'Lost souls' find themselves at PACE

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Mary Coe, right, with science teacher Michelle Patterson. Coe is set to graduate this month. Mary Coe is like many teenagers. She's a little bit shy, sometimes serious and occasionally full of sudden smiles. She lives in Lehigh Acres, listens to Reggae and celebrated a 19th birthday last month.

Next week, she will graduate from high school at PACE center in Fort Myers, a school for at-risk girls, with a scholarship from Uncommon Friends Foundation, to pursue future education.

A few years ago, Coe dropped out of Fort Myers High School after a death in the family. She was also left to help care for two younger siblings, 8 and 9 years old, and a brother close to her age, after they were kicked out of an apartment. Her parents couldn't pay the rent and the family was split up for a while. Graduation was a distant and unlikely goal.

"I didn't think I'd ever go back to High School," Coe said. "At first, I didn't wanna come."

Without PACE, where Coe said she was sent at the urging of her Godmother 16 short, but life-changing months ago, her future could have turned out much differently. Forty-nine other girls at the school have stories of their own, like Coe's.

"It's a very huge challenge for her," said PACE executive director Debra Webb. "It's a big deal."

One of the keys to overcoming those challenges is providing the girls, age 12 to 18, with personal attention and counseling; there are only 8 to 10 girls per class at PACE (Practical Academic Cultural Education). It also offers the families counseling on a variety of psychological, social and academic issues.

"We do case managing with the girl and her family," Webb said. "We didn't want girls going deeper into the juvenile justice system."

Judge James Seals, of the Juvenile Dependency Court in Fort Myers, initiated the program here when he took a group of community leaders to visit the PACE center in Immokalee. The school, which has 16 other locations in Florida, opened in Fort Myers just last year.

"With the help of a lot of people it came into being," Seals said.

The school accepts referrals from the juvenile justice system, the Department of Children and Families, area schools, community services agencies, parents, family members, friends and self-referrals. And funding also comes from a variety of sources. The school needs up to $300,000 per year to operate. About one-third comes from the community, the rest comes from the Lee County School Board - which pays the teachers - and the Department of Juvenile Justice.

"Most of the girls who go to PACE are way behind in school, and of course, children who are behind in school don't wanna go to school," Seals said. "Children who have a fear of school - in other words, a school is a hostile environment to them because of their self esteem and all kinds of other issues. To try to get them to actually go to school can be quite a thing."

PACE provides a safe, non-judgmental environment, much more protected and personal than a public high school. For example, after Coe's family member died while she was attending Fort Myers High School, she said one of her teachers told her to "get over it." The program is also aimed specifically at young women.

"When they're together they can be girls," Seals said. "A lot of these girls when they come in they really have no feminine spirit to them. They're just lost souls."

Seals, who still keeps an eye on the school from afar, said Coe has blossomed since her arrival.

"I'm happier and I've learned just a lot of things about life," Coe said. "I learned how to let things go and express what I want to say…I wanna work in the medical field. And it's happening little by little."

While at the school Coe took three electives: zoology, botany and environmental science. On a field trip to the beach, she captured a pregnant seahorse, and now the pictures hang on the bulletin board in the hall as proof. Science is her favorite subject, taught by advisor Michelle Patterson.

"She knows what she's doing but she's goofy at the same time," Coe said.

At PACE, Coe was elected the student body president, and even helped change some school policy. Her teachers helped her with a campaign.

"The school had rules some girls didn't like," she said. "…I could argue really well."

For example, the girls are now allowed to where jeans, as well as shorts and sandals. Outside the school there is a place created by students called the Serenity Garden. Coe goes there almost every Friday to think or write in her journal. After she graduates, she'll have a stone engraved with her name on the path through the garden.

She's happy to be graduating, but will also miss the school. She's not sure what she'll be doing immediately after graduation.

"I'm looking forward to summer," Coe said. "I haven't had a real summer in a while."