"Transforming Children's Lives toward Success through Individual Learning Styles"
Diamond Community School, Inc. is a private, nonprofit community-based school serving students in Pre-Kindergarten to eighth grades.
Dr. Doreatha J. Fields founded Diamond Community School in July 1995 with the doors opening on Sept. 5, 1995 for the start of the first
school year. The school curriculum plans to expand to grade 12 by the end of the year 2007.
The school provides high quality educational programs with a focus on learning and achievement through: motivational training, self-esteem
programs, peer problem solving strategies, personal character development, respect for self and human diversity, family commitment and community pride.
Dr. Fields was awakened to the sound of children crying. In the vision, she saw a field of children wailing and crying with tremendous pain
and anguish. The day was dark and cloudy. As she looked to the left in that vision, she saw a large institutional type building where children
were being brought to the doors and pushed out. The children were being told, "You're not going to make it! You don't have what it takes!" These
children were trying to return to the building and the doors were shut in their faces. There, seemingly thousands of children stood crying, screaming
and feeling rejected.
As Dr. Fields looked over the field of children, beholding their anguish, she looked down just in front of here; there stood a little girl who had
cried so audibly until she was only tearing. The sight of this little girl was intense and powerful. As she beheld the field of children, a bright
light that broke through the dark, overcast skies engaged her. She heard a voice from the light, which said, "Are you your brother's keeper?" Once
again, she looked over the field and felt the pain, heard the cries and saw the anguish. As quickly as the vision came, it disappeared leaving her,
with both the conviction and call to be a conduit of light for these children.
Dr. Fields opened the school on Sept. 5, 1995 with five students and vision of hope. The first school featured classes for kindergarten to sixth
grades. Within two years, the school had "maxed" out of capacity at 32 children. Her program featured excellence in education for all students,
regardless of their academic performance level. This growth was due to the reputation the school has earned for transitioning students from failure
to above average academic performance.
The school now has 81 students in grades pre-K through eighth.
The school was formerly located in a small 1,100-square-foot house on Lipscomb Street just north of East University Boulevard in Melbourne, Florida.
It is currently located at 2575 Pacific Ave. N.E. in Palm Bay, Florida. The school was relocated to an expanded 14,700-square-foot facility to accommodate
a greater number of children and families needing the personalized services and educational excellence.
Diamond reaches children through their individual style of learning and social relationships for cultivating maximum learning and achievement. Non-denominational
and non-sectarian in orientation, the school's success hinges largely on our ability to teach children faith-based educational and personal human values and how
to express love and respect for one another.
The principal funding sources for Diamond's operations include nominal tuition paid by families, grants, fundraisers, donations and corporate underwriting.
Diamond taps the need for individuals in the community to contribute to something about which they feel passionate. Consequently, the school has volunteers
who contribute their time and expertise to offset the cost of tuition, goods and materials as well as precious hours of expertise in teaching, clerical, tutoring,
mentoring and extracurricular activities.
Governance is provided through a volunteer Board of Directors from a variety of fields of expertise, who meet monthly on the fourth Wednesday. The meetings are
at 7 p.m. Additionally, board members serve on at least one of the four subcommittees, including (1) Fund Development, (2) Marketing/Publicity, (3) Facility Development
and (4) Finance. These committees meet to strategize and implement plans designed to lend their expertise, resources, insight and influence to help the school meet its
operational and financial goals. An Executive Director provides general administrations of all operational functions.
There is perhaps no area in Brevard County with a great need for Diamond's healing balm and source of solutions. Diamond is intentionally located in an area of Brevard
where there is the greatest need: in the South Melbourne and northeast Palm Bay community. This community is marked by a sense of hopelessness, consistent with its
makeup of high crime, extreme poverty and lack of positive role models or opportunity to succeed. Within a one-mile radius of Diamond, the per capita annual income
is half the average of Brevard County. Thirty-four percent of the residents live below the poverty line, compared to 9% in the rest of the county.
Of the 1,595 people ages 25 and older, also within the half-mile radius, 21 percent have only an elementary school education; 26 percent went only as
far as grades 9-11; and 25 percent finished high school. Each of these percentages is far below the rest of the county population (source: the Economic
Development Commission (EDC) of Florida's Space Coast.) Approximately 45 percent of Diamond students are from this area. Diamond is committed to making
available a quality private school education to the inner-city community.
The goal of Diamond Community School, Inc. is to be placed strategically in the heart of this community to turn around the young lives of our community's most
innocent. "I want the school to be accessible to all communities, but particularly to communities that would otherwise not have access to a private school,"
Diamond founder Dr. Doreatha Fields said in a Feb. 5, 1997 article in Florida Today. The school continues to attract the attention of the media as more
and more success stories abound in the changed lives of children.
Each child who enters school at Diamond is tested no only to gauge their grade level in each basic subject, but also mainly to determine their individual
learning style. Teachers adapt their teaching techniques to each child's learning needs, rather than expounding a method of instruction and expecting
each child to adapt to that stringent style. Many children have fallen through the cracks in traditional school environments, and a growing number have
landed in Diamond's safety net.
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