By Dianne Anderson

Being first in line is nothing new for longtime trailblazing educational advocate, Dr. Mildred Henry.

At Cal State University in San Bernardino, she was the first African American to be tenured in the School of Education, where she was also the first African American to get full professorship, and the first African American to get Professor Emeritus status there.

Later, she pulled away from the “Ivory Tower” mentality around academic theories to put some of her own down-to-earth methods into action.  As the first person to charter a school in the history of San Bernardino City Schools, Dr. Henry helped pave the way for teens to graduate even from the hardest low-income areas.

At the top of the year, she reached yet another milestone in the community with the district’s announcement of an elementary school named in her honor.

In the past twenty years since Dr. Henry introduced her Provisional Accelerated Learning program and its unique way of reaching the community’s “lesser advantaged” students, she’s held an impressive graduation rate that has, at times, beat out achievement and test scores of the traditional school settings.

Early on in developing the PAL Center, she pushed to bring the halls of academia back down to earth because it was too far out of touch for kids facing serious challenges and severe high school drop-out rates.

Of all the things she’s done in her career that might be the most gratifying.

“I think that’s the biggest advantage of the [school] recognition,” she said, “that I’ve not only taught this on the hill, but I brought it in principle and activated it in the valley.”

The Dr. Mildred D. Henry Elementary School will be located near Roosevelt Elementary, and is one of eight new schools that will built in the years ahead.

As professor at CSUSB during the eighties, Dr. Henry said the first thing that stuck out in the community by general observation was that so many teens were hanging out on street corners. She estimated high school drop-outs were roughly 50 percent, and she was correct.

Today, her program graduates over 70 percent. Above all, her students sense that they can rise to the top.

Lately, San Bernardino numbers are starting to look grim again, showing public schools scraping the bottom of the state on achievement scores as the President calls for a major overhaul to the nation’s education system.

Dr. Henry sees the Obama Administration’s tough love approach as a necessary move, given that so many students are falling through the cracks.

“We cannot fail our students. We’re in a competitive world. Unfortunately, if a drastic measure has to be taken, then that’s what is being called for.”

Aside from all that she’s accomplished locally, perhaps her most important contribution to education is the practical side of academia, she said. It is a prototype for the community that kids can learn despite whatever labels or social walls they must scale.

“My intent and my resolve is to get kids from this valley to the Ivory Tower. That was my intent and I think that’s what this recognition is all about,” she said.