by Bryan Mealer
“Her hands were so rough and callused,” Theresa remembered. “At night they’d crack.”
Hard as life was for Bernice as a single mother, Theresa still carried fond memories of her childhood in Pahokee. But it certainly wasn’t how she’d envisioned her own children growing up. At least Jonteria and her sister Jawantae knew their fathers, she thought. Theresa had no memories of Jessie, not even a photograph.
While John was at home, Theresa had given up her dispatch job to be with the kids. Now that he was gone, she had to scramble to keep a roof over their heads. Soon she was working two part-time jobs, one at the Boys and Girls Club from six until eight in the morning, then at a day-care from eight until four in the afternoon. She did this for six years, rushing out to get her daughters from school, then bringing them back to work. They spent so much time in the car that Theresa used the miles for reading. Anything Jonteria had in her school bag, her mother would make her read aloud.
All these years, Theresa told the girls their father was just “away.” It wasn’t until Jonteria was in seventh grade that she sat them down at the city park in Pahokee and told them what had really happened.
Not long after, Jonteria started talking about wanting to be a nurse. Not in the same way kids dream of becoming astronauts and race-car drivers, but really asking specific questions.
“I just saw my mom struggling and I knew that doctors and nurses made good money,” Jonteria said. “It just became that thing I focused on and nothing else.”
Right out of the gate, her confidence cut a path. We see her at age thirteen, short, beaming behind large, buggy glasses, the pride of a kid having won an award. The prize for the local newspaper’s character contest was getting to read a PSA on the airwaves of WSWN Sugar 900.
“She is certainly outgoing enough, articulate and uses great sentence structure by which I was impressed,” the station manager, Harvey Poole, told a reporter who captured the moment. “Fear factor is not a part of her makeup.”
“It comes naturally,” the eighth-grader replied. “I am happy I can speak and smile at the same time.”
The story described Jonteria’s eagerness to help tutor her fellow students and assist teachers. But it made no mention of the social downsides of ambition, the jealousy that brains and confidence can incite, or the daily serving of abuse she had received every day since getting to junior high.
Popular girls lacerated her with name-calling, pelted her with wads of paper in the hallways, and made fun of her glasses. Most painful were the girls in her same gifted-student program who teased her to fit in themselves, leaving her no shelter. The problem became so bad that Theresa had to routinely visit the school and demand better protection. Finally one day Jonteria, fed up, smashed one of the girls in the face with a water bottle.
High school offered asylum. In order to curb dropout rates, Florida law requires incoming freshmen to declare a major area of study and slots them into appropriate career academies. Glades Central, historically one of the worst-performing schools in Palm Beach County, had recently opened academies in engineering and criminal justice, but its toughest was medical science, which required a solid understanding of algebra and a 3.0 GPA all four years. Jonteria threw herself into it.
The academy gave students Licensed Practical Nurse Certification by the time of graduation. Part of the requirement was an internship at the local hospital, Lakeside Medical Center, where it didn’t take long for Jonteria to trade up on her dream. She would be a doctor—not one chained to her pager twenty-four/seven, but an anesthesiologist. “You still make good money,” she reasoned, “but you also get to go home.”
Her goal before leaving high school was to be valedictorian, a title that would sparkle on any college application and guarantee free money. To bolster her chances at the top scholastic honor, she dual-enrolled at the nearby community college, taking courses like statistics and anatomy in the evenings after school. “I felt it was something I had to do,” she said. “Or else someone else was gonna jump over me.”
• • •
AND TO PROVE she wasn’t just brains, Jonteria set out to become popular. She began running to get into shape, circling her neighborhood in the morning near the sugar-mill smokestack that defined the city’s skyline. That summer before her sophomore year, Jonteria tried out for the Dazzling Diamond Dancers, the saucy drill team that performed alongside the Marching Maroon Machine Band. She made the cuts. She got contact lenses. Before long, she was grinding her hips in a pair of skimpy shorts across the halftime field.
