Fifth-grader Antonio Reed stands at a blackboard at the Marcy Center, a settlement house in North Lawndale. Wearing a University of Michigan jersey and a do-rag, he puzzles over a math problem: “11/14 x 7/22 x 3 = .”
Two afternoons a week Treadwell runs a tutoring program at the Marcy Center for third- through eighth-graders, most of them boys from nearby Penn School. It’s a volunteer effort for the 49-year-old Lawndale native, a paralegal for the U.S. Customs Service. “You get some people who grew up around here and come back to help,” says Karl Bass, evening coordinator for the center. “But they don’t have much time to volunteer. Greg does, ’cause he lives here and understands the struggle to stay straight and do well in this neighborhood.”
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As a boy Treadwell attended Penn, a massive brick facility at the corner of 16th and Springfield that dates back to 1916. “I played bugle in the band,” he recalls. After graduating from Farragut High School he moved to the south side and then to Rogers Park to attend Loyola, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in legal administration. In 1985 he returned to Lawndale to be near his mother, and at a Marcy Center function he met Loretta Webber. A year later she moved in with him, and together they raised five children from earlier relationships, as well as Tyron, a son they had together. At that point all their school-age children were attending Penn, and in 1989, after the state legislature passed the school reform bill that created local school councils, Treadwell was elected to a seat on the Penn council. Webber, then president of the PTA, joined the council after one of the other parents resigned.
Today’s quiz contains ten items on fractions, three of them story problems. Theo Hunter has difficulty multiplying $2.50 by one-half. “Theo, you got that wrong,” says Treadwell. “Melvin, can you help Theo out?” No sooner has Melvin Davis Jr. furnished the correct answer than Treadwell, noticing how loud the room has gotten, takes a whistle from his back pocket and blows it hard, silencing the students.
The regulars at Justus Tutorial have learned how to read Treadwell’s moods. “When he’s serious, he’s serious,” says Quittman Hunter, an eighth-grader. “But he usually gets to joking.” The students say they participate to improve their skills, but also because they like Treadwell. “I’m having trouble with math, so I come here to get practice,” says Darius Billups, another eighth-grader. “Most people around here don’t let us come in for a program like this, but Mr. Treadwell lets us in. He’s cool.”
“You don’t see a lot of positives for kids in Lawndale,” says Treadwell. “One of my dreams was to show that there’s more to life than standing on the corner selling drugs. I’d say my kids have drive, and I feed off that. I’m going to keep on doing the tutoring no matter what.”
