A Better Chance: For the inner-city students who come to Amherst Regional High, it's not that simple

by Suzanne Wilson

June 2008

THE BIG WHITE HOUSE at 74 North Prospect St. in Amherst is starting to empty out. The young men who lived there during the past school year will soon scatter for the summer. It was a hard year; no one involved really disputes that. In different ways, and to different degrees, it was hard for the seven high school boys who arrived last August, hard for the parents who brought them there, and hard for the resident directors responsible for supervising them. What follows is a two-part story that looks at that year inside the ABC house. The initials stand for A Better Chance, a national program that prepares academically talented African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian-American and Native American students for college and future leadership roles. ABC students leave their home school districts and attend either academically rigorous public high schools or private boarding schools. Since 1968, when Amherst welcomed its first ABC students, about 100 boys, many from hundreds of miles away, have graduated from Amherst Regional High School through the program. Throughout this school year, photographer Carol Lollis and I checked in from time to time with several of the students. Though we asked countless questions, there were a few recurring themes. What was it like to adjust to a new place? Was the possibility of long-term success worth being uprooted from family, moving in with strangers, losing ties with old friends and struggling academically?

BY THE END of October, after two months in rural, small-town Amherst, Anthony Dominguez of New York City is homesick. He misses his neighborhood on Tibbett Avenue in the Bronx. "Just the vibe you get and the energy," he says. Tibbett Avenue is a densely populated street a few blocks from a business district where lumbering buses roll by delis, insurance offices, barber shops, pizza places, newsstands and nail salons. Anthony, a 13-year-old with dark eyes and dark hair cut straight across his forehead, has come to Amherst as an ABC scholar for the 2007-2008 school year. His first weeks at Amherst Regional High School have been a blur of changes. In the life he left behind, Anthony had a room to himself at home, and was one of just 23 eighth-graders at a Catholic school. Now, living away from his parents for the first time in his life, he's staying in a supervised, dormitory-style household. He's adjusting to a roommate. And he's one of more than 300 ninth-graders in a school of 1,209 students. He's handled much of the transition with aplomb. Laundry, for instance. He's gotten the hang of "what goes with what," he says, and, except for the time he sent his wallet through the wash cycle, the system is working well. But other things are hard. Everything sort of builds up, he says, "and you realize you really do miss your family." At first Anthony was so busy that he called home only once or twice a week. Now he often walks the half-mile from school to the house on North Prospect Street holding his cell phone to his ear, checking in with his mother or father. He misses their faces and their hugs. "But I'm here for a good reason," he says, "so I shouldn't be sad if I'm here for a good reason."

THAT GOOD REASON is to get the best education he can. Founded in 1963 with a grant from the Charles E. Merrill Foundation, ABC has its roots in an era of idealism and hope, when the nation seemed galvanized to attack, if not eradicate, racism, poverty and educational inequality. The original grant was made to support bringing talented students of color to 23 schools with high-quality college preparatory programs; today, more than 300 schools around the country have ABC students. The first 50 scholars, all boys, spent the summer of 1964 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where they completed a study program before being placed in the selected college prep schools. Since then, through ABC, nearly 12,000 middle and high school students from areas with poor schools have entered private or public schools that have more resources. More than 96 percent of the program's graduating seniors have gone on to four-year colleges. Though that first group in 1964 was made up of African-American boys, ABC has for many years accepted girls as well. Its demographic profile has shifted over time from almost all black to a mix of black, Latino, Asian American and Native American. In Amherst, ABC has remained a males-only program, in part because of the prohibitive expense of adding a second house, and because board members agree that keeping the program small makes it more manageable. An ABC program for girls that at one time operated in South Hadley closed in 1983 when community interest, commitment and financial support waned. ABC in Amherst has an annual budget of about $110,000. The money, raised from grants and private donations, is used to run the house and pay the boys' expenses; ABC receives no government funds. The local program is also supported by its own version of the village it takes to raise a child: There's a 34-person board of directors, many of whom befriend the students. There are volunteer mentors who troubleshoot academic problems. There are host families who open their homes to students for weekend visits. There are teachers and staff at Amherst Regional who give the boys extra attention, and volunteer tutors from Amherst College who come to the house in the afternoons and evenings. This year, seven students, three new ones; Anthony, his older brother, Randy, and another freshman, Jorge Colon; joined four returning scholars, seniors Michael Brown and Zakharii Willetts and sophomores Jamar Ross and Adem Abraham. Each in his own way would explore that notion of what Anthony Dominguez called "the good reason" that he was there.

ANTHONY CAME TO THE Amherst ABC program with his older brother, Randy, 16, who entered ARHS as a junior. Tall and athletic-looking, with sparkly earrings in both ears, Randy is also feeling the pull of home. "I wanted to stay," he says after his first visit back to New York over Columbus Day weekend. It isn't that people in his new school aren't friendly, he says. They are. Still, he wonders if coming to Amherst is really about his own future. Sometimes, he says, it seems that wanting to do well is "more for my father than for me." Antero Dominguez, Randy and Anthony's father, came to New York from Mexico when he was 16 and got his first job in the city working the late shift washing dishes and pots in a small, busy restaurant. "I had to do something to get money," he says. Five days a week, he went to a class to learn English, before heading to work. He stayed at that job for about six months before looking for a position where he'd be able to learn to cook. He found one, eventually becoming a full-time chef at Ecco, an Italian restaurant on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan, where he works now. Though it can be hot and grueling, Antero says it's been a good job that has enabled him to support his family. Still, he notes, after finishing ninth grade in Mexico, he'd never had the chance to continue his education in this country. The family lives in one half of a two-family house that Antero and his wife, Carmen, bought 16 years ago. On the living-room walls are family photos, including wedding pictures of Antero and Carmen. School pictures of the couple's four children stand atop the TV cabinet. Besides Randy and Anthony, there is Irving, who's 19, and Yadira, 15, the only daughter. "I work hard for them," says Antero, "so they can be better. This country has a lot of opportunity to do great things." In the kitchen, coffee, a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of neatly cut sandwiches are set out on a lacy tablecloth for the reporter and photographer from Massachusetts. Antero does most of the talking, as Carmen has a limited command of English and the visitors don't speak Spanish. Carmen is a homemaker who also does some baby-sitting and housecleaning. Antero's mother, visiting from Mexico, sits in a chair at the edge of the gathering, watching, hands folded in her lap. It's a Thursday in late August. Antero and Carmen are a few days away from driving Randy and Anthony to Amherst. Downstairs in the boys' bedrooms, open suitcases lie spread out on the beds and packing is well underway. To get into ABC, students submit report cards and recommendations, write essays and go through an interview process. Those who are accepted are students who have done well academically, and Randy and Anthony were no exceptions. Like their older brother and their sister, they went to St. John's Catholic School, just a block away from home, beginning as preschoolers. But as they grew up, their parents started to worry about their children's options for high school. St. John's wasn't a bad school, says Irving, but it didn't offer much in the way of extras, such as after-school activities. "At 2:30, everything finished," says Antero. "That's it, you go home." A cousin had been accepted into a program that places talented Latino and African-American students from New York into boarding schools in the Northeast and pays their expenses. Antero began making phone calls, inquiring about that program and others that might be good for his children. Irving was accepted into the Oliver Program, the same one his cousin had entered. In the fall of 2003, he made the leap to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., one of the nation's most prestigious prep schools. "I was quiet and shy when I got there," says Irving, who now comes across as self-assured, friendly and confident. He'd rarely been out of New York City. He'd never been around students from such wealthy, well-traveled families, or been exposed to people of diverse religious faiths and backgrounds. And, he says, he was behind his classmates academically. But with effort and the extra help he sought from teachers and classmates, Irving persisted and thrived. He became an active participant in classes that encouraged a constant exchange of ideas. He made friends and got involved in basketball and tennis. "I liked Exeter a lot," he says. Irving set his sights on Harvard University, where he was accepted and awarded generous financial assistance. In two weeks, he's leaving for Cambridge. "I'm really excited," he says. Antero is proud: "This is a big deal to us." For Randy, the move to Amherst will be his second relocation in as many years. Last year, he went to the Carson Long Military Academy in Pennsylvania, where his parents hoped the regimented discipline would help him concentrate on schoolwork. Though his grades went up, his parents decided a year there was enough. With all three sons away, Carmen and Antero will have just Yadira at home. So far, she has said she isn't interested in going away to school. Asked if it will be hard to see Randy and Anthony leave, Antero takes the long view. "This is the most important thing me and my wife can do for them now. Later, it will be up to them."

