An About-Face Strategy for At-Risk Kids

BELLE GLADE, Fla. —  Fifteen-year-old George Peterson applied to Eagle Academy to escape the temptations of drugs, petty crime and idleness.

But minutes after he and 44 other students arrived at the front gate, George just wanted to escape.

A phalanx of tough-looking drill instructors appeared seemingly from nowhere and began pounding on the bus, screaming at the boys to fall out, line up, shut up.

They marched the “recruits” to the barracks, shaved their heads, issued camouflage fatigues and assigned them bunks.

George was scared. And he wasn’t alone.

Eagle Academy has 4 a.m. reveille, spit-shined combat boots, marching and intensive academics. But it isn’t a military school. Rather, it is a rare educational experiment, a public school designed for boys ages 13 to 16 who want to change their lives.

The 64 boys enrolled here now are taking part in one of the most innovative efforts in the nation to reach troubled youths before they commit serious crimes or drop out of school.

The academy, now in its second year, is being run by the Palm Beach County school board and the local sheriff’s office in a novel partnership that, if successful, could be worth studying by public schools nationwide.

“Usually when we think about alternative education, we’re pretty much at the end of a long history of disruptive behavior,” said Edward Fuentes, director of the National Institute on the Education of At-Risk Students. “So the fact that these kids have recognized the need to turn their lives around is very positive.”

School Learns as It Goes Along

School officials admit, however, that they are learning as they go along. The first year of operation was marred by high dropout rates and charges of racial bias.

But now, just 18 months after it opened, Eagle Academy has a waiting list of kids who think that a boot-camp regimen of predawn wake-ups, rigorous exercise, small classrooms, no TV and an 8 p.m. curfew might be just what they need.

“Sure, it’s tough love,” said academy Supt. Paul Miles, 37, a sheriff’s deputy and ex-Marine. “It’s tough for the parents to agree to send them here. . . . But they think their kids may be headed for serious trouble.”

That’s what Lane Peterson, George’s mother, thought. “He is a smart kid who could either become a successful person or a brilliant criminal. We felt like we had no control.”

Homesick as he is, George does not disagree. Finishing up a lunch of beans and ham at an outdoor picnic table, he looked toward the complex next door, where his meal was prepared--the Palm Beach County Jail. “I probably would have ended up there,” he said.

As many as 5%, or 2.3 million, of the students currently enrolled in public junior and senior high schools are considered at risk of dropping out, according to the U.S. Education Department. They hang out with the wrong crowd. They are acquainted with drugs and alcohol. They are falling behind in class and fighting problems at home.

Such at-risk kids are often racial or ethnic minorities who live in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. But in this South Florida county, troubled students come from wealthy communities such as Boca Raton too.

Before being elected Palm Beach County sheriff two years ago, Robert W. Neumann had been both a teacher and an FBI agent. Having campaigned on a promise to do something about the rising rate of juvenile crime, he decided to take a new $1.4-million facility here in rural sugar cane country, 60 miles west of Palm Beach, that was originally built as a work farm for young drug offenders and use it instead as the site of a school without a blueprint.

“I always thought that one of the ingredients missing from boot camps for adjudicated juveniles was that it’s not voluntary,” Neumann said. “Those camps might work, but you had to commit a crime to get in.

“Here we’re taking children who want out of dysfunctional situations. We want to break down bad habits and build up self-worth. It’s pro-active, run by law enforcement in partnership with the school board and requires parental involvement.”

Eagle Academy consists of a one-story office building, a cafeteria, a hangar-like barracks and three portable classrooms on several acres of grassy farmland just east of Lake Okeechobee. The Eagle, as it is called, opened in September 1997 with an annual budget of $2 million, a staff of 40 and 31 teens recruited from local middle schools and high schools.

Shocked by the rigor of paramilitary discipline and unaccustomed to communal showers, a barracks with no air-conditioning and no parental contact, many in the first class ran for the chain-link fences. Some refused to get out of bed. And Miles admits that the drill instructors--many of them military veterans who are now sheriff’s deputies--did not know how to respond to defiant kids who could not be punished with confinement.

The academy also was rocked by a supervisor’s allegations that black recruits were physically abused and subjected to profane language. The complaints are under investigation by the federal Office of Civil Rights.

Only 14 of the original recruits completed the six-month term. The others either dropped out or were expelled.

Since then, Miles said, the academy’s recruiters have become better at screening for those kids who are sincere about wanting to make changes in their lives. “I liken it to Alcoholics Anonymous,” he said. “We can do wonders with kids who recognize they need help.”

Demanding More From Parents

The academy also has begun to demand more from parents. They must agree to attend biweekly meetings with staff and are reminded to remain firm when their sons beg to come home. “We learned that we can’t be the bad guys,” Miles said. “The parents have to be the heavies.”

