the Northeast Central Durham Community

By Sharif Ruebin
YO:Durham Intern
the Durham VOICE

Growing gardens can transform health, back yards and neighborhoods.

At least that’s what local edible landscaper Angie Jones believes.

A resident of the Golden Belt neighborhood in Northeast Central Durham, Jones arrived 12 years ago from Indiana to teach with AmeriCorps as one of the first teachers at Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School.  She said she and her husband, Jordan, wanted to be in a community where everyone doesn’t look like them.

Angie Jones pulls up dead herbs in her backyard garden. She explained to the VOICE that many herbs have medicinal qualities in addition to culinary flavors. (Staff photo by Sharif Ruebin)

After a year teaching, she became involved with community service by working with Durham Habitat for Humanity as a construction supervisor on her street, Morning Glory Avenue.

But now, in her free time, Jones is working to transform her small corner of the neighborhood into a little bit of Eden through the art of edible landscaping.

Edible landscaping is a technique that uses food producing plants to make landscapes beautiful but also provide nutritional food and help keep land fertile and sustained.

“My interest in gardening began six years ago when I was mostly interested because I was struggling with allergies,” said Jones.

Jones became interested in medicinal herbs, such as lemon and bee balms, which she said is good for sinuses and also keeps pest and insects out of gardens.

Before edible landscaping, Jones said it never crossed her mind to shop locally for fruits and vegetables in season. But after leaving Habitat, Jones began reading and experimenting with gardening which eventually led to her idea.

Currently Jones is working to change the backyard of her newly renovated home into a community garden. Jones and her husband renovated their house about two years ago and consider the garden as the second part of their renovations.

“We took one look at the yard and thought this one could be a community garden,” she said.

When the backyard is completed as a community garden, Jones hopes to be able to allow neighbors in the community access to healthy produce that sometimes is hard to find in northeast central Durham.

Considering the project a work in progress, Jones refers to it as “permaculture,” a concept that looks at nature’s efficiency and regeneration and asks how humans can mimic it.

The Jones’ backyard garden would follow the rules of nature such as the maintenance of resources, or sustainability, and the restoration of resources, or regeneration.

The garden design includes wheel barrel paths that follow patterns like leaf veins which consist of wood chips to retain water. The garden uses specialized sheet mulching compost that Jones lays all over her backyard, then layers it with leaves, compost and mulch on top.

Angie Jones explains that she has planted fruit trees next to the west side of her self-renovated house. Planting in this way allows her to use nature to help cool her house in the summer instead of more electricity. (Staff photo by Sharif Ruebin)

“This smothers Bermuda grass which interferes with plants, but is also great to work with and plant in,” said Jones. “Kids from the neighborhood will come by and help, put their hands in the soil and ask what I am doing.”

In addition, the garden has its own self-sustaining compost pile which uses organic materials such as straw, dead leaves, coffee grounds or yard clippings.  Jones also uses table scraps and her husband’s t-shirts in the compost pile.

“If you stir the pile every week it’ll be ready in a few months but if not maybe a whole year,” Jones said.  “Then you can use it as a mulch or fertilizer.”

In the garden Jones has specific spots for plants ranging from trees and shrubs to herbs like ginseng and golden seal. Fruit trees such as Asian pears and figs are protected from sunlight due to older, taller trees in her neighbors’ yards. She also has plots to grow kiwi, serviceberry, Muscadine grapes, blueberries and tomatoes.

Because urban runoff is a big polluter, Jones also uses nature’s resources with rain barrels that help to provide clean water for the garden and eventually runs down to a nearby lake. She said by running this water through the garden, the plants help to clean out any negative materials within it.

Jones said her definition of community gardening has been evolving, but she gets help and inspiration from Bountiful Backyards, a local gardening cooperative located at 204 Vine St. In addition to gardening, the business also teaches courses at Durham Technical Community College and mentor local teen programs, such as SEEDS, in the art.

“Bountiful Backyards is a model I follow,” said Jones. “They believe the resources should be from the people in the community.”

Jones said she never grew up on a farm in the upper Midwest but has learned through books such as her favorite, “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture” by Toby Hemenway.

