Black Pupils Get Second Chance in Christian School

Happy noises hummed down the halls of the Progressive Christian Academy and filter into the paneled office. Principal Betty Tolbert stopped her paper work to listen attentively.

A substantial, gray-haired woman, she seemed frozen in her swivel chair as she strained to catch the sounds coming from the classrooms, a buzz of song, recitation and prayer.

Relaxing after a moment, she nodded approvingly. A smile melted the concentration that had creased her forehead.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s a good sound, the sound of children learning.”

Halls Filled

A bell rang and the halls were filled with children. The girls were immaculately dressed in green plaid jumpers and white blouses. The boys wore green pants, white shirts and black ties.

The children have something in common besides the uniforms: All 482 have dark skins.

“Welcome to the Progressive Christian Academy, the only large-scale, all-black, private Christian school I know of,” said Tolbert, the 53-year-old founder and driving force behind the school. “Our motto is: ‘All things are possible within the Lord.’ ”

The nonprofit academy is housed in a one-story brick building atop a hill near downtown Macon. Until 1983, the building was a public elementary school. Progressive Christian is leasing it with an option to buy.

‘We’re a Family’

“You’re looking at a miracle here,” Tolbert said proudly as she walked down the hall, past photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Diana Ross and Bill Cosby. “This place was a total wreck when we moved in 18 months ago. Now we’re a family. We’re also a vital education center that is serving the needs of black children.”

Tolbert said she came to perceive those needs in the 18 years she was a public schoolteacher and principal.

“It was clear to me that the public school system wasn’t providing the moral guidance, the loving discipline and the positive self-image reinforcement that many children need in order to flourish,” she said.

In the summer of 1985, Betty Tolbert took the plunge with $50,000 in savings and loans. She opened a trial summer school at the Progressive Baptist Church, where her husband is pastor.

Saw Change in Children

“We had 75 children and taught remedial reading and math with an emphasis on Christian principles and the development of positive self-esteem,” she said. “It was incredible. I began to see a change in those children on a daily basis, and so did their parents. They kept telling me their kids were so excited about the school that they didn’t even have to get them up in the mornings.

“That fall I quit my job (as principal of an integrated public magnet school) and opened this school, which goes from K4 (pre-kindergarten) through the eighth grade. We started with 175 students. By the summer of ‘86, we had 400 students enrolled and had to move out of the church. Now, with 482 students and 38 employees, we’ve got cramped quarters once again.”

The Progressive Christian Academy is one of four mostly black private schools, including a tiny class run by Seventh-Day Adventists, in Bibb County. About 5,000 of the county’s 30,000 school-age children attend private schools, most of them white.

Doing Poorly in School

“Most of our children came to us from the public schools, where many were doing poorly,” she said. “They were developing poor self-images and their parents were afraid their children were going to be lost.”

Kendall Reid, a sixth-grader, feels he was one such student.

“I was a little mouse. I was so scared I just couldn’t speak up,” he recalled of his three years in public school. “I had a white teacher in the first grade who told my parents I was retarded. She and the kids used to make fun of me. Now I’m on the honor roll, and I know I’m not retarded.”

Other students said they had to work harder at Progressive Christian and had fewer social and athletic activities, but still preferred their private school to public classrooms.

Teachers ‘Seem to Care’

“The kids here aren’t as mad as they were in public school,” said Latonya Raines, an eighth-grader. “And the teachers really seem to care about you here.”

Bibb County Commissioner William Randall, who worked to integrate the county’s schools two decades ago, said he found the present situation ironic.

“I’ve got two grandchildren in Mrs. Tolbert’s school, including a grandson who wasn’t doing well in public school,” Randall said. “My grandson is doing much better now that he’s in the private school.”

Positive Role Models

Tolbert said her school, in addition to providing a Christian atmosphere, gives the children positive role models.

“They get to see black people in charge,” she said. “We also strive to instill in them the belief that everybody is somebody special. We stress the worth of the individual.”

She said her school also accommodates the students’ special needs and schedules.

“For one thing,” she said, “we’re open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m., which especially helps single parents. We provide a warm, loving atmosphere, but we also stress academics and have volunteer tutors for high-risk failures. Then, too, we supervise the homework of those students who stay after school.”

She said the parents pay $30 a week for one child and $50 for two or more. They must provide books, uniforms and lunches for their children.

Mothers Happy

Several mothers, interviewed as a group, agreed they were thrilled with the school even though tuition money is hard to spare.

“My little boy is happy now. There hasn’t been a day he hasn’t gotten up and gotten himself ready for school. Morning can be an especially tense time for a single parent, and I simply can’t tell you how much this means to me,” said Natalie Coggins, a Social Security claims examiner with two children at the school.

Tolbert said parents of eighth-graders want her to offer high school classes so children will not have to return to public school.

“I’m also getting requests from parents outside the area to start a boarding school,” she added. “I’d like to do that, but first we need to raise enough money to pay off our bills and complete our library, which we need to do to be fully accredited.” The school now has provisional accreditation and plans a library fund-raising drive.

“I feel certain these things will all come in time. Meanwhile, I must be doing something right. It’s all I can do, when I go out in the hall, not to get knocked down by all the hugs I get.”