Positive Push
HERMAN — Summit Academy students eat well. Chris Graczyk makes sure of it.
As the facility's head chef, Graczyk does not cook hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza or other basic fare often found on school menus.
Roast turkey breast, tilapia, stuffed grouper, chicken breasts marinated in garlic and balsamic vinegar — all complete with salad bar — are more his norm.
As chef at the private, residential school for delinquent teens, Graczyk and his staff of about 25 students produce some 1,600 covered meals a day, feeding more than 500 people and serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and an evening snack.
"I run a tight ship,"Graczyk said. "People will say I'm the hardest person in this building to work for. I do all the ordering and prepare the food. But I'm also a disciplinarian. If there's a speck of dirt on top of the refrigerator, it's my job to see that it gets taken off."
Students under Graczyk's watch perform various kitchen duties. Some wash dishes, wipe down the salad bar, serve drinks or do prep cooking.
And Graczyk cares about them — because he was once one of them, a troubled youth who ran afoul with the law, in need of positive direction.
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE63284120.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>Graczyk was assigned in 1982 to Allegheny Academy in Pittsburgh, which comprises The Academy System along with Summit Academy and Sleepy Hollow in South Park."When I was first committed to the academy, I was scared,"Graczyk admitted. "I didn't know what to expect. I had five brothers, and we all got in trouble over the years."I didn't like what I was seeing. ... I knew I was in the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things. Then, from the first time I entered the academy, they felt like family to me."Graczyk wound up joining the wrestling team."I was 132 pounds with long legs,"he said. "Coach McCloud thought I'd be a good wrestler and asked me to try out."I jumped at it. That was my first sense of being needed. I'll always remember that."Coach John McCloud, the current wrestling coach at Summit, said he looked at Graczyk and saw "a good kid.""He just needed a catch, something to pull him away from the streets," McCloud said.Sports play a major role at the school, with about 50 percent of the students participating there in football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, golf, volleyball, or track and field."I'm a firm believer in sports as a tool to rehabilitate kids, and Summit Academy does a great job with that," said Jack McVay, a judge in the juvenile division of Allegheny County family court."Sports are a positive experience for kids."
Steve Sherer, academy director and football coach, said athletics is a tool to instill character and build relationships."Some of our students might have been selling drugs, were involved in auto theft or vandalism, simple assault, violation of probation, any number of things," Sherer said."When they first come to us, their value system is very anti-social. Nothing changes that like being part of a team.""Their pride used to be in their 'hood or in their gangs," Sherer said. "Now it's positive energy.""In terms of discipline and structure, this place saved my life," said Saladin Kirkland, 18, of Philadelphia, who works in food service at the school."I've learned a lot about responsibility here," Chase Safreet, another Summit student and food service worker, said. "I'm getting my GED,and I want to get into culinary arts in college."Being around the kitchen has given me appreciation for what a chef does. It's what I want to do."Kirkland has been working in the cafeteria for six months and is in charge of part of the staff. He now anticipates attending college in New York."I have to change my people, places and things when I get out of here," he said. "I'm going to broaden my horizons.
Philadelphia resident Marvin Kinard played basketball at Summit between 1999 and 2001 and became the school's first player to participate in the Dapper Dan Classic in Pittsburgh. There, he played against future Division I college and NBA players.Today, he's employed as a court service assistant in the very court that once sent him to Summit Academy."I was committed to here my first year,"he said. "My last year and a half, I came back voluntarily and graduated."I came from a good family, but all I wanted to be was a street kid at home. I was truant through my high school years at home. I learned about character and friendship at Summit Academy. I wanted that diploma. (Summit) was the only place I was gonna get it, so I went back."Formerly a student at St. Gabriel Hall, a juvenile school in Philadelphia, Kinard returns to give speeches during the school's Keep the Peace Week."I go back because I'm living proof these systems work,"he said. "Keep working hard, believe in yourself and you can turn your life around."Mike Karadeema played football and baseball at Summit Academy. He returned to his hometown Highlands High School and played football there."When I first got there, I was pretty shaken up," said Karadeema, a student for nine months in 2000 and 2001. "I thought I was going to a big jail, some type of prison system."I didn't know what placements were. When you're a 15-year-old kid, out of control, you figure they're locking you up."