Teaching the community about nature’s sustainability and healthful qualities while being a good neighbor is how this resident leaves her footprint on the neighborhood.

“I like working with my hands but gardening is more artistic than just following plans,” she said. “It’s an artistic way to have a less ecological footprint.”

By Sharif Ruebin
YO:Durham Intern
The Durham VOICE

Empty beer bottles, scattered paper, plastic bags and food wrappers all accumulate over time.

Littering is a big problem in Northeast Central Durham, and I experienced this in an Adopt-A-Highway service event.

The Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School’s chapter of the National Honor Society recently participated in an Adopt-A-Highway service learning event.

Members of the Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School's chapter of the National Honor Society stand in front of their Adopt-A-Highway sign across from John W. Neal Middle School. Students recently took time out of their Tuesday morning to make Baptist Road off of Highway 98 a cleaner place to bike and drive. They include, (back row, left to right) Jason Noris, Neal Hairston IV, Sharif Ruebin, Brittany Coleman, Jose Esteban, and Brianna Pearson; (front, left to right) Savana Everhart, Melissa Frick, Abria Bradby, Ingrid Bravo, Karina Tebalan, Darian Handley, Alania Tran, and Bailey Clemmons. (Photo courtesy of Crystal Lucas)

Adopt-A-Highway is a program that encourages volunteers to keep a section of the highway free of liter.  An organization is allowed to post a sign with their name on it on the section of the highway they maintain.

We spent one morning right before Christmas picking up trash along a section of Baptist Road, a side road off of Hwy 98 here in Durham. This road leads to Falls Lake.

“It was very enlightening because it showed how dirty the community actually was,” according to Neal Hairston, a member of National Honor Society. “It also helped me learn that just by doing a little cleaning it can greatly change a landscape.”

“I was in great awe at the change of the road we were on,” he said.

For me it was also a good experience. I am a person who enjoys service learning.  It is a way to give back and it also makes me feel good when I do it because I’m just not sitting back observing but I’m getting involved.

I did not expect for it to be that bad, but as we went on farther down the highway, trash started accumulating.  I truly realized why littering is illegal; someone has to pick it up.

After observing the highway on our way back, I saw it was totally different from the beginning.

Hairston stated that he would do it again because he is helping his community achieve better surroundings, and doing it with friends is fun.

“Helping people is one thing that I love a lot,” said Hairston. “I would definitely recommend service learning to others because it really helps you learn about situations going on through out the community and helps you meet new people.”

Being American citizens, one of our many responsibilities is community service.  We first have to help ourselves before we ask others.

I encourage others to take part in some form of community service.

By Bailey Monsees
Staff Writer
The Round Table
Northern High School

This story appeared originally in The Round Table, the school paper of Northern High School, which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

I think I just heard you say, ‘that’s so gay’,” This slogan has been brightly plastered on posters throughout the school as part of the campaign to reinvent Northern’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club. The aim of these posters is to encourage students to recognize how using the word “gay” as a replacement for “stupid” is offensive.

GSA advisors Sean Mournighan and Michelle Garst pose with members DeAngelo Cox and M.J. East before a September pride rally in downtown Durham. (Photo courtesy of the Northern High School’s The Round Table)

In the past few years, the GSA has usually only had a few very infrequent members. This year, however, the advisors are new to Northern and are bringing a new energy along with them. Michelle Garst, pre-calculas teacher, and Sean Mournighan, English teacher, are the new advisors of the GSA and are determined to improve the club.

“During the first meeting, we decided to make our goals to promote awareness about the GSA and about the derogatory terms kids use [when talking about gay people],” Mournighan said.

“This club is really helping the gay kids or the kids that are questioning their sexuality,” Garst said. “It offers students a space to talk about what they are going through and ask questions that they could not talk about with other people”.

Garst and Mournighan feel that by having meetings frequently (every Thursday at 2:32 in H-29), constantly advertising their club, and emphasizing the open nature of the organization, many students will be prompted to join.

“I would join, gay people are so much fun, they have swag,” freshman Tyasia Johnson said.

Since some students are uncomfortable around gay people, the club is also trying to promote the club to straight students who have misconceptions concerning gay people.