But the Dazzling Diamond Dancers weren’t enough. Jonteria wanted more—she wanted to be a cheerleader. The next summer, after spending all day on her feet at the grocery store, she stayed up four hours each night practicing toe touches and herkies and learning how to throw her tiny voice when reciting from a list of chants.
“Let’s get phy-si-cal, get down, get dirty, get mean. WHAT?! Let’s get phy-si-cal, gon’ stomp right over your team.”
She was one of seventeen Raider cheerleaders her junior year, holding her own among girls who’d never lifted a finger to be popular and beautiful. And it was fun, like living two separate lives.
But Jonteria was competitive by nature, maybe when the other girls were not. She was just wired to go above the minimum. Perhaps it was because she’d choreographed some cheers that won the Raiders a cheerleading award, or because she never talked back and took instruction. Whatever the reason, just before the start of senior year, head coach Connie Vereen made Jonteria the captain. And with that honor came a fresh set of enemies.
“Even though I had the better skills, I didn’t think she would pick me,” Jonteria said. “These girls had been there since they were freshmen and I made captain my second year. Some of them were jealous, and not very friendly about it.”
As captain, her directions were ignored. Girls sniped and yelled at her, turned their noses, and refused to get in set. Jonteria didn’t want a fight. She bit her lip and carried on.
Suddenly, being at the top wasn’t so much fun.
• • •
EVEN BEFORE JONTERIA became a dancer, she started dating a football player. Theresa hadn’t let her date until she was fifteen, at which point Jonteria brought home Vincent Harper. He was a junior and two years older, played offensive line for the Raiders, and was built for the position, at six foot one and 250 pounds; Jonteria barely came up to his chest.
They met in algebra class. For a big guy, Vincent had a booming voice and he liked to joke. “Who is this guy who’s so loud?” Jonteria blurted out in annoyance one day. She was just a freshman, but did not tolerate fools. Vincent just looked at her and got louder. One day on the band field, he asked her out.
When Jonteria brought Vincent to meet Theresa, she also made him bring his mother. The four of them sat in Theresa’s living room.
“I told him my expectations and requirements, and his mom did the same,” Theresa said. The first rule Theresa laid down was NO SEX.
“I want her to live her high school years without being tied down,” she told Vincent. “I want you all to go back to the old-fashioned tradition of dating. You don’t have to go out just to have sex. There are other things you can do to enjoy each other.”
Remarkably, it seemed to work. One day, Theresa got a call from one of the school administrators. “Ms. Williams, oh my god,” she said. “I have never seen a couple behave like this. They actually act like a couple. They hold hands. He holds her books. He opens the car door and takes her to games.”
Theresa told Jonteria, “The most important person to protect is you. No one is gonna protect you. And if sex ever crosses your mind, please tell me. Please let me know.”
Later one weekend night, Vincent picked Jonteria up to see a movie in West Palm. But half an hour later, Theresa heard the car door slam and the engine race away. A minute later, Jonteria came inside, visibly upset.
“Are you okay? I thought yall were going to the movies.”
“Oh
, Mom, I’m fine. I just remembered what you told me. Guys are something else.”
“Wanna talk?”
“No. Just know that I remembered what you told me.”
Theresa let it rest. A few days later, she asked Jonteria again. What happened?
“Nothing, Mom. And that’s what I mean. Nothing happened.”
When Theresa saw Vincent again, she waited until they were alone and confronted him.
“Did you forget the rule?” she asked. “You just put my daughter out and didn’t even wait for her to get inside? Were you that upset that she didn’t have sex with you?”
“Ms. Williams—”
“ ’Cause if she had, I know you’d have walked her to the door.”
Jonteria never came home upset like that again. But Theresa still worried about Vincent pressuring her. She knew how easy it was to fold when a man wouldn’t give up on what he wanted. After a while you could persuade yourself to accept anything. It wasn’t until Vincent graduated and moved off to college that Theresa’s mind was put at ease.
