Bladen County’s military charter academy becoming legendary

ELIZABETHTOWN – It’s a combination of a calling, experience in the military and a no-nonsense approach to education that has the Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy (PRBLA) pulled out of the miry clay.

The superintendent that has all the components that were needed to point a lost group of cadets to find their true north is Dr. Jason M. Wray. He is teamed with his right-hand man and Cadet Commandant Carl T. Lloyd who believes that a good leader, good father and good mentor all possess the ability to get the best out of the students through discipline and respect.

And with those components in place, you can walk on the campus and feel a word that is sometimes little-known in schools today and that is “honor.”

Wray came to work at a school that had been failing in overall grade-point average for 10 years. When the opportunity presented itself, he ran into an old friend who he knew from teaching this man’s kids.

“When I first had a chance to come to a military school, I thought that perhaps it was my calling,” Wray said. “I graduated both of Colonel Lloyd’s boys from East Bladen High school. So, I thought this was a pretty good match. It was a challenge coming to a charter school from a public school because things are different and it was a huge learning curve.”

With Lloyd taking care of the military part of it and discipline and I take care of the academics. Both men, at the top of their fields and expertise in their teaching styles have created a smooth transition and a tight team of cadets in this military charter school.

According to Wray, pointing out somewhere around 100 trophies in the commissary, the school was strong in the military training and athletic ability, but had fallen behind in academics and he said that’s what was missing.

Lloyd who comes from a private school background and Wray from a public-school educational background both brought the best of both worlds to the table.

“Now, he basically handles the discipline,” Wray said.

After watching drill teams and uniform checks and the incorporation of structure and discipline in every aspect of Llyod’s approach, it is easy to see that he has found his niche. It’s not the military discipline that one would expect to see in boot camp, but at the same time, none of the students are put in “timeout” with a pat on the back.

“We try to hold the cadet more accountable,” Lloyd said. “And we don’t play into the ‘we’ll flunk them’ mentality. Because basically that is what THEY want. When we see something wrong, we hold them accountable and at the same time, the parents have to be supportive. Before any cadet can enroll here, during the school year they have to do what’s called ‘a shadow.’ That is where they come and they visit for the day. They go through the class period with their peers. So, if their peers have to get out and do pushups, they have to get out and do them too. That way, everybody comes in eyes wide-open.”

You see things here that you don’t see in public school, or at least not unless you are on an athletic team. But that’s what it resembles. A team that is woven with strength, discipline and respect for authority. At PRBLA, they do “tours.” The very word conjures a bit of apprehension and anxiety as it is a tool to give them time to think while they work.

“If a cadet is late for class, that’s going to be a ‘tour.’” Lloyd said. “A ‘tour’ is where they have to march back and forth at 120 steps a minute with a 12-lb. rifle back and forth for 50 minutes without talking or playing. And that’s not on their time, it’s going to be on a Thursday afternoon or a Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, Sunday morning. It depends upon what the schedule is for that week.”

If a cadet is disruptive in class the first time, it’s just a warning to be careful not to do it again. Lloyd doesn’t count to 10 or threaten. He forms boundaries which kids respect and learn to live by. A second infraction, they are scheduled for a tour. With a 25-pound ruck for 4 miles.

“The biggest thing I disliked about private military school was someone who saw the ad, enrolled their kid and the minute someone raised their voice or told them that they couldn’t do something, then the parents were all up in arms,” Lloyd said. “They say, we didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

With the shadow… the boundaries are understood. Without a shadow of a doubt.

They also don’t enroll them without the kids and parents going home and talking about it. One thing about his school is it’s totally voluntary. Whereas there are certain military schools that may be court ordered or just the parent’s choice, this has to be a totally voluntary decision. They have to want to change for the better.

“The misconception is, you’re not made to come here,” Lloyd said. “There is not one cadet in this school that is court ordered. We have to explain to the parent, there has to be parental buy-in as well. I know I wouldn’t have liked to wake up on a Sunday morning and to take my son to a ruck march. BUT, as I put it to one parent, on the way – there and back, you and he should be having the conversation, I don’t ever want to have to do this again. Some kids, believe it or not that I look at and think they’re not going to stay past the day, they’re the ones that are calling and saying, ‘hey, we want to bring them back tomorrow, what’s the next step in the process?”

Lloyd and Wray both say that contrary to popular belief and the times we live in, kids really do want discipline and structure and boundaries.

“Another thing is that we rarely suspend kids,” Wray said. “That’s what parents love about it. Keeping their kid in a school and not sending them home for 10 days. And the kids love it here. It’s not an easy curriculum, but it’s a good curriculum. They are happy to be here, it’s a great culture, it’s a great climate and the kids don’t leave the way they came.”

Instead of leaving a school and having to go find themselves, these kids seem to find themselves and, in this culture, they learn quickly who they are and what they are able to accomplish. Their “can do” is developing at PRBLA and it puts them so much farther ahead after they graduate.

The school currently has roughly 215 kids in the combined junior high and high school and they are busting at the seams. There are other buildings in the former Bladen Central High School building that are in need of refurbishing and that comes none too soon as they are looking at an explosion of kids who want to be a part of this system in Elizabethtown.

There are currently 82 applications for the next school year and although more, they had to narrow it down to be able to accommodate all the students that want to attend. The charter allows the school to go up to 280 maximum.

When Wray arrived, the enrollment was at 108 and since the word has gotten out and the success rates for kids turning their lives and educations around have become legendary, the staff is having to be selective in their process and intake of new students.

“I was telling Colonel Lloyd, we are going to need more busses,” Wray said. “We can’t take a chance here because we go to the kid’s house and pick them up.”

That was not a typo. The school has 12 used busses, 9 of which are running on a daily basis and each student is picked up at his or her front door. No bus stops, no parental scheduling to have to work through. There is a rigid bus schedule and sometimes the kids are on the bus for over an hour getting to school, most of the year – up well before the sun. Students from five different counties attend PRBLA and the word is getting out about the success stories.

“That whole process was learning on the fly,” Lloyd said. “At first it was going to be a parking lot meeting, and we had been open three days and we figured out that some of the parents didn’t have gas to get the kids to the pickup site. That’s the kid you’re going to lose. At first, we said, ‘OK, we’ll just do Bladen County.’ There were parents who were scared by the fact that they couldn’t provide transportation. Some were considering going back to public school. We are one of the few that actually does door to door pickup.”

Especially on this large a scale. But Wray said that in smaller schools everyone has to work together – staff included and sometimes there are many hats to wear. For instance. Wray and Lloyd both change hats before the sun comes up and become bus drivers for their school. For their kids. For their passion to make this work. And it does work.

The school in addition to drill competition, they have a basketball team that is about to jump into a newly formed basketball conference, they have a cheerleading team and a soccer team. With the addition of the refurbished Paul R. Brown building with new desks already in the facility and work on the old historic high school, the future is continuing to build on a firm foundation.

The gymnasium was a gift from a National Guard unit at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. Some of the townspeople from Bladen County went and dismantled the entire Quonset and transported it to Elizabethtown. With funding help from the Bladen County Commissioners, the gym floor is new and the lines and walls were all repainted. The shower rooms have been refurbished and next year they plan on upgrading the bleachers.

As for the grounds and the buildings, it all belongs to Bladen Youth Focus which leased it from Bladen County Schools, so actually it is a double lease. The price is $1 a year for 99 years and then it is released to Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy.

Funding for the academy comes partially from platform competitive grants and those are smaller to just help them on their way.

“Most of the funding is done out of our charter school fund based on the number of kids we have here,” Wray said.

There is no charge for the kids to come to school and to receive an education. The only required things are for their uniforms, hats, boots, shoes and their jacket. Even with those costs, the school works with parents who find it a hardship.

The school is now also providing breakfast, lunch, snacks during the week and a backpack program on the weekends.

June 7 will be a special day at PRBLA as the annual graduation takes place. For the teachers and educators, it is a time to reflect upon where they were when they first came in and where they are now. Some go off after graduation and head into the military, some join the job force and some go off to college – and Lloyd said there are so many success stories that he is afraid to name one student for fear he will forget some of the other’s names.

They have alumni right now in the Air National Guard, the Air Force and the Army. They had one girl who was the very first Marine from the school. They have some alumni who have made such positive additions to their world and one in particular who graduated from PRBLA and then graduated from UNC-Pembroke and the journey was to come back to teach at PRBLA.

The school is not without its challenges and Wray tells the success story of a student that just didn’t like being in school. When they threatened to have her leave, she dug deep and found a way to stay. She found a way to get her grades up. She found a way to make her difference in this world – and now is in Marion, Alabama, in military college.

“I am just so proud of all of them,” Lloyd said. “They meant the world to me then and still do. They always will.”

Mark DeLap is a journalist, photographer and the editor and general manager of the Bladen Journal. To email him, send a message to: mdelap@bladenjournal.com