“Ironically, over half of the crew is straight,” freshman Keanne Jones said. “A lot of kids are learning more about  gay people and are not believing that they are bad anymore, which is really good.”

Creating an inclusive environment at Northern starts with using respectful language.

“A major goal we have is to give every student the vocabulary to combat hate,” Mournighan said. “I have gay friends that all say that high school was the worst time in their life, so now I’m motivated to make it better for this generation of students”.

Whether students are attending these club meetings to learn more about gay people or to talk about their sexuality, it is a very open club that is determined to have as many students involved as possible.

“The more people in the club, the more exciting it is, so more people join. It’s wonderful, every week we have new members,” junior DeAngelo Cox said.

By Jasmine Grays
Staff Writer
the Hillside Chronicle
Hillside High School

This story appeared originally in the Hillside Chronicle, the school newspaper of Hillside High School which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

I always wanted to make a difference in the world.

There was a problem though: I didn’t know how.

Hillside history teacher Alex Christman looks on as a student presents her group’s rendering of an ideal school. (Photo by Sendolo Diaminah, courtesy of the Hillside Chronicle).

One day I stumbled into a Committee for Democratic Education interest meeting and I am glad I did because it brought me a world of good. The purpose of CDE, which is a project of a community organization called People’s Durham, is to create a system where the people who are being affected by decision making are also the ones involved in those decisions.

On Nov. 15, CDE held a forum at Hillside High School where we shared a room with more than 60 people. The forum was open to the community and it was very successful. We explained briefly some history of education (because to understand where we are, we have to understand how we got there) and we also exchanged ideas on where we would like to go next and how to get there.

People in the room seemed very passionate and willing to help make the changes in schools that we all are hoping for. Because of the success of our last forum, CDE decided we would plan forums in different places and hopefully find more leaders and supporters.

The Durham Public Schools School Board recently proposed a reassignment of school districting, where some students would be removed from their base schools and sent to another school. School board members claimed it would promote diversity and increase test scores of students. On Dec. 5, school board members held a forum at Jordan High School where they went into further details about the proposal and also allowed time to hear from the community. A lot of people argued that this proposal wasn’t benefiting the students.

In CDE we noticed much of the proposal was around Durham School of the Arts and how it would no longer be a lottery school. Going into the forum we all had yellow balloons that represented the elevation of our bright future and on the balloons we wrote, “Don’t roll the dice. Make all our schools nice.”

Since a lot of the decisions were being made around a lottery-based system, we made this slogan because we feel that isn’t right — instead of moving around children we should invest money in all schools so that every school and every student has access to reliable resources.

We all spoke at the forum and at the end of each one of our speeches we tied our balloon to the microphone to increase the statement we were making. The following Thursday, school board members voted down the proposal.

With a 4 – 2 vote we had won our fight!

Bryan Proffitt, a Hillside history teacher and People’s Durham organizer said, “CDE is planning to build on this victory with the upcoming forums and a plan to register voters and get more students, school workers and parents to vote in this coming May’s School Board election.”

“This is the first step on a long road to creating the kind of school system we want; one run by the people who learn in them, work in them and send their kids to them,” he said. “Then we’ll have democratic schools.  Then we’ll have a democratic society.”

By Marisol Juarez
Staff Writer
the Hillside Chronicle
Hillside High School

 This commentary appeared originally in the Hillside Chronicle, the school newspaper of Hillside High School, which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

Many students in the United States struggle to graduate. Not graduating is a huge problem all around the world. Therefore, we have to do something to decrease the dropout rate.

Here in the United States, one-third of students who enter high school as ninth graders will not graduate within four years. Hillside’s four-year graduation rate for males was 64.2 percent and for females 77.3 percent.

Graduation rates in North Carolina have been improving since 2009, but yet, they are still low. Why is this?

Students attending high school need support from close friends, counselors and family to encourage them to graduate. The majority of students do not get enough support so they don’t feel motivated toward education.

In the United States, there is a high dropout rate. Each year about 1.3 million students drop out of school. Those who do not have a high school diploma are most likely to suffer from poverty.