She’d taken Jonteria for her first gynecological exam. When it was over, the doctor came out and said that Jonteria was still a virgin.
“I was smiling from ear to ear,” Theresa said. “I’m thinking, all right!”
As they walked to the car, Jonteria looked at her. “Mom, why are you smiling like that?”
“I’m just happy.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about.”
The memory still brought a smile to Theresa’s face. “She is dedicated. She is determined,” she said.
“Jonteria is a moral force in an immoral world.”
• • •
VINCENT WAS NOW at Hampton University on a football scholarship. The two of them texted every day and tried to speak as much as possible. She’d adapted to long-distance love easier than she’d imagined.
“My friends don’t agree with our relationship,” she said. “They have trust issues that keep them from having a long-distance relationship where you can be apart and still trust the person. Vincent’s in college, but we have trust in one other.”
At the same time, she would acknowledge with a sigh, “Whatever happens, happens. Both of us are young.”
For Jonteria, there was little time to pine. Now, as a senior, her schedule was dizzying, starting each morning at six and ending near midnight. There was school, cheerleading practice, work at Winn-Dixie, her internship hours at Lakeside Medical Center, emptying catheters and giving sponge baths, in addition to finishing her final courses at college. By graduation, Jonteria would be only six credit hours from an associate’s degree and two years closer to medical school.
She was also vice-president of the Twenty Pearls sorority, secretary of the National Honor Society, treasurer of the Health Occupations Students of America, a member of the Elite Club, and the salutatorian of the senior class. Jessica Benette, the only other girl in the medical sciences academy to dual-enroll in college with Jonteria, had been given the coveted valedictorian slot. Jonteria was graceful in her concession. After all, Jessica’s mother had passed away.
“Jessica deserves to go to whatever college offers her a scholarship,” she said. “So good luck to both of us.”
The admissions applications from the universities of her choice filled a giant folder in her room: University of Florida, Florida State, University of Miami, and Florida Atlantic University. The applications to UF, FSU, and FAU had been sent weeks before to meet each school’s early-decision deadline. But she was still laboring over the details of the application for Miami—her top choice ever since she’d dedicated herself those seven years ago.
“Miami has the number-one medical school in the state,” she said. “The smartest kids in Florida go there and it’s private, which is also a draw. I want to go somewhere private, to be accepted there. It’s always been the dream.”
Florida Atlantic was Jonteria’s second choice, mainly because of price. It was located in nearby Boca Raton, offered a decent medical school, and cost only $18,000 per year—the price of just one semester at Miami.
Since 2004, Theresa had been working as a dispatcher at the hospital. But her salary paid only $25,000 a year. Even with Jonteria’s contribution from Winn-Dixie, there was nothing left over at the end of each month. The family had no savings. Having grown up so poor, Jonteria felt that taking out student loans would be like digging herself into a deeper hole. She would try to pay for college on her own, and to do that, she would need a full scholarship. So, at the end of each night, her mind numb from exhaustion, Jonteria would sit at her computer and distill the subtle tragedies of her life in hopes of getting free money.
“My father was sentenced to ten years of incarceration in Georgia,” she wrote to the Ron Brown Scholar Program, for ten grand.
“The first thing that comes to mind when a person says Belle Glade is football,” she wrote to the Albert Lee Wright Jr. Memorial Migrant Scholarship, for $3,000. “Glade Central Community High School does in fact have one of the best football teams in the nation, but I’m living proof that we are much more than that.”
She wrote letters and essays to Coca-Cola, KFC, Walmart, McDonalds, and Bill Gates—each one tailored to meet the award’s specific requirement. The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation Award, for instance, worth $20,000, usually went to a student who could prove significant hours devoted to community service. This made her worry. She would need more of those.
“You can’t just be a good student,” Jonteria said. “You have to prove you’re an all-around good person.”
• • •
“COMMITTED TO WINNING in Academics and Athletics.”
