By KEITH UPCHURCH

kupchurch@heraldsun.com; 419-6612

DURHAM -- A downtown school for gang members, high school dropouts and others in trouble is helping turn students' lives around and mining the intellectual gold within them all, according to the school's executive director.

Frances Alexander, who runs the EDGE School at 800 N. Mangum St., said that when the school finishes with the students, "they're almost perfect."

She spoke Thursday afternoon at a meeting of the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham at Shepherd's House United Methodist Church.

Alexander said many students at the school, which gets most of its funding from the city, are going on to college and a higher quality of life than they once knew.

"Most of the students are really smart," she said. "They didn't make it in public schools because they were bored. We always encourage them. We know that they had some kind of a stigma attached to them when they were kicked out of school and couldn't get back in."

Alexander said she hopes to find additional funding so the school, which has about 28 students, can help more young people.

"If you're 16 or 17 and get kicked out of school, you have nowhere to go, and your back is against the wall," she said. "And the city of Durham really needs to see what we're doing and open up their arms to us and welcome us, and care that we are there trying to help these kids, because there's no reason for any of them to go to prison.

"If you give them an education, they'll go on with their lives and do something."

Alexander didn't mention last week's conflict with Durham police, whom she accused of abusing a 19-year-old student, Andre Bond Jr., when they arrested him at the school on pending charges. Bond was at Thursday's meeting, and told the group that the program had helped him become a better person. Also speaking was William Lee, vice president of the school and board chairman, who talked about his troubled childhood, being shot and almost dying, and his efforts to help others down a better path.

"EDGE is where it's at," he said. "It takes a person with a sound mind to deal with someone with a criminal background and to love them for who they are.

"After God spared my life and brought me back from the dead," he said, "all I think about is giving back to people something I never had."