School Program Challenges Minority Students : Vallejo: The Tanner Project mixes college preparation and career counseling with gang-like camaraderie. It has yielded several success stories.

Big Dre was on his way to becoming a statistic--a black youth, barely graduating from school and headed for a minimum-wage job and maybe even a jail cell.

“I wanted to be Mr. Thug Gangbanger,” said Andre Royster, whose handle comes courtesy of his 6-foot-7 physique.

But Royster’s dreams of life as a thug began fading the day he bumped into two friends heading to the Tanner Project, an after-school program.

Admittedly, Royster initially wanted to join the project after hearing that there were 20 girls and just four boys in the group. And while Big Dre advanced his social skills with the two female friends he met that year, the Tanner Project also gave him something he wasn’t expecting:

An education.

“It put the future on my mind,” said Royster, 24, a graduate of Morris Brown College in Atlanta and now a food service director for Fine Host at Texas College. “They kind of gave me the tools that made me the man I am today.”

Royster is one of the first products of the Tanner Project, a direct-support program established nine years ago for black Vallejo high school students. He is not an isolated success: In the last five years, all Tanner seniors have enrolled in a four-year college.

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The project is named after former Assemblywoman Sally Tanner, who worked to help increase high school graduation and college-acceptance rates for ethnic minorities. It began as an SAT preparation program funded by the state Department of Education, but soon blossomed into a full-service program. Funding now comes from donations and fund-raisers.

Each fall, students must apply to the program even if they participated the previous year. Tannerites, as they affectionately call themselves, make a commitment to show up every Monday night, help organize fund-raisers and open their minds to learning.

Students receive career and personal counseling, SAT preparation and tips on study skills. They discuss cultural awareness and meet with guest speakers ranging from the mayor to doctors to teen-age parents.

“This whole thing is like a gang. There is a bonding that goes on between the students and teachers. . . . That’s the glue that holds it together,” said Willie Atkins, director of the project.

And like any gang, they watch each others’ back.

“If you don’t come, people will be like: ‘What’s wrong with you? How come you aren’t going to Tanner?’ ” said Ezekiel Griffin, 16.

Unlike street gangs, however, Tannerites are armed with books, not guns. Their heads are filled with knowledge, not drugs.

“I think if anything, it makes us role models,” said Nicole Mitchell, 15. “In Tanner, you’re taught to be serious about your schoolwork, about your goals in life . . . . I think that a lot of people think of us as role models because we’re actually doing something other than getting into trouble.”

Just 33% of black high school graduates and 36% of Latinos enrolled in college in 1993, compared with nearly 42% of white high school graduates, according to the American Council on Education.

So to show Tannerites the possibilities, they are taken on a tour of 15 historically black colleges.

“They’ve never seen so many African American students involved in the learning process,” Atkins said. “They find a whole school of teachers who care if they succeed. And not that we don’t have them in our system, just not enough of them.”

Among the estimated 120 Tanner students this year, 26 are seniors. All are college-bound.

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Rashaad Colbert passed only two classes in the ninth grade and had a 1.6 grade-point average. This fall, he’s heading to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., to study computer science--taking a 3.0 GPA and loads of determination with him.

The best lessons from Tanner, Colbert says, are how to prioritize time and focus on goals.

“We know there’s a time to play and a time to be serious,” he said.

Tracie Hall, 16, says her attitude toward school has changed dramatically from the days when she used to rush to finish her homework while riding the bus to school.

“You have to take pride in what you’re doing. All the grades . . . count now. You can’t mess around now,” Hall said.

How right she is.

In one year, four students were kicked out, including Andre Royster, who started water-balloon fights, refused to wear dressy clothes during the college tour, and teased other students.

Royster pleaded to return. The second time, his goal wasn’t to meet girls.

“It was the whole idea of being around positive people who wanted to do more than graduate high school and live in Vallejo,” he said.

Rirginia Brooks is one of those people, a ninth-grader at Solano High School and a first-year Tanner student.

“I want to beat the statistics . . . proving that people of my race can come up, can beat the statistics, can beat all the negativity,” she said.

“Even if there is a roadblock, instead of just stopping, building a wall, I’m going to build a bridge so I can work over that and keep going.”