B4 eZ M2 the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019
dent orientation in college,
many students change their
minds.
Some enlist in the military.
others get nervous about leav-
ing home. many find jobs in-
stead.
“A lot of them are contribut-
ing to the financial well-being
of the household,” said LD ross
Jr., senior vice president of
programs for the college access
group. “If that money goes away
with them, that family could be
in some serious trouble.”
Leaders of the college access
program help young people
assuage doubts about going to
college. Advisers from the non-
profit text students over the
summer with financial aid re-
minders and field questions
from doubtful teens.
rodriguez said it’s vital that
young people feel supported
when they get to college. Kang
suggested HBCUs can offer that
type of environment for D.C.
graduates.
“for us, we are just trying to
make sure our students have
access to the opportunities that
are going to be most supportive
for them,” Kang said. “We know
that HBCUs can provide a really
supportive environment for
many of our students.”
There are about a dozen
HBCUs in the District, mary-
land and Virginia — including
U-D.C. and the University of
maryland Eastern Shore. How-
ard University is among them,
but it’s not included in the
Common Black College Appli-
cation.
The oldest HBCU, Cheyney
University of Pennsylvania, has
reported a dramatic enrollment
decline, from more than 1,500
students in 2010 to 466 in 2018,
according to the National Cen-
ter for Education Statistics.
Aaron A. Walton, president
of the school about an hour
outside of Philadelphia, said he
would be happy to see more
students from the District.
“I think this is a great move
on the part of the D.C. State
office of the Superintendent,”
Walton said in an email. “We
are finding that more and more
students a re using t he Common
Black College Application, so
the oSSE’s decision to cover
students’ application fees is a
win-win.”
Bowie State University, in
Prince George’s County, experi-
enced a drop in enrollment this
year, said Brian Clemmons, vice
president for enrollment man-
agement. He blamed an on-
campus housing shortage.
The university broke ground
on a new residence hall in
october, so the District’s plan
to help high school seniors
apply there comes at t he perfect
time, Clemmons said.
“We probably will see a slight
increase in students possibly
coming to Bowie State,” Clem-
mons said.
for nearly 200 years, histori-
cally black institutions have
been epicenters of black art,
culture and politics. mason, the
Common Black College Appli-
cation creator, wants to make
sure there are enough students
to fill their classrooms.
“We’re literally helping to
keep the doors open for some of
the schools we work with,” he
said.
[email protected]D.C.’s office of the State Super-
intendent of Education to
waive application fees for more
than 3,000 traditional public
and charter school students.
The superintendent’s office is
partnering with the Common
Black College Application,
which allows students to make
test scores and transcripts
available to more than 50 his-
torically black colleges and uni-
versities, commonly known as
HBCUs.
Te enagers can apply at no
cost until June. The superinten-
dent’s office negotiated with
the common application to re-
duce what the city would pay
and plans to spend $12,000 on
applications during the next
two years, the superintendent’s
office said.
HBCUs tend to be a popular
post-graduation choice for D.C.
high school seniors, said Han-
seul Kang, state superintendent
of education. In 2017, nearly
300,000 students nationwide
attended the schools, which
were founded when legally en-
forced segregation kept black
students out of traditional in-
stitutions.
The institutions recently re-
ported their first enrollment
increase in about a decade, up
from roughly 292,000 students
in 2016, according to the most
recent federal data. Ye t individ-
ual schools have watched, year
after year, as enrollment num-
bers drop. Six of the schools
have been shuttered in the past
two decades, and several others
have lost accreditation.
The Common Black College
Application — which simplifies
the often byzantine application
process — is one strategy to
stem that decline, aiming to
drive students toward black
institutions, said robert ma-
son, its founder. About 98 per-
cent of roughly 25,000 students
who complete the application
get accepted to colleges, mason
said.
“We are changing the para-
digm of how HBCUs can recruit
people,” mason said. “opera-
tional budgets are typically di-
rectly tied to enrollment num-
bers. We are helping these
colleges to achieve their enroll-
ment objectives.”
As part of a citywide push to
help students access a college
education, the superintendent’s
office also announced that se-
niors in the District can apply
free to 11 local institutions.