High school dropouts affect the country overall; for example, businesses don’t have qualified workers and communities with a lot of dropouts might create an environment that encourages others not to finish school.

To reduce the high school dropout rate in North Carolina, the Prevention Campaign was introduced in April 2008. Also, the “Message: Graduate” campaign was created for young people to motivate them to graduate.

The point of my article is to point out how there is a high dropout rate. In order to fix this problem we have to take some actions. Many people can make a difference if they choose to do so. In order for this to happen, I think that parents should be more aware of their teens.

They should talk to them about how education is a big part of life. All students need some kind of motivation and the best is getting motivated from their own parents’ experience.

One other thing that is needed is support from the counselors in the schools. I think that if counselors talk to the students and give them a little support, the students will want to do some good. What are counselors for if they don’t do anything to help out students?

I have seen many students struggling. Most of these students struggle because of their lack of education, not having support or other problems in life.

People, counselors, parents and even friends all can do something to lower the high school dropout rate. This dropout rate affects not only the student dropping out but also the country overall.

By Thy Lam and Michael Jacques
Staff Writers
the Hillside Chronicle
Hillside High School

This story appeared originally in the Hillside Chronicle, the school newspaper of Hillside High School, which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

Don Henson said that “anywhere’s a skate park” for the members of the Skate Club. (Photo by Michael Jacques, courtesy of the Hillside Chronicle).

Multiple clubs have appeared in Hillside’s illustrious history.  Now able to count themselves among such clubs is Hillside’s own Skate Club.

In previous years, the skaters have made attempts to establish a club; however, due to safety issues, the Skate Club wasn’t approved.

“We hope at one point we can just get maybe somewhere in Durham besides just a skate park,” said Hillside Senior Jared Tookes. “There aren’t places where we can skate safely and freely without having to worry about getting hit by a car.”

“Nobody really wants that to happen, so we’ve just been trying to do the best we can and work around what safety rules we have,” he said.

Currently the club includes: Tookes, who has been skating for five years; Don Henson, who is a third year skater and is currently being sponsored by Long Summer Days clothing company; and Chad Thomas, a two year skater as well as about 20 other skaters from Hillside and Hillside New Tech.

The club continues to look for more skaters from a variety of demographics whether they are girls or boys — whoever knows how to skate or wants to learn to skate is welcome to join.

The club hopes to promote skating as an official sport at Hillside. They want to get other schools in Durham to form their own clubs, as well as to organize competitions between schools.

With designated skate areas being limited to skate parks and areas around the school, the club plans to build a skate ramp and skate curb box.

Even with the limited areas, club members continue to find innovative methods to skate around town, whether it is a simple ride to school or near stair cases around fire departments.

“Remember this,” said Henson. “When it comes to skate boarding, anywhere’s a skate park.”

By Rebecca Holloway
Staff Writer
The Roundtable
Northern High School

This story appeared originally in the Roundtable, the school newspaper of Northern High School which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

Northern is no longer classified as a low-performing school by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Sixty – one percent of students taking EOC exams passed in 2010-2011, up from 59 percent in 2009-2010. That growth rate was the highest among Durham public high schools.

Civics and economics are the only EOC exams to have shown a decline in scores. The percentage of students who passed declined from 61 to 55 percent.

Classes that have shown slight improvement in the percentage of passing students are US History, from 66 to 69 percent; English, from 61 to 64 percent; Biology, from 65 to 67 percent and Algebra II, from 69 to 71 percent.

Physical Science and Algebra I have shown very significant increases, with Physical Science improving from 39 to 48 percent and Algebra I improving from 51 to 59 percent.

“There was a time when NHS had the highest math scores in the district,” math teacher Dorothy Mabe said. “Over the years, scores declined. We reached [the] bottom and lesson preparations changed. But in recent years, with collaborative teachers finding ways to improve test scores, they’ve gone up.”

Many steps have been taken to help students’ grades and test scores improve.

“The scores I’ve seen are about the same, maybe only a slight improvement,” science teacher Joshua Roberts said. “We do more quizzes than we used to, but most of them don’t count. It lets me see how they’re doing. We also do labs and activities.”

