'Success coach' guides students with toughness and care

As a student at Central High School in the 1990s, Jamal Abdur-Salaam often retreated to the music room during lunch hour to let off steam by creating percussive rhythms.

When his playing attracted others, he recognized the power of the drum to reach other students.

Twenty years later, Abdur-Salaam has organized a student drum line at John A. Johnson Elementary, a school for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade children on St. Paul's East Side.

When not in the rehearsal room with two dozen aspiring drummers, he's on hall duty, in the lunch room, or in his office next to the principal's office.

Though his official title is administrator, Abdur-Salaam thinks a better description of his role is success coach.

"The main idea is to recognize in the moment when you're asking a kid to be his best self that you are the model of that," he said.

Abdur-Salaam's duties at the school include working with students selected for special attention. They visit him in an office that includes a miniature basketball hoop, sports photos, posters, pennants, windup toys — all designed to start a conversation.

"I am a warm demander," he said. "I believe it's important to be tough with a lot of care wrapped around it, you know."

Born and raised in St. Paul's Selby-Dale neighborhood, Abdur-Salaam was educated in the city's public schools during the 1980s when some of the city's streets weren't inviting.

"You had to know what neighborhoods to walk in, what blocks to go down," he recalled. "There was a lot of drugs in the neighborhood, a lot of gang stuff going on around you, you know."

He credits some of his school teachers and community mentors at the Inner City Youth League led by Kofi Bobby Hickman, and the late Kwame McDonald, with giving him the tools to use the discrimination he experienced as a force for good.

"'You are gonna need to not use that struggle you've been through as an excuse, but more so as an armor to take care of yourself and do good things for your community and other people,'" Abdur-Salaam recalls being told.

In college, he won a scholarship from the Page Family Foundation created by state Supreme Court Justice and former NFL football star Alan Page. After earning a bachelor of arts degree at Metro State University in St. Paul, Abdur-Salaam completed a masters in educational leadership at Saint Mary's University in Minneapolis.

His title as administrator has him on a track to eventually become an assistant principal.

Meanwhile, his work as a mentor led him to work in schools, a decision he said pays dividends nearly every day.

"You can't put a price on those moments when you know that you turned on the light in a scholar and that light is still on because you took the time to help them realize their own potential," he said.

The commitment to education and family stability runs deep in Abdur-Salaam's home. His wife, Tonicia, is an administrator at the Partnership Academy charter school in Richfield. They have two children and over the years have been surrogate parents to a number of others.

"Any child looking for a home will find one at the Abdur-Salaam's," he said.

An African-American, he became a Muslim in high school. He says his religion helps guide his efforts to build a more just society.

Although he is encouraged by the growth in the number of people talking about ways to improve race relations, he is sobered by reality.

"I have a cop pull me over just a couple months ago and ask me if my car is mine," he said. "To see folks still locking their doors when I walk by their cars in an area where I should feel comfortable, tells me that there's still a lot of work to do."

Abdur-Salaam understands from his own life experience the challenges ahead for children who must overcome poverty or discrimination.

He recalls the rush of emotion he felt when he learned of the impending birth of a new grandniece or nephew.

"I was moved to tears a bit because that's just not cool to be able to say just looking at a sonogram that I can't promise you a fair shot out here economically or even in your education ... there's a lot of work to be done, so I'm gonna stay after it. Absolutely."