Community Corner

After College, Some Schreiber Grads Look To Teach For America

Program helps to expand horizons, and close achievement gap.

Teach for America’s gain may be Port Washington’s loss.

The program recruits the best and the brightest college graduates who help close the achievement gap for low-income children in the nation’s rural and urban schools. It’s a mission that resonates with some who were raised in Port Washington but now live elsewhere.

Sure, they love returning during holidays to see their families and friends. They miss their favorite eateries. They hadn’t realized how much they took the beauty of Manhasset Bay for granted as the backdrop to their youth.

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Yet fond as they are of Port Washington, these 20-somethings are not necessarily clamoring to live here now.

“I can see moving back when I have a family, but not before,” said Sarah Weiss, who grew up in Port Washington, and later moved to Washington, D.C.

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It’s a scenario playing out across Long Island for a variety of reasons, regardless of whether young professionals work in education.

According to the Long Island Index, which retrieves data about Nassau and Suffolk Counties, young adults are choosing to live elsewhere. In 2009, for instance, there were “15 percent fewer 25- to-34-year olds living on Long Island than there were in 2000.” And while young adults shun other New York suburbs, “Long Island is losing them at a faster rate,” an Index study revealed.

The reasons? A lack of affordable housing, limits on employment opportunities and a shortage of vibrant downtowns, according to the Index.

For most who grew up in Port Washington, the peninsula served them well. Some went on to the nation’s finest colleges, universities and conservatories. Students worked hard at , devoting themselves to theater, sports and play. They learned the importance of friendship, and of community service.

Now as productive young adults, they’re continuing the traditions of giving back, making the world a better place. But not necessarily in Port Washington.

Take Andrew Malone. A Harvard graduate, Malone was a National Merit scholar, an AP scholar, and an Intel Social Science Research scholar. He became a program director for Teach For America.

“I developed a passion for our civil rights movement in the fight to provide a better education,” said Malone, who had taught in the Providence SummerBridge program, a Rhode Island initiative to encourage low-income, academically motivated students to go to college.

Malone began working for Teach for America in 2008, in the Mississippi Delta. He's worked in a town called Sunflower, with a population of about 500, and Ruleville, population of about 2,000. He went on to coach 30 teachers who help students excel.

The Mississippi Delta is a long way off from Long Island, which also has its share of academic inequities.

But Malone felt happy with his decision to leave Long Island.

“It’s definitely very different,” Malone said. “It’s miles and miles of cotton fields and the town is divided by train tracks.”

In the Mississipi Delta, Malone went regularly to Walmart, not exactly the kind of action sought by 20-somethings, Malone readily admits. Still, he said while living there, “I’ve been surprised. I’m not in want. I’m satisfied. I’ve met great people. I had an open mind. I struggled, but found happiness here.”

For Weiss, Teach for America brought her to Washington, D.C., in August 2010 after earning a Bachelor’s degree from University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she studied sociology.

Weiss went on to teach at a Friendship Public Charter School, working with pre-K to third grade special-education students. She starts her day at 5:45 a.m., and typically doesn’t return home until 6 p.m., teaching and also providing after-school tutoring. One night a week she’s out even later as she pursues graduate courses at George Mason University.

As an educator, D.C. is an exciting place to live, work and study, Weiss said.

“It’s the heart of education reform,” she noted. “A lot has been championed in D.C.” Weiss was referring to policies and programs that aim to increase accountability, parental involvement and more to boost student achievement.

Her students, she said, are from the poorest neighborhood in D.C., some of whom live in shelters.

“It’s very fulfilling,” she said. “I’ve gotten really close with my students. Some really want to learn and work really hard.”

Like other Port ex-pats, Malone and Weiss miss home. Still, they are happy with their decision to spread their wings.

“I love Port,” Weiss said. But can she see herself living here? “Not for now,” she said.

Favorite pastimes for Weiss include weekends exploring new restaurants, and walking into Georgetown for shopping and nightlife.

And while Malone has enjoyed rural life, he recently began working at a charter school in Harlem. He likes the diversity of New York, with its mix of race, religion and achievement.

“I’m excited to come back,” he said.

As for moving back to Port Washington, he doesn’t see it.

“I love cities,” he said. “When I raise a family, I want to do that in a city.”


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