Mabe likes to design her tests so that they are similar to the EOCs.

“It gets the students used to the layout of the actual tests,” Mabe said.

Some students feel that the teachers, and not just their teaching methods, are the cause of test scores rising.

“The scores have improved because better teachers have been hired, and I have really good teachers I know how to communicate with,” junior James Dearr said. “My test scores have really improved.”

The number of low-performing schools in the DPS system declined by 60 percent dropping from five low-performance schools to only two. Nine of Durham’s schools exceeded a five point gain in proficiency. Although the gains do not seem like much of an increase, they make a huge impact on the school and students.

“I’m proud of myself,” said sophomore Terrence Joseph. “My scores have improved drastically because I study for really long hours. I like EOCs because they make me realize how much I’ve progressed over the years.”

Hard work might just be what could keep NHS a high-performing school.

“I’m sure that we can stay at the top,” sophomore Shamar Pierce said. “We’ve done it before; we can keep doing it. People just have to put effort in to their work.”

By Bailey Monsees
Staff Writer
the Roundtable
Northern High School

This story appeared originally in the Roundtable, the school newspaper of Northern High School which has partnered with the Durham VOICE.

In September, Governor Beverly Perdue announced that 28 schools throughout North Carolina would participate in a new, federally funded school breakfast program titled “No Kids Hungry.”

While Northern is not participating at this time, other local schools such as Lakewood Elementary have already adopted this program.

No Kids Hungry has partnered with fellow local nonprofit organizations Share Our Strength and NC Serves. The aim of this program is to fight childhood hunger by encouraging students to eat breakfast provided through their schools.

“This is a good idea because kids shouldn’t have to go hungry if they can’t afford to buy food,” said freshman Daniel Cole.

More than one in four children in North Carolina is threatened by hunger, yet of the 640,000 students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, fewer than half actually eat the breakfast that is also provided free of charge.

“Some students might be embarrassed to get free breakfast because other kids might make fun of them,” said senior Brittany Lassiter.

There are many reasons, ranging from late buses to embarrassment, that cause students not to enjoy free or reduced breakfast. No Kids Hungry is working hard to combat these problems by giving free breakfast to all students who qualify and making breakfast more accessible.

The breakfast provided by No Kids Hungry will consist of healthy choices of milk or juice as well as cereal, toast or fruit. It is already being distributed throughout schools and in many classrooms.

“It is proven that a good breakfast helps you perform better,” said social worker Katrina Nesmith.

As a result, many think that with free breakfasts, test scores and overall grades will improve.

No Kids Hungry is still in the pilot stage of implementation and will not be introduced to Northern until after the first year of the program.

By Bobbi Burroughs
Staff Writer
the Southern Scoop
Southern High School

This commentary appeared originally in the Southern Scoop, the school newspaper of Southern High School which partners with the NECD Community VOICE.

“I was running in circles, I hurt myself, Just to find my purpose.” –Circles (by Hollywood Undead)

Music is everywhere, whether you hear it in the elevator, at a store shopping, or even blasting from someone’s earphones it’s impossible to avoid it for one whole day.

I personally don’t believe that music has an effect on what kids and teenagers do or the way they think. To be completely honest I think that a big part of how teenagers and kids act are based off of what they see at home or in school and the level of discipline they receive from their parents.

Peer pressure also plays a big part in the way many act and think.

I myself am a teenager, so I hang around a lot of people my age. I’ve come to notice that many of the people I meet in school change with the new set of friends they choose to spend a majority of their time with.

It’s easy to go from the good kid who always studies to the bad kid who just got caught smoking in the bathroom with a group of friends. Peer pressure can get teenagers and kids to do many things they normally wouldn’t.

Of course all of us are different so just because I haven’t been affected by my friends that aren’t so good, and I’m not saying I’m a perfect kid, but because of my parents and the way I was raised and disciplined I know right from wrong.

Iowa State Univerity associate professor of psychology Douglas Gentile thinks music does affect the way children think. He wrote that surprisingly the sound of the music has more impact than the lyrics.

