By Harry Best - Post Staff Writer

They are among the most troubled teens in the City of Richmond. Their families have failed them. The churches have failed them. And the schools have given up on them. Alternatively, their peers offer a lifestyle of crime, drugs and violence that almost guarantees a short lifespan on the rejected fringes of civility.

But there’s hope. There’s one last thread of hope with which they might weave themselves back into the fabric of society. And while that too, is tattered, hope lives in the uncertain fate of the Barbara Alexander Academy, a charter school run by the Sims, a Richmond-based family of educators.

The school was started four years ago by Melita Sims-Agbabiaka, and four siblings, Abigail, Israel, Absylom, and Elisabeth, who grew up in Richmond’s notorious Iron Triangle. The Sims had witnessed first hand how the drug wars of the 1990s had devastated the neighborhood and the City.

“More and more students were running away from home and from school with no place to go,” Sims-Agbabiaka recounted. “We were approached by the One-to-One California Learning Foundation about running a satellite school for at-risk kids.”

That was fortuitous as Sims-Agbabiaka, who at the time was studying for her MFCC, already had plans for working with disadvantaged youth. The family converted their So. 47th Street residence, and began receiving and teaching students in their remodeled basement facilities.

“We started getting kids from the probation and social service department,” Sims-Agbabiaka recalled, “then the school district started sending us students who had been expelled over issues of violence, weapons and controlled substances.”

Barbara Alexander Academy grew quickly, together with the contempt of the Sims’ neighbors who felt intimidated by the influx of what they called “riff raff” onto the block.

On top of that, it was discovered that the One-to-One program was not accredited by the West Contra Costa County School District, and would have to be closed down, essentially negating all the work the Sims’ had accomplished with the students.

According to Sims-Agbabiaka, the school district then suggested that she apply for a charter, which she did, naming it the Barbara Alexander Academy after a local community heroine. At the end of the first year, the Academy graduated two proud students, and kept dozens more off the streets and away from criminal activities.

A year later, the Academy had served 190 students, and the graduation glass grew to 14. But that marked the last time the school operated under the sanctions of the school district. In early July 2003, the school district revoked the Academy’s charter citing “serious financial instability.”

Since that time, the Sims’ have returned on two separate occasions to appeal the revocation, only to be turned down by the school district.

“We have attempted to meet every stipulation they require in order to be granted a charter, but they refuse,” Sims-Agbabiaka said. “We have an accountant, an auditor, an attorney, a licensed school administrator, 12 licensed and credentialed teachers. Whatever they require, we are willing to go and put it in place.”

“The State of California as well as the Contra Costa County Board of Education in the past, saw to it that each charter school began with $750,000 ($250,000 revolving loan, $250,000 implementation grant, and a $250,000 start-up grant), all we got was a $250,000 revolving loan.”

“They gave us enough money to fail,” asserted Israel Sims. “Yet we kept the school going for two years.”

Some community leaders are already rallying behind the Sims in support of their next attempt to secure a charter. In the past the Richmond Police Department have been strong supporters of the work of the Academy. Sims-Agbabiaka said that the Academy is also an integral part of the educational component of a three-year plan being proposed by the Rev. Andre Shumake and the Richmond Improvement Association to improve conditions for youth in the City.

Meanwhile, the Sims’ observe, as many of their former students revert to crime, some already victims of street homicides.

Next week, we examine the West Contra Costa County’s position on the Barbara Alexander Academy’s charter, and question what it would take for the District to grant a new charter to the Academy. We will also look at what the Sims’ have done to meet the requirements the District stipulates in order to receive a charter.