THE NEXT SATURDAY, the family SUV is parked at the ABC house in Amherst. Everyone — two parents, three children — pitches in, lugging suitcases and bags inside, through the kitchen, down the hallway, past the washer and dryer, to the double room Anthony will share with a roommate who is arriving tomorrow. In come brand-new sneakers, clothes, desk lamps, duffel bags, neatly folded blankets and bedding, stacks of notebooks and pens. As her youngest son's belongings begin filling up the room, Carmen, armed with spray cleaner and paper towels, busies herself dusting the bureau and desk. Dressed in an orange and white striped polo and jeans, Anthony carefully arranges five pairs of sneakers, a pair of sandals and a pair of dress shoes into a straight line near his bed. Randy is settling into his single upstairs — tradition has it that older students get their own rooms. His collection of free weights is on the floor; a framed copy of the Ten Commandments is propped up on the dresser near a bottle of nutritional supplements. He sweeps the floor, hangs all his shirts in one closet and all his pants in the other, and smooths out every wrinkle in the sheets as he makes the bed with military precision. You don't have to be so exact here, Antero tells him reassuringly. Down the hall from Randy, Valerie Brown is unpacking some of her son Michael's belongings. Michael will be a senior at ARHS and this is the fourth time Valerie and her husband, Michael Sr., have gone through this back-to-school ritual. "It's very hard," she says. "My first time, I cried and cried." Michael remembers going to an elementary school in the Bronx with overcrowded classrooms and too few teachers, a place where he learned early on that he could get easy A's. "You know the kid whose homework you wanted to borrow if you didn't do yours? I was that kid," he says. "I knew there wasn't much there for me." As her son neared high school, Valerie says, she grew increasingly worried that he'd lose focus if he wasn't challenged academically. After she heard about ABC from a friend, she decided it would be a good option. Her husband, though, ached at the thought of sending his first-born away. And it bothered him to think that, in new surroundings, his son would be influenced by other people's values, not necessarily those of his own parents. One Sunday morning, the couple argued about it for so long in the car on their way to church that they never got to the service. "It's for his own good," Valerie said, pressing her case, and in the end, she prevailed. When Michael was offered a placement in Amherst, he faced criticism and ridicule from some of his friends. "People said I must think I was too good for where I grew up," he says. "I was called 'white boy.' A lot of people said that, a lot — and it hurt." After her son left, Valerie had moments when her conviction was an empty consolation. The tears would start, she says, whenever she'd walk into his empty room, sit down on the bed and look around. To ease things, she and her husband and their younger son made frequent weekend trips to Amherst. That fall of 2004 was tough for Michael, too. Socially, he was quiet and lacked confidence. Honors algebra "was a complete disaster," he recalls, and in other classes he was getting C's instead of his usual A's. After a rocky first trimester, his grades started ticking upward.

"MY GOAL IS .... " One by one, they go around the table, each student reading from a statement he's been asked to prepare. It is Sunday, orientation day, the day after arrival. "My goal is to maintain a B-plus average and get into college ... My goal is to have nothing less than a B-plus average, and to be a more responsible person ... I want to be a better leader, to help the younger ones with their homework, to stay out of arguments... To get higher grades, work to my potential, do my chores, try to run the 400-meter dash, and make the basketball team ... To manage my time wisely ... To be more active in clubs and sports ... To improve in history, to give back to the community... To get an A average and not to procrastinate..." They are seated in the room that doubles as the dining room and study hall. A small framed black-and-white photo of a pensive Martin Luther King Jr.hangs on one wall, near a sideboard laden with coffee and bagels. Joining the group is Anthony's roommate, Jorge Colon, 13, who has just arrived from Elizabeth, N.J., with his mother, Nereida Colon. Jorge is wearing jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming Knowledge is Power on the front and the words ALL OF US WILL LEAD on the back. The Knowledge is Power Program, started in 1994 by two young elementary school teachers in Texas, is a network of public charter schools serving poor and minority students in 17 states. KIPP schools are characterized by a longer school day, a strong culture of achievement, and close, almost daily contact among teachers, parents and students. The program now sends more than 80 percent of its students to college, according to the KIPP Web site. Jorge went to a KIPP school in the Bronx for grades five through eight before his family's move to New Jersey. At one end of the table are Josh and Heather Lord-Arond, 32 and 34 years old respectively. They live in an apartment upstairs with their 4-year-old daughter, Khalila, and are returning for their second year as the household's resident directors. Josh is about to start a new job as an eighth-grade teacher in Holyoke; Heather, who has a master's degree in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is planning to divide her time among her family, her ABC responsibilities and part-time stints working as a personal care attendant and helping out on theater productions at UMass. "It's wonderful to have the house full," says Josh as he welcomes everyone. He talks about establishing a tone of cooperation, communication and personal responsibility. "Even if it's not your dirty dish that got left out, pick it up and take it to the kitchen." They'll share assigned chores; such as loading the dishwasher, doing the pots and pans, taking out the trash; which will rotate and be posted weekly in the kitchen.

