BALTIMORE — Thousands of Baltimore City students are absent for a large portion of the year, often for reasons inconceivable in most suburban communities.

Some kids live in abandoned places. Some steal food to feed themselves and their siblings, or are asked by parents to make money illegally to keep the lights on. To get to school, kids may have to walk through a dangerous neighborhood or encounter sexual harassment on a public bus. The school building may not be safe either, due to bullying and violence.

There are no easy solutions. But in small corners of the city, mentoring organizations are trying to help.

One of those places is Umar Boxing, on the corner of North and Druid Hill avenues. Every day features two hours of homework tutoring for kids ages 6 to 13, followed by a boxing class in the adjoining gym for people of all ages. Kids can participate only if they’re attending school.

The kids learn academic, athletic and social discipline — starting with a mandatory greeting at the door.

“Good afternoon,” 12-year-old Mason Cottrell said as he entered the classroom at Umar Boxing on a late November afternoon, wearing light-blue rimmed glasses, a green coat and red Spider-Man shoes.

The club’s motto is “no hooks before books,” said Umar Marvin McDowell, who started the organization 29 years ago after a boxing career that led to his induction into the Maryland Boxing Hall of Fame.

“We just try to be a [stabilizing] community to keep them out of trouble and keep them interested in learning,” he said.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, McDowell had an 85% high school graduation rate. After the pandemic, that rate dropped to around 45 to 50%, he said, although it’s been picking up again lately. His gym never closed during the pandemic, and they carefully ensured kids wore masks and the environment stayed sanitary.

“We never gave up on these kids,” he said. “We didn’t want to lose these kids.”

Teaching discipline

McDowell says he’s trying to help as many kids as he can. His club sees 25 to 30 kids a day, with around 50 total signups.

Years ago, one of those kids was Freddie Gray. He was a teenager then, McDowell said, around the time he dropped out of high school. Gray died several years later after sustaining fatal injuries while in police custody in April 2015. His police arrest happened just a few blocks away from the gym.

“I had a chance to get him,” McDowell said. “He filled out the application, but he never came back.”

Nearly 10 years after Gray’s death, the kids at Umar Boxing are getting daily lessons in history, discipline and respect.

“You’re first and foremost students, then boxers,” says one of the two Baltimore City school teachers who lead the tutoring sessions. The kids receive printouts featuring a picture of Baltimore welterweight Billy Richardson.

A small girl with a pink shirt and pants listens while running her hands through purple-highlighted braids. A young boy with a serious expression places his arms on the table and rests his chin on his hands.

The kids snack on Pringles, popcorn and grape juice, and take a break for video games. They return to the table for a minute of silent meditation, heads resting on forearms, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

“It’s taking your mind off the troubles that’s around … getting rid of the negativity,” McDowell said of the meditation exercise. “A lot of them don’t know how to express their feelings and control their feelings. … Some people don’t even realize how important that is, just relaxing and doing nothing.”

A teacher asks what they did the past weekend and what they’re proud of. One of the older boys tells the class he went to Shake Shack and is proud of his improvements in English Language Arts. The rest of the class applauds.

After transitioning to the gym, the kids warm up by jumping rope. Then they line up for shadow-boxing exercises led by coaches: “One, two, duck!” “One, two, one, two, duck!”

Sean Johnson, 11, shuffles in a circle around the inside of the boxing ring with fists clenched in front of his face.

“Boxing helps with discipline, helps with listening skills, helps with respect,” McDowell said.

Unsafe walks, unsafe buses, unsafe schools

At Umar Boxing and other youth outreach organizations across the city, a big focus is making kids feel safe.

McDowell laments the new bus stop located directly in front of his gym.

“When you have a bus stop there, people hang out there,” he said. “The kids got to finagle their way through the people that’s selling drugs, the drug addicts, the drunks, the homeless people.”

Walking to school can be traumatizing for kids, said Donyelle Brown of Cody Young Empowerment Youth Charities. The organization hosts an after-school program for kids to do homework, prepare for college and a future career, have a meal, get a haircut and enjoy some downtime in a safe environment.

“If there’s someone on that corner, or there’s someone … maybe even trying to recruit you for something, that’s not a safe space for that child to be walking past,” she said.

Some kids who come to Brown’s program have weightier things on their mind than school.

