East to start own Boys 2 Men group
AURORA -- After years of getting shot down by the very district its founder works for, youth group Boys 2 Men has been given a unanimous thumbs-up by the East Aurora School Board.
Boys 2 Men -- a mentoring program designed to give at-risk Latino and black youths an alternative to street games -- was formed in 2002 by Clayton Muhammad in response to a bloody year in gang violence that claimed 25 lives. Muhammad, now the District 131 spokesman, blamed the death toll and the fear that gripped a then-150,000 person city on a small number of street gang leaders.
"If 12 to 15 guys were causing havoc, let's bring 12 to 15 young men together to do the opposite," Muhammad said.
Boys 2 Men soon spread to districts throughout the region, but not Muhammad's home district, East Aurora.
One word was to blame -- fraternity.
While Muhammad said he meant "fraternity" to mean "brotherhood," others were concerned the word meant an exclusive group, thus putting the organization on the wrong side of a 1961 state law.
Two years ago, a citizen sent an e-mail to the state board of education asking the agency to question the group and its purpose.
"If I had known seven years ago that one little word would cause so much trouble -- I had no idea," Muhammad said Monday night.
The contentious topic would arise now and again at East Board meetings -- why not form an official partnership with an anti-gang mentoring program in a school district with a gang problem?
But the school board changed that Monday night, unanimously voting to form a community partnership with the group their employee created.
Board member Annette Johnson led the most recent push to solidify ties with the group.
"Really, at the end of the day, there weren't a lot of good reasons we weren't doing this," she said.
While the board members all spoke in favor of forming an official partnership with the group -- about 25 East Aurora High School students are members already -- board President Dee Weaver said that the word "fraternity" still could open the district up to criticism by people who look online for information on the group.
"The only Web site left out there is the original Web site," she said. "The word 'fraternity' is used quite prominently."
Weaver echoed that thought after the unanimous vote.
"If you could just get that word off the Web site," Weaver said to Muhammad.
