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Dec 20, 2007 10:37 am US/Pacific
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Small School, Big Success for San Francisco Kids
Jefferson Award Winner: Mary Martin
(CBS 5)
The students at San Francisco's SR Martin College Preparatory have big dreams.. and the course load to get them there.
"I plan on being a pediatrician," says senior Taniya Vines.
"I plan on going to Savannah College and being a cartoonist," says senior Dion Scott.
"I plan on going to North Carolina A&T and being a film director," says senior JonTonnette Clark.
SR Martin is a non-profit middle and high school founded by veteran teacher and grandmother Mary Martin, whose belief that every child can succeed is transforming hundreds of lives.
"If you believe in them and show them that you believe in them, don't take 'can't' or 'might be' or 'might have been' or something, you tell them they can do it and you take nothing less," says Mary. "I made it, the youngest of ten children in the South. My parents had second and third-grade educations. Certainly these children can do it."
Currently located near Candlestick Park in San Francisco in six thousand square feet of donated office space, this small school feels more like a family than an institution.
Students wear uniforms, and stand when adults enter the room. Grades are applauded and setting goals is reinforced.
Mary spent years as a teacher and high school counselor in the Bay Area, but grew concerned as she saw children of color losing their dreams, and opportunities to low expectations.
"To find out there were children who were graduating and had not had one year of algebra, now that bothered me. It really did," says Mary.
So at a time when most people would be retiring, Mary used her savings to start a school and named it after her late husband, Shedrick Richard Martin. Since its inception in 1991, the SR Martin College Preparatory school has helped well over one hundred students get to college.
With fewer than 50 students, the class sizes are small and individual attention abundant.
"When you need help, they are really there to help you," says senior JonTonnette Clark. "You don't have to hassle and fight for a teacher's time."
The cost of 6400 dollars a year is tough to meet for many families, so Mary holds fundraisers, and has even borrowed against her home to keep the doors open.
She says, "If it takes selling sweet potatoes and sweet potato pie, car washes, whatever that we need to do to keep this school going to educate these children, that's what we want to do. My goal is I hope God lets me live to see them come back and give me an admission letter to Harvard or any of the Ivy League colleges. They can do it. So were grooming them now. They can do it. They can do it!"
So for her unwavering belief in children and for providing them the education to attain their dreams, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Mary Martin.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)