“They would hide food in their bag and take it,” Brown said. “And I said, ‘Why are you taking it? You could just ask.’ … And they were like, ‘It’s for my brother, my sister, because my mom says if I eat, I’ve got to feed them.'”

Kids sometimes don’t know whom they can trust, Brown said.

“These youth now come to us and tell us a lot of things that they would never share with their counselor or their teacher or even their parent,” she said.

Transportation is a big factor in chronic absenteeism, said Jamal Turner, who mentors students through The Nolita Project. For kids who use public transportation, there’s not always enough space on the bus, and girls sometimes face sexual harassment from older men, he said.

“If a kid is unable to catch that bus, and it’s not their fault, there’s two choices that can be made: ‘I can wait here for an additional 45 minutes to an hour for a bus to come, which increases my risk, depending on the neighborhood that I’m in, or I can go home.’ And not every kid decides to wait and go to school,” Turner said.

There’s also a need to make sure kids feel safe once they get to school, said David Thompson, who started the iLIVE Project a few years ago, which helps resolve conflicts among students in city schools. He said bullying has gotten worse since he was a kid.

“You used to make fun of somebody, make them feel bad … but now it’s getting into threatening and jumping them,” he said. “We take it very seriously, and it’s not tolerated at all.”

Helping kids stay out of trouble

Though Thompson has plenty of success stories, there are painful stories, too.

In some cases, parents themselves can’t read, which makes it hard for them to be engaged in what their kids are doing in school, he said.

Sometimes, if kids see family members selling drugs or becoming incarcerated, they think, “That’s the way to go,” Thompson said. And sometimes they get so far involved that they can’t make it back.

“We’ve lost a couple [mentees] to homicide, and then we’ve lost a couple to the system of being incarcerated, whether it’s juvenile or adult,” he said.

Sometimes kids don’t go to school because they’re trying to help provide for their families. In one instance, a boy told The Nolita Project’s Turner that his mom asked him to sell drugs to cover the electric bill after the family’s power got cut off.

“He said, ‘It hurts my heart that my mom wants for me to do this, and I’m trying everything in my power not to do it,'” Turner said.

Turner’s organization helped resolve the situation with the electric bill and helped the boy find a legal source of income.

Turner said it’s all about understanding a child’s needs and trying to help fill the gap.

“Because once you do that, that engagement you have with that youth, with that family, that increases their participation in education,” he said.

‘A safe and healing refuge’

Some kids who are absent from school are dealing with homelessness, said Saran Fossett, founder and executive director of AZIZA PE&CE, which aims to create a “safe and healing refuge for kids,” especially Black girls and LGBTQ+ youth.

Some of the kids live in “abandoned places,” she said, describing how, after dropping kids off at their place of residence, she’s observed them “climbing through windows” to get inside.

Sometimes kids don’t want to go to school because they don’t have their hair done or clean clothes, which is one way the program tries to assist.

“They’re not going to want to go to school like that — the taunting, the bullying that’s happening,” Fossett said.

Kids also may not attend school because they struggle to keep up academically.

“They’re embarrassed too, that they can’t read, that they can’t do math, so they don’t want to go to school for that reason,” Fossett said.

‘Think twice before doing anything once’

When kids drop out of school, it starts with a “disconnect” at home, said Paul Britt, who helps with the tutoring at Umar Boxing and also teaches at Achievement Academy at Harbor City High School.

“You have absentee parents. You have ineffective parents. You have drug addiction. You have underage parenting,” he said. “And consequently, the grandparents are raising a child, and they are past their prime to be raising children.”

Consistency is key in interacting with kids, Britt said.

“Every time, if this is the behavior, then this is going to be the consequence,” he said. “You have to be very consistent.”

It’s also important for kids to have male role models, said McDowell, the boxing gym owner.

“I specifically wanted male teachers so they could be around that male image and have that male role model. A lot of kids don’t have that,” he said.

Two months ago, one of the kids at Umar Boxing was breaking every rule in the book. “Non-compliant, tantrum-ing … you name it,” Britt said. But they wouldn’t let him get away with bad behavior. Now, “he’s a new young man,” Britt said.

Before exiting the classroom to head to the gym, the kids recite a phrase posted by the door: “Think twice before doing anything once.”

Then, the final send-off.

“Go, be great,” Britt booms.

Around the room, an echo of small voices.

“Go, be great.”

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