American, Gallaudet, George-
town, George Washington and
marymount universities are
waiving application fees
through the month of Novem-
ber.
Catholic University, the Uni-
versity of maryland Eastern
Shore and the University of the
District of Columbia are remov-
ing fees this month, too. So are
montgomery College and
Northern Virginia and Prince
George’s community colleges.
But getting teenagers to ap-
ply to college is only part of the
battle, said Argelia rodriguez,
president and chief executive of
the District of Columbia Col-
lege Access Program, a non-
profit that helps high school
seniors enroll in college. Dur-
ing the summer between high
school graduation and new stu-
INITIaTIvE from B1
D.C. students can apply
free to dozens of HBCUs
And she dropped out of the
Cambridge program she’d
worked years to get into so she
could be Constantine’s caregiver
as he recovered in Bethesda.
“She was, without a doubt, the
cornerstone of my recovery,” said
Constantine, who had his por-
trait painted by former president
George W. Bush. “Now, we are an
inseparable team.”
They got married. And Con-
stantine became a force as an in-
spirational speaker, entrepreneur
and veteran advocate, always tell-
ing the story of his wife’s sacri-
fice.
He told this story at a ballroom
gala last month held by
T hanksUSA, a nonprofit organi-
zation founded in 2005 by two lo-
cal girls who wanted to help their
military neighbors. They have
awarded more than 4,700 schol-
arships worth $15 million.
And at the gala, Constantine
and a number of military spouses
and children told their stories of
sacrifice.
I didn’t go to the event as a
journalist. I was the plus-one for
my son, who was invited by one
of his best friends, a military kid
who followed her mom on a de-
ployment to a different time
zone.
We celebrate veterans, but be-
hind most veterans are families
who have long paid a huge anddvorak from B1often unseen and unheralded
toll.
It’s the kid who adjusts to a
dozen new schools, new teams,
new friends. And it’s the spouse
who puts a job promotion, a de-
gree, classes on hold. Again and
again.
“Dasher, Dancer, Deployment,”
was what one article on military
family life called the holidays.
“We are the community that is
still there,” s aid Andrea Barreiro,
who received one of the
T hanksUSA scholarships two
years ago and is the wife of Army
1st Sgt. Jose Barreiro. “The sol-
diers can go to training, can go to
war and we are still there. We’re
left to pick up all the pieces.”
The Barreiros and four kidsmoved from Hawaii to Virginia
to North Carolina in the past four
years. And each time, Andrea
worked part-time jobs, racking
up experience. But she had a
hard time stringing together the
classes to get her psychology de-
gree in applied behavioral analy-
sis.
for Barreiro, the problem was
finding the time and money to
earn that degree. for a lot of mili-
tary spouses, it isn’t until they re-
tire from military life that they fi-
nally get to pursue their goals.
Barreiro was trying not to wait
that long.
“The jobs I was vying for re-
quired the applicant to have a
specific degree, even though I
was highly qualified for the posi-tion or had experience within the
field,” s he said. She was frustrat-
ed.
When her family was living in
Arlington, Barreiro got a
f ull-tuition scholarship from
ThanksUSA.
She’s since been moved — yet
again — to North Carolina, and
she’s still chasing that degree.
These are the sacrifices we
must thank them for.
“many put their lives on hold,
just as Dahlia did,” Constantine
said at the event as he thanked all
the families in the Gaylord Na-
tional resort ballroom at Nation-
al Harbor.
That brings us back to that
candy shop.
The happy ending to their
painful and beautiful story came
on oct. 22, in a tweet from Justin
Constantine:
“Today Dahlia and I walked
past a fudge shop in downtown
Cambridge.”
The Constantines moved to
England this fall.
finally, it was her turn to fin-
ish her studies at Cambridge,
13 years after she left to support
her husband. It’s a beautiful turn
in a familiar story.
Thank you, veterans. And
thank you to all the families who
work, sacrifice, adjust, scramble,
re-enroll, reapply and persist to
make it all happen.