With experience, drill instructors also have become more adept at handling students who decide they will not run the obstacle course or go to class. Rather than focus on the recalcitrant, the group moves on.

“This is not the military, and these are not adults,” Miles said. “Idle threats don’t work. So we run the kids through several interventions--with peer counselors, with supervisors. And we get out their application essay and let them read why they wanted to come here in the first place.”

Of the 45 recruits who entered the academy Jan. 19, seven already have quit.

Nick Salabarra, 14, fights homesickness with a desire to make his parents proud. “I wasn’t doing homework, just hanging out with friends. I was just too lazy. If I didn’t want to do something, I just said no. But here they make you do it.”

Said Reyna Salabarra, Nick’s mother: “I miss him a lot. But he was spiraling down into trouble. He needed a school with no distractions. And he needed to learn respect.”

Perhaps one sign that Eagle Academy’s rough edges are being worn away are the 19 recruits who last month asked to stay on for another semester. Chris Calcetta, 17, returned to his public school in suburban Wellington after he graduated from the academy only to find himself facing the same threats that led him here: drugs, truancy and parental conflict.

While attending classes and subject to the same discipline as recruits, the reserves help reassure the newcomers that they can make it here. “I tell them, ‘If this is the hardest thing you do in life, you’re lucky. Tough it out,’ ” Calcetta said.

Long and Demanding Days at Eagle Academy

A day at The Eagle is long and demanding. Whistled awake in the dark, the recruits square away their bunks and lockers before heading outside for an hour of running and calisthenics. After a shower and inspection, the boys have breakfast and then get a short break before the first class at 8.

For classes in math, science, history and English, the recruits are divided according to grade level. In the classroom with each of the public school teachers are two drill instructors who ensure discipline and act as aides.

“Some of these kids have learning disabilities, and most are below grade level and lack self-esteem,” said science teacher Susie Orsenigo. “But in this tight structure, most find out that they are smarter than they thought they were.”

Every student takes part in an hour of daily peer counseling under the supervision of a staff social worker. Mandatory vocational training is to begin this month.

Back in the barracks in the afternoon, the boys do homework, shine their boots, iron fatigues or write letters home. Each recruit must also write a one-page essay every day on a theme chosen by Miles. Recent topics: my favorite vacation, violence I’ve witnessed, what I would change if I were in charge.

Good behavior is rewarded with military-style ribbons, caps of different colors and styles, and privileges. No student can make a phone call home during the first two weeks, and parents are not allowed to visit for the first month. After three months, recruits can make weekend visits home.

With the same ill-fitting gray and white fatigues and the same buzz-cuts, the recruits all have a boy-soldier look, regardless of age or race.

But during downtime, the real differences emerge. In small groups, the kids compare histories of family woes, fights they’ve had or drugs they have tried. They complain about the jailhouse food, especially what George called “that unidentifiable stuff at lunch that comes in, like, a yellow clump.”

They talk about running away from The Eagle.

“Where are you going to go?” Calcetta asked a group of younger boys one day. “There’s cane to the left, cane to the right and gators in the canals.”

Some experts in alternative education suspect Eagle Academy may work for troubled kids not because of its boot camp character but because classes are small, the school is residential and individual attention is constant. “When we segregate and label kids as problems, that is two strikes against the program,” said Jerry Mintz, director of the Alternative Education Resource Organization. “But the fact that some kids want to come back is a good sign.”

Due to its limited curriculum, Eagle Academy does not issue high school diplomas. Recruits must return to their home schools to pick up graduation requirements such as economics and government.

Neumann said he realizes that some academy grads are unable to make the transition back to regular public school and is exploring ways they could be funneled to a charter high school designed to mirror the structure of the academy.

By next year, he added, Eagle Academy also will begin a program for troubled girls, who would live in a separate barracks and attend classes exclusive of the boys.

There are already some success stories. If he were not at Eagle Academy, said Jonathan Alford, 16, a former drug user, “I might be sitting at home with a spike in my arm right now.” After abusing drugs, including heroin and cocaine, while in high school in upscale Boca Raton, Alford spent three months in rehabilitation.

“Basically, I can’t say no to some things,” he said. “But I knew I could do well in a regimented environment.”

In a recent letter home, Alford told his mother his grades were all As and Bs. “He said he was three assignments ahead in algebra,” said Luci Alford. “When I read that, I wept. He is learning that he is not a chronic failure.”

Transitions Back to Home Schools

Some recruits from the three previous classes have made transitions back to their home schools. Yet Neumann admits that the ultimate test of the academy’s value won’t come for years.

“We can’t save everybody; no one can,” the sheriff said. “In the 1990s, taking kids who are 13 to 16 is starting late. I like to be looking at programs for kids even younger, but society is probably not ready for that.

“So we are taking our limited resources and doing what we can.”

Times researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.