Encouraging Geniuses Like Jarrod Johnson : Schools Will Go All Out for Outstandingly Gifted Pupils

Jarrod Johnson started out fast in life. He skipped the usual baby-talk phase and began speaking at eight months in the young adult language he uses now at age 10. He made his own toys, suddenly started reading books at age 5 and startled his kindergarten teachers by drawing pictures of “genuine artistic merit.”

When Jarrod entered the third grade at Worthington Elementary School in Inglewood, his teachers placed him at the genius level after tests showed that he could handle 10th-grade subjects.

When astronaut Guy Bluford visited the Inglewood schools recently, Jarrod was chosen to read a poem expressing what he feels should be the credo of high achievers: “You can do what you want and be what you want and help make America a better nation.”

Elaine Walton, Jarrod’s mother, said she always knew that “Jerry was special.” But, she said, “I am not always able to give Jerry the extra books and other things he needs and that has really worried me.”

Walton, a single parent living on welfare with four children, said she is partially crippled by rheumatoid arthritis.

Special Program

To help meet Jarrod’s extra needs--and those of hundreds of other students with high achievement potential--the Inglewood Unified School District is starting a program to find, guide, encourage and nuture every youngster who has the ability and desire to go on to college.

“We are going to do everything we possibly can to ensure that no student in our schools misses out on life’s opportunities for lack of a helping hand,” said Maurice Riley, director of the district’s University and College Opportunities Program.

The need for the program, he said, is reflected in the Inglewood district’s historically low rate of students who enter college, particularly four-year institutions. An estimated 15% of graduating seniors are accepted at universities, but follow-up studies indicate that only about 5% of those earn college degrees, he said.

(Last year, however, a stepped-up effort at the district’s two high schools boosted the percentage of college-bound seniors to 29%, Riley said.)

By comparison, the South Bay Union district sends about 25% of its graduates to four-year colleges, and 63% of Palos Verdes Peninsula students enter universities. Percentages are higher in all districts (90% in Palos Verdes) when students enrolled in community colleges and trade schools are included.

More than 1,000 students have signed up in the Inglewood project, which Supt. Rex Fortune has made a centerpiece of efforts to upgrade the largely minority, 18,000-student district’s image and academic standards. The number who stay in the program may drop substantially after the applicants have taken a series of qualification tests, Riley said.

He said the program, patterned after a successful college-preparatory plan at Banning High School in Wilmington, was one of only four districtwide efforts in the Los Angeles area. Other districts developing similar plans, Riley said, are Compton, Lynwood and Huntington Park.

Riley said the program begins focusing on potential winners at the sixth-grade level “because everything we’ve learned indicates that we have to start working with these youngsters early on to give them the best possible chance of success. The child must have the basic ability to begin with, of course, but there are so many other factors, like attitude, goals and motivation, that need to be cultivated along the way to (high school) graduation.”

In the case of Jarrod, who is still technically a fourth grader, the district made an exception to its rule of starting out at the sixth-grade level. As a qualified member of the exclusive group, he will receive lots of recognition and encouragement in every form that Riley and his co-counselors can provide.

He will wear a gold-and-blue insignia or T-shirt and be invited to speak at school and community events. Counselors will help him map out his courses and apply for scholarships. Seminars, like the “College Success Workshops” sponsored by USC, will help teach him such skills as taking lecture notes, managing his study time, writing term papers and preparing for tests.

He will have priority access to the best courses the district can offer and he will be taken on field trips to college campuses, museums, concerts, art galleries, industrial plants and business offices. Big companies, like TRW and Rockwell International, will invite him over for free seminars and career consultations. A volunteer professional in his main fields of interest--math and science--will be appointed as his personal mentor.

And the PTA and other community groups with emergency kitties will help smooth out any financial crunches that he may encounter in his growing-up years.

Jarrod’s mother called the college prep program “an answer to my prayers.” She said her son would not get a “big head” from all the attention, “because he’s real cool about everything. He gets along with everybody and just wants a chance to be successful in life.”

For Jarrod, at this stage, success means becoming rich and moving someday to “a really big house where my Mom and family can live with me.” He said his career ambitions now are to teach math and help build spaceships for astronauts of the future.