Meet Maurice McKoy. His job is to help scholars, parents, teachers, and schools be successful.
Maurice grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Baltimore City Public Schools. Since joining BELL’s team in 2007, Mauricehas served as an Enrichment Instructor, Teacher, and Program Manager at the DickeyHill Elementary & Middle School, and Harlem Park Elementary & Middle School, where he has led BELL’s summer and afterschool programs for the past two years.
“Maurice is so dedicated to scholars and to the mission,” says Damon Johnson, BELL’s Director of Program Operations. “He takes pride in his work. He’s not only does the work, he also coach and models and helps the people around him be successful.”
BELL honored Maurice for his excellence and impact with the Peterkin Award for Educational Leadership. Maurice earned the award based on BELL staff nominations, scholar assessment data, scholar engagement metrics such as retention and attendance, program quality indicators, and feedback from parent and teacher surveys.
“He is the type of leader that puts his hand to the plow,” said Johnson. “I’ve watched him do everything from clean the cafeteria to serve dinner to go into classroom and participate in lesson with teacher. There is not a job in the school that he hasn’t done. He has rightfully earned the respect of his staff, of the school, parents, and peers.”
AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE (PART 1)
How did you get here, and why are you here?
In 2007, I was serving as a Special Education teacher at Dickey Hill. That year, the school first partnered with BELL to expand learning time in the summer. I was drawn to BELL’s mission statement, to its values and work ethic, and to its organizational strength – BELL provided strong curriculum, training, and support to set staff up for success.
I became an enrichment teacher and taught art, and the next year I taught drama. Then I became a dual role teacher – I taught reading and math in a 4th grade class in the morning, and then maintained my duties as an enrichment teacher in the afternoon. The next step for me was to become a Program Manager – a role I have held for several years, first at Dickey Hill, and for the last two years, at Harlem Park Elementary & Middle School.
What’s the secret to running a successful afterschool or summer program?
I think the key to success is really listening to scholars’ needs and findings ways to meet those needs. Some of our scholars come from poverty-stricken communities. They face a lot of challenges, and their needs are not all the same – it’s not as simple as ‘ok, let’s focus on reading, or lets focus on math.’ We take care of nutrition – providing snacks at the end of the school day, and dinner before scholars go home. We provide a safe space where scholars can get settled, be focused, and engage in activities and learning that interests them. We talk to parents, teachers, principals, and community partners, and pull together a service inventory and present it to scholars, and they choose the activities and resources they want and need.
For example, my scholars at Harlem Park are vocal – they’ll tell you what they want to do, and what they don’t want to do. One thing we frequently hear from scholars is that they want mentors, people they can talk to, who will listen to them, and help them talk through their challenges and concerns. We hear from scholars that they like art and technology, and they like having a menu of options that they get to choose from, rather than being told what to do.
What are you most proud of?
Over the years, I’m most proud of the investment in young people that we make through our work after school and in the summer. It’s not about a paycheck, it’s about what you can give to scholars. We are serving as mentors, as educators. We are sometimes serving as father figures, or as guardians for scholars who might lack a positive adult presence after school or in the summer. I am a product of Baltimore City Public Schools, and every day I am so very proud knowing that I am giving back to the system that helped me succeed. I’m giving back by helping scholar realize that they too can make it, they too can be successful.
Share an example of your success.
When I was at Dickey Hill, we had a group of boys who were in a gang – the Guerilla Mafia gang. At that time, we started using a new character development curriculum called Dare to be King (and, for the girls, Dare to be Queen). One afternoon, in the middle of a conversation about making the right choices, that group of boys decided that they no longer wanted to be part of the gang anymore. They had better things to do after school – they saw the value of focusing their time and energy learning and becoming a better person. After the school year finished, those boys enrolled in our summer program, and they really embraced it. They got introduced to – and became deeply engaged in – building and fixing computers. They learned how to balance a checkbook. They got a chance to meet, talk to, and learn from positive role models who were producing in their community. I still see some of those scholars – they call me ‘Mr. BELL,’ and they say: ‘You taught me how to avoid conflict with other students and with the police. You taught me about the importance of coming to school every day and working hard. I’m doing better in reading or math because of the time I spent after school and in the summer. I’m going to school every day now.’