One study examined how different kinds of music affected the levels of anger and attitudes toward women in teenaged children. Three groups of kids listened to different types of music and lyrics. Gentile listed the music genres as heavy metal music with violent lyrics, heavy metal music with Christian themed lyrics and easy listening music. The kids who listened to the heavy metal music, regardless of the lyrical content, developed the same negative attitudes toward women and were angrier than the “easy-listening” kids.

When I’m at school or out somewhere and I see someone wearing something I don’t say “Hey, look at that girl’s revealing outfit, she must listen to Nicki Minaj or Lil’Kim.” The reason why I don’t jump to that conclusion is because for all I know the only songs she has on her iPod could be gospel. If I decided to wear skinny jeans to school it’s not because my favorite artist wears them but because I choose to wear them.

Sure, I may base an outfit off of someone I look up to but in order for that to be the case I would have to decide on doing that myself. I mean think about it. We can get the style of clothes we wear from a sibling or parent or even a close friend.

I think that the truth is some parents, schools and even the kids themselves need a scapegoat when something goes wrong. Kids would say ‘well the girl in the Lil’ Wayne video wore this,’ or ‘Hollywood Undead sings about hurting someone,’ to avoid getting in trouble for what they did wrong.
Parents and schools may say it because they don’t want others to talk about how they’re not doing their jobs right. So for me the answer is music does not affect the way children think or the way they act.

By Westley McGhee and Tina Jones
Staff Writers
The Southern Scoop
Southern High School

This story appeared originally in the Southern Scoop, the school newspaper of Southern High School which has partnered with the NECD Community VOICE.

Some Southern Spartans have decided to take part in a new program at Southern High School that has them reading to elementary students at Merrick Moore and Oak Grove elementary schools.

It’s set up to benefit both sides of the program equally.

Southern Scoop staff writer Westley McGhee. (Photo courtesy of the Southern Scoop)

“[It’s supposed to] promote reading culture and to serve the community,” said Virginia Shaffer, program reading specialist, about the initiative.

Students who volunteered to go traveled during second period to Merrick Moore and journalism students went to Oak Grove during their fourth period. Both trips occur weekly on Tuesdays.

“What happens at Merrick Moore is the third grade students read a book they’ve rehearsed and ask questions to the high school student,” said Shaffer. “Then the high school student reads the book they rehearsed and asks questions to the third grade student.”

At Oak Grove, students were paired to read a selected book to grades K-2.

Some students, such as senior Yaritza Vazquez, said they were glad to be a part of the event.

“I enjoyed it and how they have a smile on their faces when I’m done reading,” Vazquez said of her kindergarteners.

Because high school students seem to tend to focus on less important matters allowing their grades to suffer, this program gives reasons as to the origin of programs such as Reading Heroes.

“My past experiences with programs like this have proven effective to raise reading power in both sets of students,” Shaffer said.

For many people the thought probably wouldn’t cross their minds that an elementary school principal would seek out the help of high school students.

“I asked Mr. [Kenneth] Barnes [Southern High School principal] about the program and he said that the principal at Merrick Moore had already called and asked for a reading partnership,” Shaffer said.

There’s an answer in the program for uncertain students interested in joining Reading Heroes.

“I believe students will have satisfaction with helping younger students and raising reading enjoyment,” said Shaffer about future program benefits to high school students. “Enjoyment will cause more doing and have a life-long impact on success.”

Though teachers’ points of view are valuable, student reactions are equally important.

Ian Fleming, senior and football player at Southern High School said he enjoys reading to kids.

“The kids enjoyed themselves and the interaction with older students,” said Fleming.

Fleming also saw one key benefit to his participation.

“I think it will help me work well with kids if I were to jump in to something like that,” he said.

Senior Emoni Shannon also said she enjoyed reading to elementary kids.

“I look forward to going every Tuesday,” said Shannon. “It is a highlight of my Tuesday to go and read to the kids at Oak Grove Elementary School.”

Some students also made comparisons between the reading experience and their home lives while indicating that Shaffer may be right about the effect the program could have.

“I thought it was a great way  to get involved with the community,” said Aaliyah Campbell. “It felt like home reading to my little sister, something I was used to doing and liked.”

“It was no hassle to me,” she said.