MICHAEL HAWKINS, president of the ABC board of directors, has watched this scene unfold many times. The new students, eager, still shy, so polite. Their parents, so full of hope. He's watched the older scholars, as they've pushed boundaries, tested limits, and, more often than not, grown and matured. Hawkins, 46, is associate dean of admission at Amherst College and a former ABC scholar. He was an eighth-grader at a public school in Washington, D.C., when a counselor and his parents encouraged him to apply to ABC. Hawkins wound up at St. Mark's School in Southborough, and then went on to Williams College in Williamstown, where he became the first member of his family to graduate from college. ABC changed his life, he says, and shows what can happen when someone believes in you, "reaches out and pulls you along." This is about more than getting good grades to go to college, he says. It's about putting these students in environments where they can figure out who they are and who they want to be — where, in short, they can choose their own futures. Hawkins has spent many hours interviewing kids, looking for what he calls "the intangibles" beyond good grades — adaptability, persistence, focus. "It takes a special kid to adjust," he had said in an interview the previous spring. As ABC students, they'll be living with the pressure of their parents' expectations, their teachers' requirements, the scrutiny of the ABC board members, and the influence of other kids, both inside and outside the house. Hawkins knows that, unlike their counterparts 20 or 30 years ago, these boys no longer stand out in Amherst as the only students of color in school. But he knows that they'll still be known as ABC kids, who are expected to be smart, and good role models. And he knows, if history is a guide, that some of them will face the prospect of academic failure for the first time in their young lives. Hawkins, who says he's not afraid to be "the bad cop" when necessary, outlines what he hopes to see this year. The honor roll, he tells the group, is not a lofty, abstract notion, but an achievement within reach of every student here. "We're really going to push that this year." As for personal behavior, "we will not ever have any physical violence, no drugs, no hazing. We can't tolerate anything like that." He urges the parents to contact him, anytime. In their absence, he says, he will try "to love your sons the same way you do. I'm looking forward to an amazing year with lots to celebrate."

FROM THE KITCHEN comes the rapid-fire chop-chop-chop of vegetables being cut up for salad. The rice is steaming on the stove, and the chicken is cooking. It is a late-fall afternoon and Luis Tapia, the cook who works at the ABC house five nights a week, is making dinner. Luis is a favorite with Anthony and Randy, who like to hang out with him, bantering back and forth in Spanish while he works. A walk-through pantry connects the kitchen to the dining room/study hall, which at the moment is cluttered with backpacks, books, calculators and papers. When they have homework, the students are expected to work on it for a couple of hours every afternoon, between 4 and 6, and again after dinner, from 7:30 to 9:30. Extra help, if needed, comes from volunteer tutors. Some are Amherst College students, others are members of ABC's local board of directors. Upstairs is a small room outfitted with computers donated by Amherst College, one for each student. Outside that room, a large map of the world hangs in the hallway, near bookshelves lined with dictionaries, SAT study guides and other resource texts. On this afternoon, Anthony is tackling math, a subject that's tough going for him. As he struggles through the x's and y's, he's being helped by Meg Hart, an ABC board member. Part math whiz, part cheerleader, part motherly influence, Hart prompts Anthony through the rough spots. "Now it's hopeless, right?" she asks him. "Wrong!" she says, answering her own question. Randy, currently immersed in Spanish, chemistry, U.S. history and algebra, is finding that he has more work than he did last year, and that he'll need to be "more self-motivated" to get it done than he was at the military school, where every move was watched. Though he'd been warned Amherst would be a tough transition, deep down he hadn't really believed that. "I thought it would be a piece of cake," he says, "but it's not." Outside of class, he's found the offerings limited for teenagers. The local mall is "pretty whack," he reports. Interestingly, though, he's surprised to find that Amherst is in its own small way more diverse than the city he left behind. He's discovered that instead of being all-white, its mix includes African-Americans, Cambodians, Chinese, Vietnamese and others, who seem to mingle and interact. In New York, he says, blacks, Hispanics and whites "did their own thing." Randy has already broken away from the regimentation of military school. He's sporting a mohawk and a tongue piercing. Though his closets are still organized, his room is fast becoming a jumble, and that neatly made bed is a thing of the past. He's been working out at the gym and with his free weights; lifting is his way of dealing with stress and emotions. "It keeps my mind off everyday life," he says. Jorge says he, too, is feeling academic pressure in Amherst. He misses the closeness of his KIPP school, where students were given their teachers' phone numbers and encouraged to call with questions or problems. "KIPP was a family to me," he says. He's also missing his real family. He's missing spending time with his 4-year-old sister, missing being able to be the influential big brother, and worries that she is growing up without him. He misses his mother's cooking, particularly her pies and strawberry upside-down cake. "My mom misses me," he says, "but she wants me to be independent."

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT in January, Anthony and Jorge are in their room, passing time after dinner. Though the place is a mess, they seem unfazed. "When I start losing stuff, I start to clean," Anthony explains. But if the state of their room doesn't bother them, they're both feeling other anxieties. They've each already gotten some C's in their classes, lower marks than they're used to, and both have transferred out of some of the hardest classes they were taking. Anthony says he's worried about letting his parents down, especially his father. Jorge is feeling some of the same. "She doesn't expect less than a B from me," he says of his mother. The boys head to the kitchen. It's Anthony's turn to clean up, and Jorge comes along to help. As he attacks the pots and pans and Anthony loads glasses into the dishwasher, they joke about the fact that they're doing way more kitchen work than they ever did at home. They've made friends at school, and their social networks are growing. After school, they can often be found in the room at the high school where fans of Pitchnut — a game played on a wooden board — meet. In fast-paced matches each player tries to outdo the other at flicking plastic pieces into corner pockets. But some of their friends, says Anthony, live in places like Leverett and Shutesbury, so it's hard to see them on weekends: "Getting there takes forever." As for just going to downtown Amherst, Jorge says they're pacing themselves, for fear of getting too sick of it, too soon. Jorge likes U.S. history and follows politics. Just about every morning, he checks out the headlines using his phone's Internet connection. He's intrigued by the presidential candidates, especially Sens. Clinton and Obama. "I have my eyes on them," he says. At the moment he's pulling for Hillary, mostly because "the males already had their turn. And I'm hoping she would stop the Iraq war." Now that they've made a couple of visits home, they've experienced some of the changes in their old friendships that just about every ABC student encounters. It's hard to pick up where you left off when you don't see kids every day, says Jorge, and you've missed out on things. "I feel left out," he says. "It's like, what are they talking about?" Anthony likens it to seeing the sequel of a movie before you see the first part. "By the time you figure it out, it's finished!"

