Governor Visits Cohen Hillel Academy Academy

Jayden Pagan was learning about multiplication and how to do math word problems from his mentor, Alex Taglieri, at the Cohen Hillel Academy when Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Rep. John Tierney and state Rep. Lori Ehrlich came into the room.

“It was really inspiring,” said Pagan, a fourth grader at the Ford Elementary School in Lynn.

Taglieri, an eighth grader, was ready for the governor's visit. When the governor stopped to talk with him and Pagan, he pulled out a photograph of the governor and asked for an autograph.

Pagan and Taglieri are part of a program that sends third and fourth graders from Lynn to Cohen Hillel Academy in Marblehead one day a week to work with seventh and eighth grade students.

Cohen Hillel Academy is a K-8 independent day school that draws students from towns across the North Shore including Swampscott, the former home of the academy.

Patrick stayed almost an hour at the school, visiting about 10 classrooms where 44 older students were mentoring 44 younger students in math in preparation for the upcoming Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

The governor, leaving some of his staff and press entourage in the hallway, talked with each student, asking what they were learning, urging them to work hard.

“They are so cute,” Patrick said. He urged them to “keep up the good work.”

Tierney challenged Patrick to try to finish one of the student's math word problems. “I'm just good at signing,” the governor responded as he signed more autographs for the students.

“He is so good with the children,” said Karen Madorsky, the director of the Cohen Hillel mentoring program, called Champs. “It is so good for these children to see a black man who is not a rock star, not an athlete, who is so important and so lovely,” she said.

Jonathan Rubin, an eighth grader at Cohen Hillel, said the governor “showed a real interest in us as individuals.”

The mentoring program is a long-standing collaborative effort between the Ford Elementary School and Cohen Hillel. The Lynn students come to Marblehead weekly between January and March for tutoring with the older children. The Champs program trains the Cohen Hillel students in how to be mentors and teachers.

The results, according to Cynthia Mitsiasris, a Ford third grade teacher, show that the program is “extremely successful.”

Last year, the Ford students, many of whom were struggling in math, had 43 of the 44 students who were mentored pass the MCAS test. Before the mentoring program, she said at most 20 would pass the test.

“We pick the students who need that extra boost,” Mitsiasris said. “It works.”

At the end of the tutoring session, the students snacked on ice cream and Oreo cookies beneath posters advocating healthy eating. The governor shook his head and said, “Don't tell Michele Obama.”

To the students, the governor said, “You inspire me.”

He urged the Cohen Hillel students to bring the sense of service they learned as mentors “to everything you do. And the world will be a better place.”