In Latin, he's what we could describe in English as perfect

Latin might be a "dead language" to some, but to 10th-grader Ameer Purdie, of Boys' Latin of Philadelphia Charter School, it's very much alive.

"It's fun," Purdie, 16, said the other day. "I like doing the translations and declensions."

Purdie "gets to school every day at 7 a.m.," said his mother Tina Johnson, so he can meet with his Latin teacher, Sara Flounders.

The school, on Cedar Avenue near 55th Street in West Philadelpha, doesn't start until 8 a.m.

In addition, Purdie studies Latin after school with a tutor.

And, Flounders said, he voluntarily goes to Latin classes two Saturdays a month and during the summer. With his straight-A average in Latin, he doesn't have to put in the extra time.

All of his hard work has paid off.

Purdie earned a perfect score on the National Latin Exam, taken last month by nearly 140,000 students around the country.

Yesterday, Purdie received his gold medal at the school, along with 11 other Boys' Latin students who also won high honors.

But Purdie's perfect score puts him among fewer than 1 percent of students who took the Latin II exam, school officials said.

Of 34,931 students who took the Latin exam for sophomores, only 173 earned a perfect score, a spokeswoman for the National Latin Exam said yesterday.

In all, about 138,170 students from all 50 states and 13 countries took the exam at various levels - from Introductory to Latin to Latin VI. Of that number, only 1,363 scored a perfect score, the spokeswoman said.

David Hardy, Boys' Latin CEO, said it might be the norm for elite private Catholic schools like St. Joseph's Prep, or Merion-Mercy Academy, on the Main Line, to have students earning perfect scores.

But for this fledgling all-boys school in a predominantly black working-class neighborhood in West Philadelphia, Purdie's achievement is stellar.

"This is a guy who didn't test into special-admission schools like Central or Masterman," Hardy said.

If not for Boys' Latin, Hardy said, Purdie "would have gone to West Philadelphia High School, where he wouldn't have gotten Latin and wouldn't have gotten the kind of course work he gets here."

Hardy said he believed Boys' Latin, which opened in September 2007, might be the only city public high school that requires students to study Latin all four years.

A school district spokesman could not immmediately confirm that yesterday. Nor could it be confirmed if Purdie is the only Philadelphia public school student to get a perfect score in Latin this year.

Purdie became motivated to study hard when he went to the Pennsylvania Junior Classical League convention at Penn State in his freshman year and saw how much more advanced the other students were.

"They blew them away," in the competitions, Flounders conceded.

But Purdie returned to Philadelphia with a new determination.

"I knew I could be better if I studied harder," he said.

Flounders said she knew Purdie would be particularly good in Latin when:

"He came in one day, and he was translating words and he just turned to me, 'I feel like I'm a Roman.'

For a time, Flounders was the charter school's only Latin teacher. She not only was a Latin major at Holy Cross College, but also has a master of divinity from Harvard.

Today, she is one of three certified Latin teachers. The others are Andrew Fenton, a former classics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Daniel Bluth. John Suplicki, is the after-school tutor.

Suplicki said they all take an interest in Purdie.

During breaks between classes, he said, Purdie will chat with Fenton about ancient Roman culture as he walks down the hallways.

Also honored for their Latin test results yesterday were:

Sophomore Aaron Cameron, who earned a second straight medal this year, receiving magna cum laude designation. Sophomore Travis Smith achieved cum laude status.

Among freshmen, Tahir Bell, Miles Burton and Umar Ali received silver medals in the Latin I exam and the maxima cum laude award.

Jahlil Bess and Maurice Grannum-Gaskins achieved magna cum laude status. And Brandon Randall, K'Juan Doughty, Brennen Malone and Rashan Brooks received cum laude awards.