By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- Six black, male students stood on the stage of the Hillside High School auditorium Monday morning, looking out at 100 or so Durham Public Schools teachers and administrators.

The educators were there to find out how better to reach students like the boys on stage, how to help close the academic achievement gap between black males and their peers.

During the opening session of a teachers' two-day Summer Institute for Raising the Achievement of African-American Males, the students offered pointed suggestions.

"We have to have mentors to support us," said Delani Samuels, a rising senior at Hillside with a 3.4 grade point average. "People see me and other African-American males as an exception. But we should be the norm."

Larry Roseboro, who graduated last month from Northern High School, told the educators that he had come from a single-parent household, "but I've had male mentors throughout my life," he said. "That's what's helped me to succeed. If I can do it, I know others can do it."

The institute is part of the Redefining Futures for African-American Males initiative, a partnership among DPS, the Durham Assocation of Educators, UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. Central University and local business leaders. The partnership earlier this year was one of three districts nationally -- out of 14,000 applicants -- to receive a five-year, $1.25 million grant from the National Educators Association Foundation to close the gap.

While DPS has reduced the overall disparity by about a third over the last decade, much work remains to be done, particularly with black male students.

About 27 percent of the district's students are black and male, and their test scores are the lowest of any group. They make up more than half of all suspensions and 71 percent of dropouts.

Only 55 percent graduate on time.

The effort will focus on two groups of feeder schools -- Eno Valley Elementary, Chewning Middle and Northern High School; and Fayetteville Street Elementary, Lowe's Grove Middle and Hillside High School.

In an energetic, nearly hour-long talk, the morning's keynote speaker, Reg Weaver, a former president of the National Education Association, repeatedly told the educators from those schools that they could reduce the gap.

"People really need help, but they may kick you in the teeth when you try to help," Weaver said. "But help them anyway. Many kids may come to you from single-parent households, when they've had no sleep at night, where they don't know where they're going to get their next meal, but they come to you because they think you are important. It's amazing what can happen when kids like their teachers."

But Weaver cautioned them as well that the old methods no longer work.

"It's 2010. We can't work with kids the way way we did in 1969," he said. "We have to develop new techniques and strategies to work with them. We have to find a way."

Editor's note: This article has been amended since publication to correct the age of the students.