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Ninth Grade from West Baltimore

Fri Jul 8, 2022
Five scholars from the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) CURE Scholars Program continue their journey in the documentary, "Ninth Grade: From West Baltimore."With a series of flashbacks, "Ninth Grade: From West Baltimore" starts in middle school, where the adolescents share their youthful dreams for the future and their determination to overcome the devastating realities of their neighborhoods.Now in the most prestigious public high schools, the scholars — Shakeer Franklin, Tyler McKenzie, Princaya Sanders, Courtney Jacobs, and Davioin Hill — are competing with Baltimore’s best and realize each grade counts not only for high school, but also for college.Each morning, they travel for over an hour on buses and light rail, leaving behind their neighborhoods of violence, drugs, and poverty, to get the education that will one day make their goal of college a reality. They believe they can do it and so do their teachers at Polytechnic Institute, Western High School, Bard High School Early College, and Green Street Academy.The five teens featured in the documentary participate in the UMB CURE Scholars Program, a pipeline mentoring program that began in 2015 providing science enrichment opportunities to middle and high school students from West Baltimore.Learn more at umaryland.edu/cure-scholars