That was the motto that appeared everywhere at Glades Central, in the cafeteria, on the walls of the gymnasium, even as a reminder along the bottom of the Raiders’ season schedule. While a commitment to winning football games thrived independently of the school administration, Glades Central’s academic record had long been an embarrassment.
Perhaps Glades Central’s greatest curse was its geography, and wrapped within that curse was its defining irony. Stranded in the western outback of one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, engulfed in the sea of cane and vegetables that drove the region’s economy, Glades Central remained the poorest high school in the state of Florida. Every student qualified for free or reduced-cost lunches. Its minority rate was 99 percent, with first- and second-generation Haitians and Hispanics making up over a third of the student population. When these students did arrive, all had varying levels of education and knowledge of English.
The school’s remoteness made Glades Central a singular challenge to the district, said Dr. Camille Coleman, a former principal. The town’s isolation and poverty narrowed students’ frame of reference and knowledge of the larger world. Coleman remembered helping students prepare for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) one year when they became stumped by a sample passage describing a cottage.
“Even reading the sentence, they could not figure out what they meant by a cottage,” Coleman said. “Finally I told them, ‘Remember Little House on the Prairie?’ and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, I know!’ When you’re not as traveled and your bubble is small, your language and vocabulary is going to be limited.”
Since 1998, Florida had used the FCAT to measure student learning from grades three through ten. The state required kids to pass the FCAT to advance and to graduate. And for schools, the state passed down grades according to their FCAT scores and how they improved the lowest 25 percent year to year. Schools with high grades received more state and federal funding, while low performers were subject to state intervention.
The high-stakes nature of the test was incredibly controversial, with critics complaining that it unfairly awarded schools in wealthy neighborhoods while suffocating poor schools that needed the extra funding to improve. In the dozen years of FCAT, Glades Central had never received anything above a D grade. Four of those years had brought Fs, including two i
n a row starting in 2007, prompting the state to issue vouchers to students who wished to transfer to private schools. Auditors appeared randomly in classrooms, checking for state-mandated curriculum. The state had also threatened Glades Central with takeover or closure.
The scarlet letter associated with the FCAT and twelve years on the state’s list had also caused a revolving door of principals at Glades Central. Since 2000, four had been hired and dismissed. The chaos and inconsistency at the high school angered many parents and older residents, who fondly remembered an easier, less stressful time. For a quarter of a century, Glades Central had known only one principal, Dr. Effie C. Grear, a woman considered the grand matriarch of Belle Glade and an inspiring and iconic figure to the region’s African Americans.
Grear had been raised poor in Huntington, West Virginia. Her father, a minister, had suffered an accident and died when Effie was in high school, leaving her mother to raise the children on a meager salary as a maid. In the mid-1950s, after putting herself through West Virginia State College and Ohio State University, where she earned a master’s in music, Grear had taken a job teaching in a migrant camp school outside of Belle Glade. She’d served as band director at Lake Shore High, then as assistant principal through the turbulent integration of schools. In 1975 she took over Glades Central, and for the next twenty-five years she oversaw the education of Belle Glade residents, most of whom she still remembered by name.
The memory of Dr. Grear’s tenure still carried a golden hue, symbolic of a simpler era, before joblessness, crime, and technology began complicating an already complicated life. To listen to anyone over forty years old, it was an era when teachers still lived in the community and kept close watch on their students, telephoning parents at the sight of children in the bars or misbehaving on the corner. It was a time when adults commanded both respect and fear, and fights on Fifth Street were settled with fists and a blade, rarely a gun.
And until the FCAT, it was also a time when poor academic performance came with little consequence to schools. For most of Grear’s tenure, students at Glades Central struggled on just about every standardized test placed before them. The alphabet soup of tests given each year caused panic in the classrooms and made a public mockery of the Glades in the morning papers. Students who failed the High School Competency Test (HSCT) could retake it in order to graduate, though Glades Central still had one of the highest dropout rates in the state. Often frustrated, Grear would hold contests for A and B students, most of whom she saw off to college. But in a poor migrant community, she explained, the isolation worked like a desert island.