The classroom was the rowhouse, one of many empty shells on Baltimore's streets, but this one now stands as a symbol of hope.
Over the school year, 24 vocational education students from five city high schools spent part of their day hammering in floor joists, notching in carpets, installing kitchen cabinets, coating the walls with white paint and, as a finishing touch last week, planting sod in the back yard.
They went to school, learned a trade and breathed life back into a house and neighborhood near school district headquarters on North Avenue.
"I'd like to find a way to encourage more of that activity and get more young people involved," said Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, who will attend a ceremony today in which the city turns over the rehabilitated rowhouse at 1915 Guilford Ave. to the East Baltimore Midway Community Development Corp., a neighborhood organization.
The school year project, largely financed with an $85,000 federal block grant administered by the city's Department of Housing and Community Development, eventually will be home for a low- to moderate-income first-time buyer, according to housing official Arthur Gray.
Next year, the school system hopes to renovate two or three houses.
Sylvia Fulwood, who checked on progress every week as executive director of the East Baltimore neighborhood organization, was impressed with what she saw of the students' workmanship.
"They are conscientious about what they're doing. The family that gets this house will receive the benefits of tender loving care. Extra attention has been paid," said Fulwood, who estimated the house would sell at a subsidized price of $50,000.
Next to the freshly finished sandstone and brick house is another that city high school seniors restored from ruins a year ago. The Butler family, who lived in a now-demolished city housing project, moved into the home where "everything's working perfectly good," said Joe Smith, a family member.
The two houses not only give shelter, but suggest a way to make some of the city's thousands of vacant houses live again.
But for students at Carver Vocational-Technical High School and four other schools, it was a way to grow and learn with each nail they hammered, every wall molding they measured. The morning shift of 15 students worked from 8 a.m. until noon, when the afternoon shift arrived to work until 4 p.m.
"I wanted youngsters to experience a real world-of-work setting," said Bernard Barnes, director of career and technology education for the school system. "We are trying to develop a sense of professionalism and responsibility."
Accustomed to sitting in a classroom with a roof over their heads, the rehab students found that working in winter weather was a real challenge. "This is training you cannot find in a classroom," said Joe Wilkerson, Barnes' deputy.
Students were graded, but they also received an hourly wage of $5 to instill a sense of reward for a job well done. They were selected after an interview process.
"You learn a trade, plus you're getting paid for it," said Keisha Cooper, 18, who earned a perfect grade of 100. "My trade is bricklaying, and I learned a lot of carpentry."
The only girl among the 24 teen-agers, she was described by supervisors as the best student in the morning program.
"When she first came in here, she was scared of a saw. Now she handles a saw just like me," said Robert Scott, a teaching assistant. "I tell her we always respect it. You handle it the right proper way, it'll do the work for you.
"She handles her own when they carry lumber," he added. "I ask her, can she handle it, but she's the first one there."
Cooper was teased by the boys as the only girl, but by all accounts more than stood her ground on the site.
Cooper and Raynard Griffin, 18, plan to take their trades with them into adulthood. Griffin, who starts a carpentry apprenticeship this month, said his grandfather had a concrete company in Cherry Hill and built steps, decks and driveways.
"He told me a trade is something you can have," said Griffin. "You can work for yourself." One life lesson he has learned, said Griffin, is that "you have to be on time. Otherwise, you might lose your job."
Morrice Smith, a 17-year-old graduating senior from VTC Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, said he joined the program to become a cabinetmaker and earn a living as a craftsman.
"It keeps you steady, having a good-paying job," he said. "Anyone can work at McDonald's. But nobody can take a trade away from you."
In addition to job skills, he received a sense of a mission accomplished. Scratching his wisp of a beard, he said, "After you get finished, you can stand back and see what you did."
The lesson school officials hope the students will never forget is what it was like to "have an opportunity to make a difference in their community," Wilkerson said.
Pub Date: 6/09/97
