For Students, It’s an Act of Healing : Education: Sally Kirkland helps kids at Curtiss Junior High School tap into their emotions and vent frustration. Her workshop is part of the Achievement and Commitment to Excellence Program.

Sixty students in their early teens sitting in the Carson school library focus on their classmate standing at the front of the room, shushing anyone who dares to make a sound.

“I just want you to hold me,” Jabari Uko, 13, wails and then collapses against a woman’s shoulder, sobbing.

Moments later, Jabari beams at the crowd, wiping tears from his cheek, looking like someone who just won a prize.

“It felt good to get all the frustration out,” Jabari tells the group. “I guess I was angry.”

Throughout the exchange with Jabari, actress Sally Kirkland prompted him to focus on his feelings by saying to him: “I’m your mother. What do you need from me?”

By helping students at Glen Hammond Curtiss Junior High School tap into their emotions, Kirkland hopes to help them release some of their frustrations--and maybe become good actors.

“They can actually use some of their own lives and turn it into art,” Kirkland says. “Or they can turn this into just plain therapy and get it off of their chests.”

Kirkland got hooked on coming to the school through the Achievement and Commitment to Excellence Program, a part of the nonprofit Educare Foundation.

Since 1987, ACE has worked in more than 60 schools across the country. The program adopted Curtiss last fall, and since then has worked with school officials to create partnerships among businesses, community groups and the school. ACE officials estimate the group will work with Curtiss for at least three years.

Besides Kirkland’s eight acting workshops, ACE took 70 students to Soka University in Calabasas for a weekend retreat in March. They attended seminars on leadership skills and conflict resolution.

The group also arranged the donation of a drum set for the school band and found a copying machine for teachers to use until the school’s copier can be replaced. In a few weeks, ACE will oversee the installation of 12 to 15 stall doors in the boy’s bathrooms.

“We see ourselves as a support system to really meet the needs the schools have,” says Stu Semigran, ACE’s program director.

School Principal Bill Elkins says an equally important aspect of the program is that it boosts campus morale by showing students and faculty that people on the outside take an interest in them.

Through its leadership and self-esteem training, ACE also reinforces the themes the school staff promotes: be prompt and prepared for school, treat others as you want to be treated and do your best.

Elkins says Kirkland’s sessions serve as a reward for students who stick to these principles. As Elkins describes it, if you don’t measure up, you don’t participate. Even Kirkland’s manner during the sessions bolsters the school’s emphasis on courtesy and respect, Elkins says.

“She is very demanding in the sense that she doesn’t allow any side talk. That reinforces the kind of expectations we have for our kids--the sense that they are here for business,” Elkins says.

But taking care of business doesn’t mean they don’t have fun. With Kirkland circling the room trying to engage even the shyest students in the activities, the noise level is a controlled roar.

When she asks for attention she gets it, but there’s plenty of time spent singing along and dancing to rapper Hammer’s “2 Legit to Quit.” One student leads the dancing and the rest try to mimic the moves, with Kirkland and other professional actors in her group joining in.

All ninth-graders interested in acting or entertainment could attend the two-hour workshops. Teachers’ approval is required for participation, and this is based on the student’s citizenship and academics, which must be satisfactory.

“That doesn’t mean getting all A’s,” Elkins says. “It means doing the best they can.”