McVay described the task facilities like Summit Academy face as "very difficult.""It's hard when kids first go to a placement facility," he said. "Number one, they don't want to be there. A lot of the kids are behind in their schooling when they get there."GEDprogram, trade program, drug and alcohol program ... they reverse attitudes and life directions."Karadeema went on to become a manager for a GNC store and is now a night security counselor at Summit Academy. He is saving money to go to school to become a personal trainer."I never lifted weights before I joined the football team. I learned about weight training and how to work out. Now I want to help others do the same thing."I was an out of control vandal. Now I'm a leader. I know what it's like to be proud now,"Karadeema added."I didn't have any freedom there. I was always told what to do and had to ask permission to do anything. None of us liked that. But we needed it."While the kids aren't "locked up," they are constantly supervised. Eight periods of day-time classes are followed by individual and group counseling sessions, along with on-campus work, participation in a sport, pep club or trade courses.If needed, youths will enter Summit Academy's drug and alcohol counseling program, a four-step system over a period of six months that sports a positive discharge rate of 89 percent."We have room for 69 students on that floor, and it's filled to capacity," Sherer said. "There's always a waiting list."There's a large need for programs in that area across the state, across the country."Once assigned to Summit Academy, a youth is sent to a diagnostic unit, where he spends approximately 30 days learning what The Academy System is all about while the system learns about him.Each student is assigned a big brother upon his arrival from the diagnostic unit to further assimilate him into the Summit society."Within three months, I was a big brother on my floor," Karadeema said.Students are required to wear the proper school uniform, which for most of the year includes an oxford shirt, tie, khaki pants, belt and loafers."When you dress better, you feel better about yourself," McCloud said. "Look good, think good, act good."Students go from class to class in orderly fashion, as a group. They report to breakfast, lunch and dinner the same way.The commitment to structure works with the staff as well. Summit Academy has an attendance board on a wall where counselors, teachers and other employees at the facility get their names on the board if they've had perfect attendance for at least a year.The board has 46 names on it now, led by Graczyk, who hasn't missed a day in 17 years.Trade courses offered include carpentry, custodial maintenance, electrical wiring, food service, optical lab training, screen-printing, structural repair and woodworking."We're not just educating these kids. We're showing them the value of education," Sherer said.On average, students come to the school functioning two to three years below their appropriate grade level. Yet the positive release rate is 83 percent, and the average increase in learned curriculum is 2.04 grade levels.However, not every student who leaves the academy is able to go to college, Sherer said."We've taken kids to the Job Corps. We sent one kid to Kentucky for auto body trade work," he added.One student graduated from Summit Academy in 1997. Forty students graduated last spring."Sure, some fall through the cracks," McCloud said. "When it happens, we feel like we've failed. We take it personally."Take the worst kid in the world, look at him, know him, you'll find some good in him. Our job is to take that good and build on it. It's what we do."
• Located in Herman, Summit Academy opened its doors in 1996 and is a private, residential school for court-adjudicated young men ages 14 to 18. It has treated more than 3,000 male juvenile offenders.• Students come from Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and all of Pennsylvania.• Current enrollment is 326 students, 274 of whom live on campus.• Youths who have committed sex offenses, arson, murder or who require fence-restricted security are not accepted.• The counselor-student ratio is 8 to 1.• Students must perform a minimum of 50 hours of community service during their tenure at Summit.• Upon earning high school diplomas, students receive a $2,000 scholarship if they attend college or vocational school.• Of the 458 new Summit Academy students in 2008, 59 obtained their high school diploma, 73 received their GEDand 186 advanced to the next grade level.• Average length of stay for a Summit Academy student is 8.2 months.• Positive release rate for the residential program is 83 percent.• Positive release rate for the Drug &Alcohol rehabilitation program is 89 percent.• Overall average increase on the entrance and exit exams in 2008 was 2.04 grade levels, as measured by the Metropolitan Achievement Test.• Average increase in reading was 2.73 grade levels in 2008.• Summit Academy received the Residential Program of the Year Award for the state of Pennsylvania in 2000, presented by the Juvenile Court Judges Commission.• Varsity sports at Summit Academy include football, golf, wrestling, basketball, baseball, volleyball and track and field.• Summit Academy received the WPIALSportsmanship Award in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
