Grass-Roots Teaching

Originally published in the Washington Post Magazine: April 15, 2007

Can a public school program empower the surrounding community? That's the goal of Linkages to Learning in Montgomery County.

"Trevon, can I see your board, honey?"

The fourth-graders seated on the rug in front of Jacqueline Filiault are still young enough to accept endearments: sweetie, precious, mi amor. A teacher could fall in love with such polite, hardworking children, and it seems Filiault has fallen hard, as she gently pushes her students along. On a winter afternoon, there are about 17 children in this classroom at Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring, and there are almost as many levels of ability.

An assistant teacher leans toward Trevon, a slight boy with curling lashes, whose head is bent low over his white board. Most of the other kids have already held up correct answers to the math problem and are wiping off the dry-erase marks with their sleeves, ready to go again.

The assistant watches as Trevon writes barely legible numbers onto his board.

"Are you done? Okay, show her."

He flips his board around so Filiault can confirm his correct answer, and the class goes on to the next problem. This time, Trevon is one of the first to get it done. Filiault beams at him, and he smiles, his face twitching slightly. The boy's psychiatrist of three years, David Zwerdling -- Dr. Z, as he is known here at Broad Acres -- is still adjusting his medication. Zwerdling is trying to make sure Trevon has enough to stay focused despite his Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder, but not so much that the medication's side effects overtake him.

For a boy who just a couple of years ago wouldn't talk and was described as "unresponsive to redirection," Trevon is making good progress, Zwerdling says. And though the boy's file reports possible below-average intelligence, Zwerdling believes this probably underestimates Trevon's abilities, which could be masked by his other deficits.

In 1991, the Montgomery County Council concluded that issues such as poor health, emotional problems, language barriers and a general fear of an unfamiliar system were preventing low-income and immigrant families from seeking out services that were available to them. Often, by the time the families found the services, their problems had worsened and were more difficult to resolve. And even then, parents and children often missed appointments because they lacked transportation or child care. To improve accessibility, the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, the Montgomery public school system and various social service providers launched Linkages to Learning in 1993, an innovative program that brings everything under the school roof.

"Instead of having to deal with urgent needs, you could do prevention; you could help people as things come up," says Sharon Strauss, who manages the program for Montgomery County. At Broad Acres, Linkages offices are housed in a portable building attached to the school. If children don't show up for a counseling appointment, Linkages staff members can simply fetch them from class, or call or visit them at home.

The Broad Acres program was the third to come on board, in September 1997, and there are now 28 Linkages sites serving 3,500 children and their parents at county elementary and middle schools, with an overall budget of about $6 million. About $5 million comes from the county, which contracts with community-based nonprofits such as YMCA Youth and Family Services, which employ the school-based staff. Grants, faith groups and other community organizations and businesses provide the rest of the funds. All students and their parents at Linkages schools may use the services, which are free, except for minimal mental health fees charged for some children in the state insurance program. "Tons of research and data shows positive results for this kind of approach," says Anne Vor der Bruegge, who manages the Carlin Springs Community School model in Arlington, a pilot program similar to Linkages. "All the things a family might need, you address in a coordinated way."

At Broad Acres, 89 percent of the school's roughly 500 children qualify for Federally Assisted and Reduced Price Meals (FARMS). A majority are also from immigrant families, most of them Hispanic. As at other Linkages sites, new families learn about the program through back-to-school activities, parent-teacher conferences, health fairs and other community events. Children can also be referred to Linkages by the principal, teachers, parents and guidance counselors.

When a new family comes to Broad Acres, school nurse Ladys Lux is usually the first to see them. She checks their immunization records, enrolls them in the health center and schedules a physical at the school clinic. She'll determine whether the family has medical insurance, and if not, she'll help with their applications to the state program.

Next, if Lux thinks the family requires additional services, she walks them to the Linkages offices so the staff can evaluate their need for shelter, food, clothing and psychotherapy. Parents may receive referrals to English, computer and other skill-building classes. The clinic will also set up what is often the child's first visit to a dentist.

An immigrant from Ecuador, Lux understands the challenges of dealing with a bureaucracy in a strange country. Sympathetic but firm, she pushes the parents to become self-reliant. Phones, she knows, are particularly challenging, and some parents hang up when they hear a recording in English. Lux reassures them that they'll hear the message in Spanish if they are patient. She says she tells them, "If you don't advocate for your child, then nobody's going to do it."

