From time outs to full scholarship - a West Philly success story

Raushaun Williams started reading at age 3, and at 4 took an IQ test that identified him as gifted. But in the classroom, he was restless, and when he started kindergarten, he was regularly suspended.

Several years and schools later, family and teachers point to the West Philadelphia teenager, now 16, as a role model for his upward academic trajectory.

The Roman Catholic High School graduate is headed to Drexel University, where he intends to study biology this fall on a full scholarship.

For that, Williams credits his mother.

A single mother, Raushana Williams moved him from school to school in search of the right academic environment - four changes in six years.

"I did not want my son to be a statistic," she said. "It's hard being an African American male in the United States, period. But in Philadelphia, we live in a neighborhood where people don't always make it. . . . I was going to do what I had to do to get him the absolute best I could give him."

His mother's determination motivated him, Williams said. But as he jumped schools, he struggled, his elementary education characterized by instability. Reacting to classroom disruptions, he sometimes fought with peers.

That changed when his mother applied to the Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, which awards money to low-income families to help pay for elementary school educations. After securing funding through the program for tuition, she sent her son to seventh grade at Our Lady of Lourdes.

He flourished at the Catholic school, she said. Smaller classes and more order made it easier for him to learn. The boy who had been regularly suspended from kindergarten went on to become his eighth grade's valedictorian.

That success only continued at Roman. In his four years there, Williams played football, mentored peers, and eventually served as the National Honor Society's vice president for service - in addition to working a cashier's job at Reading Terminal Market and an internship with a private equity firm. He was accepted to nine colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, before choosing to attend Drexel with the goal of becoming a neurosurgeon.

His family and teachers are not surprised. Brian Conroy, Roman's assistant principal for academic affairs, taught Williams Advanced Placement biology, and described him as passionate about learning and "one of my shining stars."

Williams was the only African American student in Conroy's AP biology class, and was "sort of a trailblazer in that way," the teacher said.

Williams reflected on his education Thursday, when he delivered remarks at a ceremony for new Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia recipients. He was honored as one of 10 graduating high school seniors to receive a stipend for college in recognition of his academic achievements.

To applause, he offered advice to dozens of elementary-school children who had received the same scholarship money that his mother sought for him.

Before she did, "I was a child of the public school system in Philadelphia, and in danger of becoming another statistic," he said.

Ina Lipman, Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia's executive director, said after the ceremony that Williams stood out among the roughly 70 applicants for the college scholarship.

"What really hit me when we interviewed him is that we could have lost him," Lipman said. "He was on a pathway where he would not have made it. He was bouncing from school to school."

215-854-2819@MadelineRConway