[email protected]
Twitter: @petuladPetula DvorakAs we celebrate veterans, don’t forget their families
Courtesy of Justin Constantine
Justin Constantine and his wife, dahlia, who dropped out of a Phd
program to care for Constantine after he was shot in Iraq in 2006.BY JASON SAMENOW
The Arctic front predicted to set
hundreds of cold records across
the eastern United States will
sweep t hrough t he Washington re-
gion early Tuesday, b ringing a sud-
den a nd startling drop in tempera-
tures. Enough moisture may even
linger as cold air streams in for
some wet snowflakes in the late
morning.
The drop in temperatures will
be a bigger story than the snow.
Considering the 70-degree tem-
peratures on monday, the sudden
drop into the 30s on Tuesday will
come as a shock, especially factor-
ing in howling winds, gusting to
around 30 mph.By Tuesday n ight, temperatures
plummet into the 20s, with wind
chills dipping into the teens. The
24-hour change in temperature
will be near 30 degrees, and it will
feel like a 40-degree change (fac-
toring in t he wind).The snow chance
If it snows late Tuesday morn-
ing, temperatures are unlikely to
fall low enough for it to stick to
roads, but some of our colder areas
could see a quick coating on
mulch, car tops and other cold,
elevated s urfaces.
The precipitation will start as
rain during the predawn hours
Tuesday and could mix with and/
or change to snow in the mid- to
late-morning hours as tempera-
tures fall into the mid- to upper
30s. The rain and/or snow should
end a round early afternoon.
Snow is not a guarantee. If the
precipitation ends before temper-
atures drop sufficiently, we may
just see rain.The cold
Whether we see flakes or not,
the shift to winterlike conditions
will come on suddenly.
During the predawn hours
Tuesday, temperatures will be in
the 50s. But by dawn, they’ll fall
into the low to mid-40s. Then, by
midday, they’ll drop into the mid-
to upper 30s, w here they’ll remain
into the afternoon.
After dark, temperatures really
topple. By 10 p.m. Tuesday, most
areas will have air temperatures
between 25 and 30. And by
Wednesday morning, lows b ottom
out b etween a bout 20 a nd 25.
Wind chills early Wednesday
morning are likely to hover in the
teens.
High temperatures on Wednes-
day afternoon are forecast to
reach o nly into the upper 30s.
While the intensity of the cold
will ease starting Thursday, tem-
peratures are forecast to remain
below normal through the week-
end, with highs mostly in the 40s— more typical of December than
November.records
Te mperatures on Wednesday
may be low enough to challenge a
few records:
Dulles could approach the re-
cord low ( minimum) of 21 degrees
set in 1963 and the record low
maximum of 38 degrees set in
1996.
Baltimore and Washington
could approach their record low
(minimum) of 22 degrees from
1911.
The record low m aximums of 31
and 3 2 degrees i n Washington and
Baltimore, from 1911, are unlikely
to be threatened.
If Washington’s Wednesday
high is 38 degrees or lower, it will
be the third-coldest high so early
in the s eason on record, trailing 3 1
degrees from the s ame d ate in 1 911
and 35 degrees on Nov. 11, 1987
(when 1 1.5 inches of snow fell).
[email protected]CaPItal WeatHer GaNGBlast of record-challenging cold set to sweep in
There’s a chance snow
could join Tuesday’s
temperature dropBY JUSTIN WM. MOYER
A man awaiting trial in the 2018
death of a Ballston man was found
dead monday morning in his Ar-
lington County jail cell, authorities
said.
Jitesh Patel, 43, of Woodbine,
md., was found unconscious and
pronounced dead about 6 a.m., ac-
cording to the Arlington County
Sheriff’s office.
Prosecutors said Patel broke i nto
the Ballston townhouse of JohnGiandoni, 40, on march 15, 2018,
and shot, stabbed and choked him
to death. Patel was charged with
murder in the killing, which prose-
cutors said might have been carried
out to help Giandoni’s ex-girlfriend
— with whom Patel was having an
affair — gain custody of her son
with Giandoni, prosecutors s aid.
Giandoni’s sister testified in
court last year that her b rother met
his former girlfriend through work.
They became intimate, but it was a
“tumultuous relationship,” JennaGiandoni s aid. The woman had lied
about being separated from her
husband and lied to her then-
spouse about the child she and Gi-
andoni had in 2013, she testified.
Prosecutors said that at some
point, the woman began dating Pa-
tel, a married father.
Court records showed that she
filed for a protective order against
Patel in April 2018, alleging that he
was stalking her.
Court records also showed that
the woman and Giandoni reacheda joint custody a greement in 2016.
A sheriff’s office statement said
the cause of Patel’s death would be
determined by the medical exam-
iner.
Arlington County police are in-
vestigating.
Police asked anyone with infor-
mation about Patel’s death to con-
tact them at 7 03-228-4243.
[email protected]rachel Weiner contributed to this
report.vIrGINIaMurder suspect found dead in Arlington jail cell
BY OVETTA WIGGINS
AND ERIN COX
maya rockeymoore Cum-
mings resigned as chair of the
maryland Democratic Party on
monday night and announced
she would seek the congressio-
nal seat vacated by the death of
her husband, rep. Elijah E.
Cummings (D-md.).
The longtime policy consul-
tant has scheduled a formal
announcement at her Baltimore
home Tuesday morning.
“I believe very strongly that I
have the background, the focus,
the commitment and the ability
to take the reins and make a
good run for this seat,” she told
rachel maddow on mSNBC. She
said her husband “wanted me to
continue this fight.”
rockeymoore Cummings, 48,
joins a crowded field vying to
represent a district where her
last name is revered. Among her
competitors is former congress-
man and NAACP chief Kweisi
mfume — a longtime friend of
her husband’s and, like him, one
of Baltimore’s favorite sons.
mfume, 71, who representedmaryland’s 7th District in Con-
gress before Elijah Cummings
did, said last week that he was
seeking the office again “to
make sure that all he and others
fought for is not lost, tossed to
the side or forgotten.”
rockeymoore Cummings,
who did not return calls seeking
comment monday night, was
relatively unknown in maryland
politics until she ran for gover-
nor in october 2017. She ended
her campaign after three
months, while her husband was
hospitalized.
In December, rockeymoore
Cummings won a rare contested
battle to lead the state Demo-
cratic Party, ousting Kathleen
matthews, who was backed by
the party establishment. rock-
eymoore Cummings said she
wanted to lead the party after
Democrats lost the 2018 guber-
natorial election, with Gov. Lar-
ry Hogan becoming only the
second republican governor
ever reelected in maryland.
“We have a structural prob-
lem when it comes to the top of
the ticket,” she said then. “A nd
that structural problem will cre-ate a downward spiral for our
party if we don’t fix it now.”
much of her career was spent
on Capitol Hill, first as chief of
staff to congressman Charles B.
rangel (D-N.Y.). She worked as a
senior resident scholar for
health and income security at
the National Urban League and
as the vice president of research
and programs at t he Congressio-
nal Black Caucus foundation. In
2005, she started Global Policy
Solutions, a policy consulting
firm.
A conservative watchdog or-
ganization in may filed a com-
plaint with the Internal reve-
nue Service, alleging that there
is insufficient separation be-
tween the consulting firm and a
nonprofit organization that
rockeymoore Cummings start-
ed more recently. She dismissed
the complaint as politically mo-
tivated.
As party chair, rockeymoore
Cummings focused on boosting
Democrats in rural areas where
republicans are dominant, as
well as in traditional Democrat-
ic strongholds. She ruffled some
feathers by taking sides in abitter fight over who should
become speaker of maryland’s
majority-Democratic House of
Delegates, and she has angered
state republican leaders by
launching attacks on Hogan.
So far, six Democrats and
three republicans have filed to
seek the 7th District seat, which
includes parts of Baltimore City
and Baltimore and Howard
counties. In addition to mfume,
state Del. Ta lmadge Branch (D-
Baltimore City), who serves as
House majority whip, said he
intends to run, and state Sen.
Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City)
has scheduled an announce-
ment next week.
The filing deadline is Nov. 20,
and the winner of the feb. 4
Democratic primary will be
heavily favored in the April 28
special election.
State Sen. Cory V. mcCray
(D-Baltimore City), vice chair of
the state party, will take over as
interim chair.
[email protected]
[email protected]Jenna Portnoy contributed to this
report.MarYlaNDMaya Rockeymoore Cummings joins packed race
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