Anthony Black is reading at grade level after less than three semesters at the SEED School in Southeast.
Anthony, now in the seventh grade, is one of five students featured in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary film “Waiting for Superman” about failing public schools.
Although Anthony concedes in the film that enrollment at SEED would be “bittersweet” — he would have to cut back on video games and wake up early — he is doing well at the school, said Head of School Charles Adams.
“He’s enjoying himself. He was playing Ultimate Frisbee yesterday when I saw him,” said Adams, noting that Anthony is reading at grade level and making progress in math. “He needs to push himself a bit in mathematics, but he’s a seventh-grade boy — I think we all could have done that.”
SEED is a public college prep boarding school that accepts 80 students for its sixth and seventh grade each year for a sixth-to-12th-grade student body of 330. Last year, 94 percent of SEED graduates — 32 of 34 — went on to four-year universities.
About 75 percent of SEED students are on free or reduced-price lunch. “We want students who need another educational option,” Adams said.
Because of high demand, SEED has used a lottery system since it opened in 1997. Currently, 125 students are on the waiting list. Adams said about 10 to 20 students are admitted off the waiting list each year; Anthony landed on the list’s fifth spot in spring 2009.
Guggenheim said he found the students by attending the open houses of charter schools using lottery systems. “Immediately we found this amazing connection” with Anthony, Guggenheim said.
“In one sense we could tell he was very aggressive because his father had died of a drug overdose and his grandmother had been lost in the schools of D.C.,” Guggenheim said. “But he was also very hopeful, and his big dream was to make his grandma proud.”
In the documentary, Anthony sits on his bed in his grandparents’ home and says, “I want my kids to have better than what I had … I want to go to school.”
Anthony’s alternative was to attend Southeast’s John Philip Sousa Junior High School, where more than half of students do not have sufficient reading or math skills.
