Millburn-Short Hills Magazine Back to School 2020 | Page 16

social justice
Promoting Scholarship,
Family Style
Marcia Hicks leadsthe Minority Achievement Community
at Columbia High School
WRITTEN BY CINDYSCHWEICH HANDLER PHOTOGRAPHYBYANNE-MARIE CARUSO
“
Inmyfamily, if something happens,
before you talk toothers
about it, you process what it
means as afamily,” says Marcia
Hicks, aShort Hills resident
and coordinator
of the Science, Math and
Language Arts Support
Lab at Columbia High
School in Maplewood.
Recognizing that the
family dynamic provides
accountability and support
for young people, she
“took over” and, with the help
of some motivated students, transformed
agroup that was meeting
in study halls as away to close the
academic achievement gap.
For the last seven years, she has
overseen the Minority Achievement
Community Scholars, aprogram
involving 100-150 high school students
ofcolor who study together
and tutor each other to advance
academically. (Hicks says that MAC
has been operating on alimited basis
during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
“The kids told mewhat they
needed, and Iwrote acurriculum
for it,” she says. “It’s social justice in
that it’s aspace for students ofcolor
to talk about how they feel being the
only ones in their classes, how they
see their futures and what it’s like to
be the first generation of their family
going tocollege.”
Hicks says that 10times asmany
Columbia students want to join MAC
MARCIA
HICKS
Scholars as there are spots available.
“You have to apply to be in the program,
which you can do in the spring
of your freshman year,” she says,
“and it takes three rounds of
interviews to get in. It’s not
for your college resume.
You have to commit to
raising your grades.”
MAC receives support
from community
members who come in
to help with essay writing,
and Maplewood’s Bass
Foundation donates laptops
to college-bound students. Social
work interns and college students
who are alumni of the program
sometimes help out as well, giving
the high school students the benefit
of their experiences.
ACCOUNTABLE TO THEMSELVES,
AND EACH OTHER
To create a comfortable familiarity
and make gatherings manageable,
Hicks divides MAC into six or seven
“squads” of 15-20 students each;
two students run each squad, and
the groups often compete with each
other during special events such as
scavenger hunts. They meet in the
MAC Lab every Monday for a study
group; on Wednesdays, they mentor
younger students, either in the
high school or at monthly middle
and elementary school sessions.
Sometimes on Fridays, male members
play basketball in East Orange with
Black boys identified as needing older
role models.
“We do leadership and college
and career and a community service
curriculum, and each squad adopts
a family in need. We provide their
holiday gifts for kids, so they have
to raise money at bake sales,” says
Hicks. “I look at their grades, and if
they’re doing terribly in Algebra II or
AP Psychology, I tell the library they
need a table and tutor. I operate with
them the way I would if they were
my own kids.
“What they’re doing is coming into
a structure,” says Hicks. “I’m physically
there to tell them, ‘Here’s your
tutor, sit down and learn.’” Even students
doing relatively well in school
can benefit from mutual accountability,
she says. “B students would
love to be A students, but they might
not know how to get there. Schools
are big.”
BEYOND GRADES
To broaden MAC students’
horizons, school funds pay for
annual trips to Black colleges such as
Howard University in Washington,
D.C., and to visit the annual conference
of the Minority Student
Achievement Network, where representatives
from programs that support
students of color from across the
nation convene. “One year at MSAN,
there were lots of Hmong students
who couldn’t get into AP courses,
and it expanded our kids’ minds to
14 BACK TOSCHOOL 2020 MILLBURN &SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE