More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Interview with Dr. Marquis Clark Part Two
Discover the transformative journey of Dr. Marquis Clark, the dynamic principal of Cleveland Elementary Academy of Excellence, as he reveals how he revitalized a struggling school by drawing inspiration from his faith and the biblical story of Gideon. Through a unique approach of categorizing teachers into three groups—those who were toxic, mediocre, and coachable—Dr. Clark was able to elevate expectations and instigate a spiritual revival that brought about profound changes. Listen to how prayer walks with local clergy and spiritual interventions not only overcame resistance but also reshaped the school’s culture and performance, proving the power of faith-driven leadership.
Experience the heartwarming story of an initiative that opened the doors to homeownership for families in need, led by Pastor James White and supported by the Northside Development Group. With an innovative 0% interest mortgage model, families, particularly single mothers from Cleveland Academy of Leadership, transitioned from unstable living conditions to secure and supportive homes. This episode highlights the extraordinary impact of community collaboration and faith in action, featuring comprehensive support systems that include mentorship and financial literacy training. Celebrate the achievements of this transformative project and the unforgettable ribbon-cutting ceremony marking a new beginning for many.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:We're back this week for the conclusion of a fascinating interview with Dr Marquise Clark, the principal of Cleveland Elementary Academy of Excellence, and I think you will find this a fascinating interview of how God used a godly man like Dr Clark to transform a failing elementary school into a truly, a true academy of excellence, and I think you will really enjoy the conclusion of this interview with Dr Clark. So please listen in for the remainder of this interview.
Speaker 3:I said a quick prayer, grabbed my Bible for inspiration and, honest to goodness, dr Jackson, I just thumbed the pages of the Bible. I had the belief that I will stop on something that would give me the strength to do. And I stopped on the story of Gideon and I started reading. And so then I had to kind of go back because it started me off in the middle of it. I went wait a minute. I had to kind of go back because it started me off in the middle of it and I went wait a minute. And I went back and reread and I said wow. And so then I took out my phone and Googled some interpretations of it all. So I stayed about another hour just immersing myself in Gideon and I said, okay, I know what you're trying to tell me.
Speaker 3:And so I went to work the next day and I made three columns on my desk. One column was for teachers who were incompetent and toxic. There were about six names there. It demonstrated, after years of service, that they were incompetent and that they were toxic. I made another column. These were teachers who were. They were so-so. They were, you know, mediocre. They were mediocre but toxic. You know, kind of in the middle but just really didn't want to do. Then I had a third column and that was my coachable column. These are the folks that I know we can coach them up. I know there's something there.
Speaker 3:So I had a total of 18 names and I brought my admin team in and told them about my experience the night before and I said all right, you all are believers as well. Poke holes in this, tell me where I'm wrong. If you see something that I'm missing, a discrepancy, let me know. I'll take it back, we'll pray on it, meditate on it and we'll go from there. But we know this is what needs to be done and we got to work Now.
Speaker 3:We didn't target those 18 people. We really didn't. What we started doing was increasing the expectations and I started inviting more sincerely and I did my first day inviting the Holy Spirit to come into Cleveland to guide my heart, my mind, my tongue, my hand, to let me be what it is that God needed me to be for the teachers, for the families, for the students. But also, dr Jackson, it became very clear to me that when a system or organization or a school, in this example, has missed the mark for 20 years, we're not dealing with teaching only. We're not dealing with students only. We're not dealing with families only. We are dealing with what I believed at the time was a spiritual warfare.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I understand that, and so I knew we needed the Holy Spirit to come in and work some things. And so, sure enough, I began what I call prayer walks in the school, and so I invited local clergy, twice a year, to come in to walk and pray, pray.
Speaker 2:They were told not to engage students to just walk, pray and invite the Holy Spirit into the building.
Speaker 3:Good job, awesome, awesome. And that's what they did. We've been doing that now for about six years and so much, like Gideon, we increased the expectations and it was December of 2019. And I stood before my faculty and staff. I said, all right, y'all, here's where we're going. Here's where we're going.
Speaker 3:It's about this time, dr Jackson, I had enough of convincing people to do what was right for children who were being paid to do what was right for children. Right, I had enough of it, and so I just laid out what the new reality of Cleveland was going to be. I told them, starting in January, when you come back from Christmas break, we're going to meet every Wednesday from 3 until 5 o'clock. You're going to turn in your lesson plans every Sunday night before Monday morning. You're going to get feedback on every single lesson plan.
Speaker 3:And I just went through every single thing that I knew we had to do in order to improve the conditions of that school and I told them if you know in your heart of hearts that this is not something you want to do, save our friendship and save me the paperwork. Go ahead and resign, but this is what we're going to do for our children. The next week I had three resignations and from January until May we had about 23 people turning a resignation informing me that they would not be returning the following year. Now that's not a brag, but that's a moment where the Holy Spirit really showed itself. That's right. Yeah, it let me know who was who and what was what.
Speaker 2:Who's?
Speaker 3:on board? Who's on board? Who are we going to take in to battle? Who's going into battle with us to charge?
Speaker 3:And so we got to work. We had, you know, it was one of those things where I remember telling the school board member, who I won't name, was kind of giving me a little bit of static about it all. And I said you know how an oncologist knows if they removed their proper tissue that may have been cancerous? And he looked at me how I said well, if the symptoms improve? I said I understand what it looks like having all these folks leave the school, but did the symptoms improve? And he said yeah. I said all right. Then so that tells me that everyone who left could not have been good for the organization, had not, could not have been good for the organization. And so we put a lot of structures in place to really provide what was best for our children. But I also knew that the teaching and learning just wouldn't be sufficient for the complete transformation of children, like I knew that there was more that could be done. And so remember my time in the classroom and knowing what it meant when children came to school clean, I reached out to a community partner who was instrumental in helping me to create a 501. I created a 501c3 for the school with the intention of supporting children, to offer them extracurricular activities and to provide support when they needed it. And so one of the first things we did as a 501c3 was to create the Loaves of Love laundry room. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 3:And so we created the Loaves of Love laundry room to offer a free washroom for our families. I felt like it was just kind of wrong. One of the things that really it really turned my stomach was a local housing complex was charging families to wash clothes, and I remember for myself as a first year teacher, what it would cost me to wash my own clothing. You know as, being a young man, I didn't have a washer and dryer inside of my apartment, and so I mean it could cost, you know, $30 a week if it meant that it was a week to wash, you know, to wash all the linens in my home. I mean it was, it could be expensive, and so you think about that cost and the cost that families already have to sort of face. Knowing that many of those families are low income, I just felt like it wasn't the right thing to do so. We created the Loaves of Love Laundry Room. Families are able to come to Cleveland to wash their clothes for free. The detergent is provided for them, as well as any other supplies they may need. It's completely anonymous. I mean, all they have to do is call and say that they're at the back door, we let them in and they're there to wash clothing until they're done. So we've been very proud of that, and so we did that.
Speaker 3:Dr Jackson and I still felt in my heart that there was more that needed to be done. One of the things that was really kind of bothered me, and had bothered me for some time, is how people were sort of I think the best way to put it is prostituting poverty. There are times when organizations would come to Cleveland, pledge to partner in some way. We would sign an MOU and then all our children got out of it with some measly maybe bag of books or a book bag. They wrote a grant, the organization got money and my children returned to misery. Right, it was like I understand that it just didn't. It didn't sit well with my spirit, but I didn't know what to do about it, but it always bothered me.
Speaker 3:So, um, about three years ago, it was Thanksgiving and I was driving home to Sumter and the Holy Spirit got ahold of me, um, and it just wouldn't let me go. I mean it, it, it. And I pondered on a question for two and a half hours and it was well, what more can I do to offer generational wealth? That was my thinking. You know, how can we break the chains of poverty at Cleveland? And I thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and, sure enough, as soon as I pulled into my parents' yard, the concept of home ownership came to me. I was thinking, gosh, how am I going to do that? But I, but I knew I needed to be obedient. And so so I'm there with my parents and helping my mom cook.
Speaker 3:And a conversation came back to me that I had had the month before at Carolina Foothills, where I'm a board member, and I had heard and remembered that we had just gotten a grant. And by this time, dr Jackson, I was on the board for maybe a year. We had gotten a grant and we were looking for ideas of what to do with the money and I said, huh, man, that's a crazy idea. That's what I thought to myself. Because what the Holy Spirit revealed to me was to do a forgivable mortgage, uh-huh. So I said, man, anyway, ate. Turkey came up the next day, reached out to Terry Hendricks, who was the vice president of Carolina Foothills. I texted her and say, hey, I've got a crazy idea. And she said I like crazy, what is it? I said no, terry, this is really crazy. She said well, you got a minute.
Speaker 2:I said yeah.
Speaker 3:So I went to the credit union, we sat down, so here's what I'm thinking. I laid it out for her and she said I think we can do it. I said, huh, you know, I was expecting all kind of resistance. And so she said, well, let me run it by the president and I'll get a meeting on the books for next week. I'm like, yeah, whatever, sure, you know I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:That'll never work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I'm work, I've got to figure something out. And so, sure enough, I get a, uh, a call, got a meeting, I pitch it to the president and he's like, eh, you know, he starts shaking his head and, uh, he's talking slow. And so I said, well, so I got on my soapbox and what I had pitched was forgivable for 10 years. So pay the mortgage for 10 years, the next 10 is forgivable, and then we would do some sort of decrease in interest and principal over time. And you know, basically, how could we do this to really set families up? He says, marquis, let me play with the numbers. I really need to think about it. He says I want to do something, but I just don't know if we can do that. He says, besides, we've got to get the land and we need a builder. I said, well, if you agree to it, I'll find the land and I'll find a builder. That's right. That's right. And I knew he thought I was bluffing. That's right. And I had no means. All I knew is that I had a vision that the Holy Spirit gave me and I knew I needed to act on it. That's right.
Speaker 3:And so it's about two weeks later. He says, marquis, I think we can do it, but I think I've got it. I think we need to rethink it. I said, oh, here we go, I'm waiting on it, right? And he says I think we need to do 0% interest. I said what he said yeah, we need to do 0% interest and that way, as they pay it back, we'll always have sort of this kitty, this pot of money to be able to do this again in the future, as opposed to completely forgiving the loan. I said, president Weaver, I like it. He says, now, what about the land and the builder you promised? I like it. He says, now, what about the land and the builder you promised?
Speaker 3:And so I went over to the Northside Development Group, made the pitch, brought in the board chair president, vice president of Carolina Full Hills and the president of Carolina Full Hills, and the five of us sat there and I laid out what the Holy Spirit had given me and, to my surprise, mdg gave Carolina Phil Hills Federal Credit Union four vacant lots to build on. How about that? Oh man, hallelujah. And so I was like, okay, and so we got it. So then next it was time to work on a builder. So I knew a builder who was also a man of God, pastor James White, out of Greenville, and I called him and he and I were in negotiations with the potential of he building my own home in the north side. Right, right, um. I'll tell you more about that later on. But I said, pastor White, here's what the Holy Spirit gave me. I said but I need you to build these homes at or below a hundred dollars a square foot. And he started laughing.
Speaker 2:He says.
Speaker 3:He says wait a minute, wait a minute. He says now I do want to help, but I can't. I don't know if I can help that much. I said, well, whatever you can do be greatly appreciated. So anyway, he came back with a number that the credit union felt like was doable and we got the ball rolling. And so we vetted and selected families from the Cleveland Academy of Leadership. These are all families who, without our intervention, would have never had the opportunity of being homeowners. That's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. These are all single-family, single-mother families, and one mother was paying about $1,400 a month for a one-bedroom hotel room. A month for a one-bedroom hotel room. Just rent money, just rent money down the hall and rent, and so we were able to get that mother a home. And another mother who had three children four, but one was in college and so we were able to intervene.
Speaker 3:Now, the caveat here was that I wanted to ensure that we weren't just offering a service for someone who was close to being a homeowner or someone who I really wanted it to be a real intervention, whereas without the credit union's involvement, home ownership would not have been possible for these families.
Speaker 3:Right, I understand that, and so we chose families that weren't quite ready but we got ready, and so we did that by supporting the families in multiple ways, in multiple ways. One I wanted to make sure that each family had a Christian family that they could kind of anchor and have as a mentor family, and so we reached out to First Presbyterian Church. They selected and identified mentor families for these three other families that were due to receive a home at 0% interest. We also connected them to Regenesis Healthcare System to teach them that health is wealth, and to support them in mental health counseling as well as healthy lifestyles, good, good. They also had to complete volunteer hours at the Cleveland Academy of Leadership and they had to complete financial literacy hours at the credit union Gotcha, and so we did that, and the ribbon cutting was last year. Those families are in those homes and so we counted all a blessing.
Speaker 2:That's an amazing blessing brother.
Speaker 3:I told Gene some time ago, when the announcement came out last year that we had earned our very first excellent report card in the school's history only the second passing report card in 24 years. He said how do you feel about yourself? He said you must feel good about yourself. And I said, mr Burgess, I'm going to tell you the truth. I said I probably would feel good about myself if I knew I did it by myself. That's right.
Speaker 2:I understand I said.
Speaker 3:But in this case I absolutely know where my strength comes from. That's right. I don't deserve or need the credit. I said. If you want to give credit to anyone, give it to the Holy Spirit and give it to these teachers who show up every single day giving their absolute best for some of the hardest children to teach in Sparkingboro and even in the state of South Carolina, for that matter.
Speaker 2:How many students are in?
Speaker 3:your school. It varies from day to day, and I say that because it's a high poverty school. We have a transiency index of roughly 77%, so we only keep 23 percent of our students from kindergarten to fifth grade. We have a poverty index of roughly 92 percent and an absenteeism index of about 84 percent. So it's a very challenging school and so it varies from day to day. At that time I think we were at about 400. We'll say we were probably at about 430 students. Right now we're at about 530.
Speaker 2:How many teachers do you have?
Speaker 3:Right now I would say we've got about 25 classrooms, maybe Okay With supplemental. You know your related arts and your SPED resource and support staff, so so yeah, all right, we got about three minutes.
Speaker 2:Dr Clark, let's wrap it up here. Give me your final words.
Speaker 3:So what I would say is all that has happened at the school. So what I would say is all that has happened at the school has really been honest to goodness, a manifestation of what the Holy Spirit can do when you invite it in. And I feel honored and I'm grateful every single day that those teachers drive to 151 Franklin to give our children their absolute best. And there have been several more capable, more loving, more intelligent, I'm sure, principals than I. But I'm also tremendously humbled that the Holy Spirit, the good Lord, saw fit for me to be the principal to break the cycle for that community and for that school. I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:That's an amazing story, dr Clark, I want you to know. My friend, gene Burgess, told me about you and he told me about the school and immediately I said I got to hear this story in person, I want to hear it told on my podcast and I want you to know that I'm just tickled pink to have heard this story and I know my listeners are delighted to hear this story as well, and I do. I give glory to God for the way he's worked through you and through your teachers to transform that school and it's a God story school and it's a God story. It's an illustration of the power of the Holy Spirit working through you and through your teachers to transform a failing school into a school of excellence. And it is an amazing story and I appreciate you sharing that with me and sharing that with my listening audience.
Speaker 2:And I just wanted to say the Lord bless you, my brother, for your willingness to serve in a very difficult school, a very difficult circumstance, and being the Lord's servant and the Lord's man in that school. It's like being a missionary in a very difficult circumstance and being faithful over a lot of years of time. And again, may the Lord bless you for your willingness to serve. All right, you're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson. My guest today is Dr Marquise Clark, principal of Cleveland School of Excellence, and Dr Clark, I want to thank you for being my guest today.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, thank you for thinking of me, and I consider it an honor for sure.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you, sir, and may the Lord bless you, and we'll be back again next week for More Than Medicine. Until then, may the Lord bless you.
Speaker 1:Real good, thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
