed by tutors, all of whom are currently volunteers who also attend Bethel – some of them rushing from work to participate.

After homework, a full, hot meal is cooked and served. That portion of the program is directed by Wanda Haywood – the mother of the former football star whose plight was the genesis of Kids Cafe. The nearby IGA grocery store has been a godsend because it donates food supplies to the church and allows it to pay for the rest when it is able, Spain said.

Most of the parents have given Spain and her husband the right to access the participants’ grades and discipline records and to serve as stand-ins during school meetings when a parent is unavailable.

Spain was able to convince a principal to not expel a couple of young boys who had gotten into trouble and instead enroll them in Kids Cafe. One of those boys eventually graduated and the other moved out of the area.

She is hoping to increase the base of volunteer tutors and raise between $8,000 to $10,000 to expand the program into the summer to provide a positive outlet for children in Green Sea, and not just members of Bethel.

To Spain, Kids Cafe is a program about empowerment, academic excellence, crime-prevention and second-chances, and a spiritual calling. It accepts referrals from the Department of Juvenile Justice.

“If we don’t educate them, who will?” she asked. “I’m working on getting some more graduated.”

It is hard to determine the program’s overall academic effect.

“Even internally, it is often difficult to separate the number of factors that impact student learning, as the environment is dynamic and influenced by multiple stimuli,” said Britton, Horry County Schools spokeswoman.

By Spain’s count, the program has produced a current Coastal Carolina University student, four others at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, another who finished at Miller-Motte Technical College and a U.S. Marine.

Candice Haywood, the younger sister of Antonio, is an alumnus of Kids Cafe. The 21-year-old is pursuing a business degree online through Everest University and wants to one day help young girls who have self-image problems.

She is also a Kids Cafe mentor who tutors kindergarteners and first-graders.

The program redirected her after a fight in middle school landed her in alternative school. It improved her school work and provided life skills that helped her manage anger problems, she said.

“It’s worth it,” she said.

Spain said the program’s reach begins long before graduation. Many of the students who were placed in special education programs because of a variety of problems have been elevated into mainstream courses after getting involved with Kids Cafe, meaning they will have more options after high school.

“All it took was somebody sitting down with them,” Spain said. “It’s not what you come from; it’s about how you are working to get out of it.”