In the evening in mid-December, between 30 and 40 people gathered outside Hine Junior High School in Eastern Market. They lit candles to stay warm despite the 30-degree temperatures and protested what they called the unreasonable eviction of an after-school tutoring program for underprivileged children from Hine school.

Project Northstar, a nonprofit that connects volunteer tutors with approximately 200 D.C.-area students who are homeless or living in foster care, public housing or underserved communities, has operated one of its six after-school tutoring sites at Hine for more than ten years. Every Monday during the school year, roughly 35 elementary, middle and high school students came to Hine to eat free meals and spend 90 minutes working with adult volunteers on homework and reading and math skills. Hine’s location – close to the Hill and Eastern Market and on the Orange and Blue Metro lines – consistently attracted volunteers as well as students from all over Northeast.

On Dec. 5, the new principal of Hine, Willie Jackson, told Northstar leaders that the program could no longer use the school’s facilities, effective immediately. Jackson, who had started his tenure as principal roughly two weeks earlier, said that the program’s directors had not properly filed an application to use space at Hine during the 2005-2006 school year and that no signed agreement exists to prove the previous principal’s approval of Northstar’s use of school facilities.

“There are rules and procedures that were not followed,” Jackson said, “and there are all kinds of issues – liability issues, insurance issues, safety and security issues – with these programs [such as Northstar] using school property.”

Brian Carome, executive director of Project Northstar, countered the claims. At Monday’s candlelight vigil, which was attended by tutors, students, parents, community members and members of the media, Carome distributed copies of the 2005–2006 school year facility use request that Northstar leaders say they submitted to the D.C. Public Schools Realty Office in July and that was later approved by former Hine principal Gary Rosenthal. The realty office, however, does not have the request in its records.

Jackson said that he is currently assessing the large number of programs unaffiliated with Hine that use the school’s facilities in order to ensure that Hine students are served by the activities that occur onsite. He declined to comment on whether he would approve any new application by Project Northstar to use Hine facilities.

Participants in the vigil criticized Jackson’s eviction decision. “This program helps so many kids and gives them a place to go so they’re not on the streets,” said Andrea Shuford, whose son Keith, a third grader, has worked with a Project Northstar tutor at Hine for four years. “It has made a big difference for Keith’s reading. He didn’t do it much before, but now he brings home books every week, sometimes more than one, and his reading has improved . . . Closing tutoring is a big disappointment for the kids. It’s not fair to the kids, or the tutors, or the parents.”

Connell Wise, a high school sophomore who has attended Northstar tutoring at Hine for ten years, said that the program gives valuable support to underprivileged students. One of his older sisters, a former Northstar participant, is now in college, and Wise is currently working with his tutor of three years to apply for a competitive, scholarship-based study abroad program in Germany.

“This organization makes a difference,” said Carome. “Last year, 100% of our eighth graders were promoted to high school, 67% of our students improved their reading ability, and we sent several students to college.”

Carome said that although Project Northstar staff members have begun looking for alternate tutoring sites, he hopes that Jackson will reconsider the eviction. Northstar leaders have requested that Clifford Janey, superintendent for D.C. Public Schools, evaluate the situation. Janey’s office promised a response by early January.