On a much larger scale, the program also aims to make the surrounding community more self-reliant, by helping parents become more resourceful and gain the skills to give back, says Bob Evert, the founder of the Linkages program at Broad Acres.

"A service is only empowering as long as the person can do it for themselves," says Evert, who now works at YMCA Youth and Family Services and has a private psychology practice.

At a recent afternoon meeting of Linkages personnel, Evert stood at a white board in the trailer that houses the school's program and drew circles and arrows in an attempt to explain the program's sociological complexities. Then he paused in mid-scribble, smiled wryly, and tried to sum up the goal.

"Cut through [the red tape], and make it happen for the families," he said.

Lorna Hogan, now 45, sits at a desk in the small, newly refurbished offices of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a nonprofit in Adams Morgan that helps low-income families with substance abuse issues and provides support for women who are trying to regain custody of their children after having been incarcerated. Lorna is associate director of a parents advocacy group for the nonprofit, where she has worked since 2003. On the wall is a framed photo of Lorna, arms around her son Trevon and her three other children. They are all smiling happily.

It's hard to imagine that, just a few years ago, this woman with such lively eyes was skimming the bottom. Raised by her grandmother in Prince George's County, Lorna fell into an abusive relationship at age 14 with a senior at her high school. By age 25, she had graduated from marijuana and alcohol to crack cocaine. A high school dropout, she couldn't hold down a job or care for the children she had begun having, relying on her grandmother to raise them. She tried several short-term treatment programs without success. Then, at 39 , she was arrested for possession of crack cocaine and jailed for three months. With her grandmother in a nursing home, three of Lorna's four children were put in foster care. The oldest, Danté, then 9, was placed separately, and Trevon, 4, was put in a group home with his 7-year-old sister, Tiana. Four-month-old Anthony stayed with his father. Upon her release in 2001, Lorna was referred to an in-patient program where she could bring Anthony with her. Slowly, she began to see her other three children, and, after 18 months of increasingly long supervised visits, a judge awarded her full custody. When she was reunited with Trevon in 2002, his hyperactive behavior overwhelmed her. She sought help at a mental health center in Southeast Washington, where they diagnosed Trevon with ADHD and put him on medication. In 2003, she moved her family from the District to Silver Spring, hoping for a new start and attracted by the reputation of Montgomery County schools.

Lorna learned about Linkages to Learning after confiding her family's difficulties to Jody Leleck, the Broad Acres principal at the time. Aside from Trevon's ADHD, Trevon's speech was unclear, and he was having trouble reading, Lorna noticed. While Zwerdling and the Linkages psychologists assessed Trevon's treatment needs, Lorna, whose public assistance had not yet been transferred to Maryland, was provided with gift cards to grocery stores, as well as clothing, pull-ups for Anthony and referrals for her family's other needs. Zwerdling supplied her with free samples of Trevon's medication, and Trevon began receiving regular psychotherapy, family therapy, speech and occupational therapy, and a variety of academic services, all of which took place at Broad Acres during school hours.

Lorna was, she says, amazed that a school could serve so many needs. "A person who's in recovery from substance abuse, when people find that out, you get this judgmental thing," Lorna says. "I have not felt that since I've been here."

Shortly before a session with Trevon in early December, Zwerdling held the boy's thick case record in his hands and thumbed through the pages. The record told of difficult times early on, both at home and at school, and revealed the boy's history of emotional outbursts and anxiety, especially during the transitions to and from foster care, and the time when his mother reentered his life. His verbal skills were so poor that he tended to express himself physically instead.

In March 2004, the file records showed a defiant child who would suddenly dart down the school hallway when upset. Unable to relate to the other children, he talked to himself. In his notes at the time, Zwerdling described Trevon as talking out of turn and very distracted. He switched the boy's medications, and a few pages later, reports from teachers note that Trevon was doing much better, receiving 100 percent on a math paper. Turning more pages, to fall 2004 and beyond, we learn that Lorna was hospitalized for four months with acute pancreatitis and that afterward she'd had to go to a nursing home for rehabilitation while her then-boyfriend stayed with her children. Once more, teachers reported uneven behavior, and observed that Trevon's tics were becoming more frequent. Again, Zwerdling adjusted the medication, then deduced that with Trevon's mother still in the hospital and her boyfriend unfamiliar with the routine, Trevon was not taking his medicine regularly.

