FORT WORTH -- Daniel Castro's future is all mapped out: a college math degree, graduate school and eventually a job as a professor.
Castro, 18, who was North Side High School's salutatorian this year, said his path to success started in 2000 at Manuel Jara Elementary School. That's when folks from the I Have a Dream Foundation gathered first-graders in the cafeteria and told them to look to the future.The students were promised a college scholarship if they graduated from high school, and mentoring along the way to help encourage them to stay in school and get good grades."My mom still has the original folder that they gave her," said Castro, who has a scholarship to study math at Texas Christian University this fall. "As we went on and went up higher grades, they were always there for us."But the Class of 2012 will likely be the last Fort Worth class adopted under the program for at-risk students because the Fort Worth affiliate of the New York-based I Have a Dream program closed June 30 after the woman at the helm retired."There were no new groups following them and so it was time," said Mollie Lasater, 73, a former Fort Worth school board president who founded the chapter in 1988. "We didn't want to make a commitment we could not follow through on. Really, you're talking about another 13 years."Launched in New York in 1981, I Have a Dream takes its name from a refrain in a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. The foundation grew out of impromptu remarks that millionaire executive Eugene Lang made to a sixth-grade class in poverty-ridden East Harlem.Now a fixture in 27 states, Washington D.C., and New Zealand, "I Have a Dream" has adopted 15,000 disadvantaged students and tried to guide them through the shaky middle school and high school years, according to the organization's national website.The Fort Worth chapter adopted seven classes of students from schools throughout the district -- more than 600 economically disadvantaged children in all -- and acted as mentors to the students through the years, offering them everything from tutoring to field trips.The students attended D. McRae, De Zavala, I.M. Terrell, Nash, Van Zandt-Guinn and Manuel Jara elementary schools. The group also branched out and included students from several grade levels who lived in the Butler and now-closed Ripley Arnold public housing complexes.Pivotal to the process has been whetting students' appetites for learning and helping students who may be the first in their families to get a higher education navigate the college application process, Lasater said."Some of these children come from schools and backgrounds where there's nothing to read at home. There's no real push to stay in school," Lasater said. "It's kind of positive peer pressure. You want them to have something to look forward to."The high school graduation rate for the first six classes was 74 percent, and about half of the graduates from all seven classes have advanced to college and vocational schools.The foundation is particularly proud of the students who started together at Manuel Jara Elementary and graduated from high school this year; they bested their peers with a graduation rate of 89 percent. Sixty-five of the students graduated from North Side High School, including Castro and valedictorian Andrea Rodriguez. Another student was valedictorian of his class in Sinton, about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi.All of them were eligible for a $3,000 scholarship and a free electronic reader.Rodriguez, who is headed to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said she had not considered going to college outside of the Metroplex until she attended an expenses-paid seminar at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in New York, at the recommendation of Dream Foundation officials."They are more than cheerleaders," said Rodriguez, who plans to study pre-medicine. "They take the initiative and show that there is more out there, not just staying close by,"Going forward, the chapter's annual Reading Rocks fundraiser will now be held by the Fort Worth Public Library Foundation.Fort Worth Dream foundation program director Matthew Torres will continue to work with students, helping them fill out financial aid forms and shuttling them to college orientation.Jessamy Brown, 817-390-7326Twitter: @jessamybrownHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
