Nearly 15 years ago a developer, Richard Baron, led a major corporate effort to improve the lives of students at Jefferson School. That effort was chronicled in a series of articles in the Post-Dispatch that appeared in June of 2000. It focused primarily on one teacher, Mary Spencer, and the students in her fifth grade class.
The series was called, “A Better Place to Grow Up.” It followed the class through the year as Spencer struggled with the new demands placed on her to meet higher standards and as the students were asked to embrace new technology and what were then considered state-of-the-art learning programs.
I was one of those students. Now that I’m all grown up, age 24, I am asking whether all that corporate involvement and support made a difference in the lives of my fellow classmates.
It certainly did for me. Two years ago, I graduated from Saint Louis University with a degree in communications. I am currently working as an intern at KMOV-TV. It’s a small step toward what I hope will be a long and rewarding career in broadcast journalism.
But, what about my classmates? What became of them? Did all that money and all that interest from civic leaders change the course of their lives? What can be done to continue to level the educational playing field for disadvantaged students?
I have embarked on a mission to find out those answers in my sequel, “All Grown Up.” Many of my former fifth grade classmates went on to different schools and different lives after leaving Jefferson.
Where are they now?
I am hoping that readers of The St. Louis American will help me in this quest. I have the names of many of my classmates, but not all of them. I have some pictures, but lack some names to go with them. In many cases, where I do have the names, I do not have addresses or phone numbers.
With your help, I hope to produce a report that will appear in The American and the Post-Dispatch and on the Nine Network of Public Media, and perhaps other venues as well.
Richard Weiss, the journalist who wrote the original series, is volunteering his time to work with me and edit the story. Jim Forbes, a photographer who shot the photos for the first series, is also collaborating with us.
In the sequel, you will learn how members of Mrs. Spencer’s class were able to carve out a future for themselves. You will also learn in what ways civic leaders played a role in helping students and whether they are continuing to do all that is needed for the next generation at Jefferson School and other city schools.
For more information, visit http://jeffersonallgrownup.webs.com/. If you know the whereabouts of anyone who attended fifth grade at Jefferson School 1999-2000 or their families, please email emc8911@yahoo.com.