Follow-up article: Turmoil in the house and uncertainty as the school year draws to a close.

This is the conclusion of a two-part of a story about the school year just ended at the ABC house on North Prospect Street in Amherst. The initials stand for A Better Chance, a national program that prepares academically talented African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian-American and Native American students for college and future leadership roles. ABC scholars leave their home school districts and attend either academically rigorous public high schools, or private boarding schools. The Amherst ABC program, which enrolls entering students at Amherst Regional High School, began in 1968. Nationwide ABC accepts both boys and girls at more than 300 participating schools; in Amherst, the small residential program has stayed all-male. Last week's story described the adjustment of three students who came to Amherst last fall. Two were brothers, Anthony Dominguez, a freshman, and Randy, a junior. The boys grew up in the Bronx, N.Y.,where their parents, Antero and Carmen Dominguez, still live. The third new student was Jorge Colon, a freshman from Elizabeth, N.J. Like the Dominguezes, Nereida Colon, Jorge's mother, wanted her son to attend a school that would strengthen his chances to succeed in college. The three newcomers shared the ABC house with four other returning students — Jamar Ross, Adem Abraham, Michael Brown and Zakharii Willetts — and resident directors Heather and Josh Lord-Arond. This week's story looks at some difficult moments in the household, one senior's graduation, and the students' uncertainties as the year comes to a close.

FOUR LARGE PICTURE FRAMES hang on a wall inside the entry way at the front door of the ABC house on North Prospect Street. Inside each are rows of small yearbook photos of young men from the program who graduated from Amherst Regional High School. The earliest date from the 1970s, the most recent from 2007. Underneath the photo of Kenneth Clark, Class of '91, is a note: "To my ABC brothers. Remember that luck is when preparation meets opportunity." Jermaine Walker, Class of '93, looks out from behind the glass, chin resting on his hand. "I am proud to be an ABC graduate," his message reads, "and thankful for the opportunities they gave me." It may well be that the transition from home to Amherst was hard for every one of the nearly 100 students who have passed through this sprawling, dorm-like house. "I would be lying if I said there weren't times when I just wanted to go home," recalls Kleaver Cruz, who graduated last year and now attends Vassar College in New York. "But then I would think about my mother who was willing to let me go." ABC had made him grow up, he says, had pushed him out of his comfort zone, had given him a four-year "heads-up" on adjusting to college. It was worth it, he says, but adds that the real question is why programs like it are still needed, why, 40 years after Amherst ABC began, glaring educational inequality persists. "Hopefully it won't be necessary someday," he said. "But I don't see that happening anytime soon." At the outset of the school year, there are two seniors in the ABC house poised to have their photos added to the remaining spaces inside the fourth frame. Michael Brown, starting his fourth and final year in Amherst, knows that the older students are expected to set an example for the younger ones. He knows he is supposed to keep an eye on the younger students and offer encouragement and advice — or a nudge if he sees chores not done, or homework neglected. It is a role that doesn't come naturally. "Sometimes I feel like the bully of the house," he says. With Michael's parents several hours away in the Bronx, Susan Haight, an ABC board member who teaches at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley, has offered to help him navigate the college application process. As she's done with previous ABC students, Haight sat down with Michael in the fall to go over deadlines and paperwork. Along with her husband, Charles, Susan was with Michael when he sent his completed applications off via email. After an exchange of high-fives and a phone call home to share the moment with his parents, the waiting began. Michael's applications include three to schools in his home state of New York — Hobart College in the Finger Lakes region, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, 60 miles from the city, and St. Lawrence University in Canton. His parents are rooting for Hobart, believing that their son will get the most out of that college's smaller size and more home-like campus life. For Michael, though, Stony Brook's proximity to the big city beckons. Amherst has been great during high school, he says, "but I've been out in the woods for so long." The other senior in the house, Zakharii Willetts, is also applying to colleges, but in other ways is grappling with different issues. And by the end of the year, the two ABC seniors will have chosen different paths.