During those months, Lorna says, the staff at Linkages made sure her children had the food, clothing and academic help they needed. She grins when she recalls the way the counselors hugged her when she was able to come home. She'd left well before her doctors advised and was in a wheelchair at first and had to be fed through a tube, but she wanted to finish convalescing with her children. "I am a very strong and determined person," she says, her dark eyes flashing.

Just months after Lorna's recovery, in 2005, the county's department of social services referred Lorna to an office skills program at Montgomery College to help her progress in her job. Linkage's employees cheered her on and even gave her school supplies.

"Just like the kids!" Lorna recalls. "And, as I was getting more and more help with school, and as I was learning and I was doing it, I would go share what happened with me this week, and I always had an open ear there . . . They encouraged me that I could do this, that I was capable of doing it. And I did it."

Throughout 2005 and 2006, Trevon's report card noted that he was listening and learning better and was more outgoing. Zwerdling was still adjusting his medication, but the boy struck the doctor as more conversational and focused.

At the therapy session in early December, Zwerdling first measured and weighed Trevon. He was 4-foot-6 and 58 pounds. Zwerdling put a pen mark on the growth chart and showed Trevon where he was, in the fifth percentile for his age. Zwerdling said he would continue to monitor Trevon's growth; the boy's small size could be the natural result of having a short mother, or it could be an undesirable side effect of the medications, in which case, Zwerdling would need to change them. Then they began the therapy session.

Trevon, who had just turned 11, still could not express himself with much complexity, which was apparent when he answered the doctor's simple questions, his voice high and not always easy to understand, although speech therapy is part of his regular routine. A few times, Zwerdling had to ask him to repeat himself.

Zwerdling: Ms. Filiault says you're really good at math. Do you like math?

Trevon: Maybe.

Zwerdling: Maybe? You're not sure about that? Do you like some of math?

Trevon: Yeah.

Zwerdling: Which part do you like?

Trevon: (unintelligible)

Zwerdling: Huh?

Trevon: Science.

Zwerdling: Oh, you like science. But what about math? What part of math do you like?

Trevon: Adding.

Zwerdling: Are you pretty good at adding?

Trevon: Uh-huh.

Zwerdling : Okay, I'm gonna tell you a really hard one, okay? What's 1 plus 1?

Trevon: Two.

Zwerdling: All right!

When Lorna joined them a few minutes later in the therapy room, Trevon brightened a little and became more communicative as the three discussed ways Trevon could devote more care to his homework and write more slowly to improve his handwriting. Zwerdling handed Trevon his notepad and asked him to write a sentence in his best handwriting. Trevon shrugged, took the proffered pen and wrote carefully. Taking the pad back, Zwerdling smiled delightedly and turned it toward Lorna. "'See, this is great! Good job!"

Afterward, Lorna smiled as she tucked her short hair into a black velvet cap and buttoned her coat against the frigid weather. Normally, she would dash to work, but she had the day off and was looking forward to some time by herself.

"This place is more than just dealing with the school and the children; it's dealing with the whole family, and that's the thing -- the whole family has to heal," she said.

Months later, looking toward the windows from her desk at the Rebecca Project, the first taste of spring sun filtering in above 18th Street NW, Lorna sounded proud when she explained that she had now been in recovery for six years. Her oldest, Danté, is in high school; Tiana is in middle school; and Trevon and Anthony are in fourth and first grades, respectively, at Broad Acres.

She was optimistic as she reflected over the improvements in Trevon.

"I see him growing. He's become more active outdoors. His social skills are improving, and he has a friend. He's changing," she said. "We may have the stubborn streak sometimes, but he's able to express himself more now."

And, as though suddenly clarifying all of Bob Evert's enigmatic circles and arrows scribbled on the white board back at Broad Acres, Lorna explained why she has chosen to help others in her work.

"I do the work that I do to share with other people that there's hope out there . . . I'm just giving back."

Russell C. Barajas last wrote for the Magazine about choosing high schools. She can be reached at rcbarajas@mac.com.