FOR THEIR PART, Heather and Josh Lord-Arond, the resident directors who live in an apartment upstairs with their young daughter, Khalila, are beginning their second year in the positions that offer room and board but no pay. Hired by ABC in 2006, Heather was a 1989 graduate of ARHS, who had gone on to earn a master's degree in education at the University of Massachusetts. Her husband, Josh, after working as an aide at Amherst Regional, had also earned his master's in education, with plans for a teaching career. Heather and Josh's first year, beginning in the fall of '06, wasn't easy. The discovery of lead paint in the house had abruptly forced all of them to pack up and move to another house in town for several months, and then back. They had been lucky, Heather says, that three of the students that year - Tommie Lark, and twin brothers Walter and Kleaver Cruz — were seniors whose maturity and focus helped keep everyone on track. But not long after the start of this, their second year, there are signs that the even keel and family atmosphere Heather and Josh are hoping for aren't coming to pass. As RD's, they had replaced Bryant and Irasema Lewis, both of whom had worked at Amherst Regional High School, Bryant as a dean and Irasema as an office worker, jobs that had kept them close to the ABC students in their charge. But Heather and Josh are finding it hard to forge that kind of connection. As RDs, they are expected to keep abreast of the boys' progress in school, stay in touch with parents and teachers, make sure chores get done, enforce house rules, do the grocery shopping, handle doctors' visits, attend school events — on top of their own jobs and parenting responsibilities. With Josh immersed in a new teaching job in Holyoke, and Heather involved in theater projects at UMass, occasional work as a personal care attendant, and shifts at a local fast-food to earn extra cash, the couple is not as available as the Lewises had been — or as they themselves had been their first year. By late fall, school officials are reporting that some of the students are showing up late, Heather says, and breaking school rules. At the house, chores are sometimes going half-done or undone, dishes piling up in the sink. The grades of some of the students are dropping, and problems with the volunteer tutoring program staffed by Amherst College students are cropping up. Scheduling is one. At some points when they are needed the most, the college students are away on school vacation breaks. It isn't always easy for the ABC students to ask for help — and some tutors, discouraged, wonder if they should keep coming. To buttress the students' academic performance, the board in February resurrects a position they'd once had, a resident tutor to oversee study hours, match students with other tutors, and keep tabs on everyone. Zardon Richardson, a 2007 graduate of Hampshire College who had been helped by a mentoring program himself while growing up in Chicago, is hired in exchange for room and board. "It's so tough," he says one evening in early spring, as he watches some of the boys shooting hoops out in the driveway. Tough to know when to push and when to ease up, he says, when to demand more and when to back off. It is obvious, he says, that these kids are "smart, smart, smart" — and it is also obvious that some of them "don't want to be here for study hours, and don't want to be told what to do." Heather, meanwhile, is being pulled in different directions. Sometimes at night, she sits and works at length with a student who is struggling with homework, or lends an ear, if that's what's needed. But, she says, she realizes she isn't keeping up with everybody equally, nor is she regularly contacting the boys' parents or teachers. Still, she and Josh are taken aback when, in March, Michael Hawkins tells them that they won't be asked back for a third year. The reason, according to Heather, boils down to lax supervision. In the end, she says, the board decided their style was "not boot camp enough." Though there had been some back and forth with Hawkins along the way, the dismissal comes as a blow. "This wasn't our choice," Josh says soon afterward. For the boys, the decision is upsetting. "You could talk to Heather no matter what," says Anthony Dominguez. "I trusted her." News that the couple won't be back comes at a time when Anthony is veering off course academically, having fallen behind in science class. On a Wednesday night in March, with only two days left before he has a slew of back assignments due, he is in the computer room trying to get focused. "I feel bad, extremely bad," he says. Nearby, a student is on the phone to his mother. Anthony's brother, Randy, and a tutor are discussing a paper on the Spike Lee movie "Do the Right Thing." A fourth student, sophomore Adem Abraham, who is doing homework and listening to music, offers to help Anthony, who says thanks, but no. 'm here for you," says Adem. Anthony can't shake the feeling that maybe he just doesn't belong in Amherst, that maybe a boarding school or a school closer to home would be better. "I always knew I could do the work," he says, "but I didn't feel like I was in the right place, so why should I try? I forgot a few homeworks and it just got worse and worse..." He likes English class, he says, he likes writing, he likes art, but science and math are torture. "The hardest part was telling my parents that I wasn't doing so great... " Anthony's parents are worried. While Antero Dominguez is holding firm to his deep conviction that education is everything, he doesn't want his son to suffer. "You got to be happy wherever you are," he says to a reporter. "If you're not, it's no good." Antero confers with Hawkins, who counsels patience. "I've always said, you can go home, but don't make that decision now," Hawkins recalls telling the father. "I know this can work, but Anthony's got to want to stay." One bright spot for Anthony is visits with Jennifer and Scott Kaplan and their two daughters, Anthea, 3½, and Annika, 20 months. Each ABC student is matched with a local family and spends one weekend every month or so in their home. Anthony and the Kaplans have gone out for Sunday brunch together, shopped in Northampton, celebrated Anthony's birthday at a Chinese restaurant, trekked around a Hadley farm to choose a Christmas tree. As Anthony's social life has expanded, the couple occasionally has shuttled him to get-togethers with friends. And as Scott and Jeni and Anthony have become more relaxed with one another, they've enjoyed unplanned activities, like just talking around the kitchen table. "I love them," says Anthony. "They treated me like a son and they've also treated me like an adult." Though they know Anthony is wrestling with school, the Kaplans say they have tried not to add to the pressure by peppering him with questions. They let him know, Jeni says, that it's meant a lot to have him in their home. Anthony isn't the only freshman struggling. His roommate, Jorge Colon, is having some tough times, too. "I almost freaked out," he says of getting his first C. He'd called his mother in a panic, he says, and she calmed him down. "Everyone gets their first C," she told him. Nereida Colon had been through this before, she said in a phone interview, so she knew a rough first year didn't necessarily mean disaster. She had sent her daughter away to a boarding school during high school and she, too, had had a difficult first year. But she rose to the challenge and is now doing well at Florida Southern University, said Nereida. Jorge, who'd started the year with a goal of getting all A's, has dialed back his expectations. Now, he says, he is looking at this year as his time of transition — and next year he'll be "on top of my game." If, that is, he comes back. Like Anthony, he isn't sure, he says, that he'll want to live three hours away from home again.

BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS on the academic front. Michael Brown has gone three for three. Hobart College, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and St. Lawrence University all accepted him. Back in New York, his mother, Valerie Brown, had her fingers crossed for Hobart, but said she and her husband would respect their son's choice. Scarcely a week after saying he was all Stony Brook, Michael announced that Hobart was a done deal. He'd actually gone to visit the place, he said, smiling at his about-face. He'd sat in on classes and met some students. And it didn't hurt that one of last year's Amherst ABC grads, Walter Cruz, was there. "I loved it," Michael said. "It was great — I just connected with everything about it. And I got a really good [financial] package." While Michael's days as an ABC student are winding down, Zakharii Willetts, the second senior in the house, has already left. After more than three years, Zakharii has moved out and is living with people he knows elsewhere in town. His departure follows disagreements about house rules, according to Heather Lord-Arond, who says Zakharii plans to finish his senior year at Amherst Regional, but not as part of ABC. Zakharii did not return calls when contacted for this story. For Michael Hawkins, president of ABC's board of directors, the choice made by a student he has nurtured and watched over, is a painful disappointment. "He wanted to get away," says Hawkins in early May. "And I still want him to graduate as an ABC scholar." Hawkins is hoping that Zakharii will think things over, and find his way back: "So I'm giving him an opportunity to decide what he wants to do." Zakharii's departure from a program that prizes community is an added stress for Josh and Heather. A compassionate woman with an earth motherly warmth, Heather says she misses Zakharii's dynamic presence in the house, but thinks he'll be fine in the end, even without ABC. "He's still in my heart," she says. As the Spring semester is drawing to an end, Michael Hawkins sweeps into the kitchen early one evening. "What's for dinner?" he asks, checking out the chicken alfredo on the stove. He greets one student with a pat on the shoulder, then moves on, asking this one what's new, reminding that one that he really needs to get down to work before finals, noticing a third one's new high-top fade haircut. He wants to meet with all of them and with Heather and Josh. They settle in around the table. "So everybody's here," he begins, scanning their faces. He goes over some routine matters and then gets down to business. The mood in the room turns sullen. It appears that an overhead pipe near the washer and dryer was damaged by someone swinging on it. Hawkins wants to know who did it, and no one is saying. Hawkins is incredulous. The point isn't about getting someone to pay up, he says, it's about owning what you did. "Whose house is this?" he asks. Silence, then Randy: "ABC's." Hawkins continues his questions, leading the boys to the notion that, at least for now, this is their home. "Do any of you feel responsible for what happens here?" Hands go up, slowly. "If this happened at your home, who wouldn't tell your parents?" No hands. "So tell me why you wouldn't in this case." By the end, Hawkins' message is clear. The boys need to urge whoever is responsible to come forward. Finally, Hawkins asks for a show of hands from those who are sure they are coming back in the fall. Randy, Jamar and Adem raise their hands. Anthony and Jorge, both tentative, raise theirs halfway. IN MAY there is tension in the house. "We're fighting about basic things," Heather says one day, with a glance around the kitchen. "Now I have to ask three times to get things done." Outside, several of the boys are playing basketball in the driveway, even though it is past time for the 4 to 6 p.m. study hours to start. Yes, they should be reading or studying, she says, though she sometimes wonders if those two hours, plus two hours after dinner, as set forth in the program handbook, are truly realistic. "Maybe I'm just too much of a humanitarian," she says. She has made her peace with the fact that she and Josh are leaving. "It's been a tough year, but I think everything happens for a reason." The boys probably do need more routine and discipline, she says, "and I'm OK with the fact that this is not my strength. If they can find someone else to do a better job, then I'm happy." The board's choice to replace them is a couple who have taught at a boys high school in Jamaica, where they also supervised a dorm. Erold Bailey, 42, is currently a field service coordinator for teacher training at the UMass School of Education, where he earned his doctorate. His wife, Carol Bailey, 41, has a doctorate in English and will teach post-colonial literature at Commonwealth College, the honors college at UMass. The couple has two daughters, ages 15 and 6. "We thought about it long and hard," Carol says of their decision to join ABC. In the end, she says, the interests she and her husband share in education, in young people, in working together as a team, in promoting social justice, and in making a contribution to the Amherst community carried the day.

THE BAILEYS are among the many crowding into the Cadigan Center for Religious Life at Amherst College on the night of June 6 to mark Michael Brown's graduation from Amherst Regional High School. Zakharii Willetts, said to be headed to Columbia College Chicago in Illinois, never came back into the ABC fold. Nonetheless, an ABC graduation, even after a year in which one student left and the resident directors and the board parted ways, is still a celebration. The ABC house cook, Luis Tapia, is there, setting out a spread of food. Board members are arriving with dishes to add to the potluck. The congratulatory cake is ready. Michael's friends and classmates are there, along with his host parents, Shirley and Nathaniel Whitaker, Amherst Regional teachers and administrators, and Heather and Josh. Tommie Lark and brothers Walter Cruz and Kleaver Cruz — last year's ABC's grads — have also arrived. With their first year of college finished, Tommie at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Walter at Hobart and Kleaver at Vassar, the three have come back for a reunion with the latest addition to their ranks, to the same place where a year earlier they had wept at the ceremony marking their own milestone. Michael's arrival sets off rounds of congratulations, hugs, greetings and laughter. Susan Haight, who had helped Michael with college applications, introduces herself to his beaming parents, Michael Sr. and Valerie. "He's such a great guy," she tells them. With everyone gathered around, Michael Hawkins opens with words of thanks for live-in tutor Zardon Richardson and for resident directors Josh and Heather, "who have given their hearts to do the best job they could." This year, he says, he watched Michael grow up, saw him develop "a sense that he knew where he was going. He really has come into his own." When it is his turn, Michael Brown has plenty to say. Tears in his eyes, he thanks, hugs and kisses those who supported and mentored and loved him, his teachers and tutors, his ABC brothers past and present, his host parents, his girlfriend. He thanks the previous RDs, the strict Lewises, "because without them I wouldn't be here." He thanks Richardson, and folds Heather and Josh Lord-Arond into an embrace. "They've helped me a lot more than they know," he says. Then he turns to his parents. "They always pushed me," he says, in a voice thick with emotion. "They taught me to strive for the best and to always have a book in my hand." He looks at Randy, Jamar, Jorge, Adem and Anthony, sitting on the floor in front of him. "Don't push away the people who want to help you," he advises. "They're all trying to help." Shirley Whitaker presents him with a gift, a poster of Barack Obama that brings oohs and aahs as Michael unwraps it and holds it up. The word "hope" is written underneath the portrait. "I love each and every one of you," Michael says. "Thank you so much."

AS OF THIS WRITING, Jamar and Adem say they'll definitely return to Amherst for their third ABC year. Randy will be back as a senior, regardless of his brother Anthony's decision. "I love him whatever," he says. Randy hopes to volunteer at a veterinary practice during the school year to see if his lifelong love of animals is a career path. He belongs to two worlds now, he says, and he thinks of that as a strength. When he left Amherst for spring vacation, he missed people here, he says, and when he boarded the bus in New York for the return trip, he found himself missing the city. Jorge is still undecided about next year, torn, he says, between wanting to help his mother at home — and coming back and being on his own. Anthony hasn't made up his mind, either. He has applied to an ABC-affiliated boarding school in Connecticut that, he says, his parents might decide is a better environment for him. His other options are going to a school closer to home, or coming back to Amherst. On one of his last days in Amherst, Anthony is hanging out in the yard with several of his non-ABC friends. If he does leave, it seems it won't be for lack of friends. "That's what I would miss," he says. He ended the year on a strong note, having started to turn things around in school. He says he's sure that he did some growing up this year. "Oh, definitely," he says. "I've learned to keep some things to myself, and let other stuff out. I know more how to speak up and tell people my opinions." Whatever choices Anthony and Jorge make, the cycle will begin again at summer's end. Two new ABC students, one from Boston and the other from New Haven, Conn., are expected to join the house then for the upcoming school year.