Principal Bland is a 'servant at heart' for community at James River Juvenile Detention Center

Despite a family full of educators, Marcellus Bland never envisioned himself as a teacher or principal. But, boy, is he glad he did.

Much of his journey has involved encouragement and persistence from many of the people around him who believed he could make an impact — including but not limited to the principals and leaders he learned from at Fairfield Middle School, Henrico High School, Deep Run High School, Highland Springs High School and HCPS’ Department of Exceptional Education. 

That journey led him to becoming principal at the James River Juvenile Detention Center, a place, in his view, where its challenges are outweighed by its opportunities and importance for a small group of young people with unique needs.

“The kids here deserve the same quality of education as our kids in public schools,” said Bland, now in his third year leading the educational program at JRJDC. 

JRJDC is located in Powhatan near the border of Goochland, more than 20 minutes west of the nearest school in Henrico. But the facility houses teenagers from Powhatan, Goochland and Henrico, with educators such as Bland working on site every day to help provide an education to them.

It is far from a traditional school setting, and from what Bland was used to in his previous stops at Deep Run and Highland Springs. But this opportunity was a match of his passion for education and a previous passion he held for criminal justice, which he studied along with criminology at Virginia Union University.

He was also used to this area and setting growing up, as he accompanied his grandfather every weekend to the Beaumont Correctional Center — located just one street away from JRJDC — to deliver Sunday School books. 

 “My grandfather was teaching us how to serve and be servants of young people, people in general, ever since we were little boys,” said Bland, whose duties include administration at the smaller Henrico County Juvenile Detention Home on East Parham Road. “It just came back, the one place we used to take us … I’m now the principal here. I think all of it was just a beautiful marriage.”

Bland leads a staff of 15 at the James River Juvenile Detention Center. The number of students fluctuates often. Right now, it’s about 30, while it has maxed out in recent years at about 50. Sometimes, students are only there for days. Other times, six to nine months. In rare, more extreme cases, it can be much longer.

“It’s very purposeful, it’s like a calling.”

Another variable is the academic proficiency of each of the students. Students can be at vastly different skill levels when it comes to subjects like reading and math, even when they’re the same age.

“Our math teacher may have an Algebra I student, a pre-algebra student, an eighth-grade student, maybe a geometry student, even an AFDA (algebra, functions, and data analysis) student, all in the same class,” Bland said, also noting the varying number of English language learners or students with IEPs and 504 plans they educate.

But even with the different ages and levels, the principal stresses the importance of individual relationships and maintaining a standard of academic rigor. He compared it to scaffolding on a building that supports students to the level they need to be. But the building — their standard — doesn’t change. He said this unwavering commitment to academic rigor was the most important thing he wanted to bring to JRJDC when he was first brought on board.

“There’s a lot of space and opportunity to be complacent, so if you don’t have that passion or that intrinsic motivation to love what you do and want to keep doing what you do, you can easily just sit back and enjoy the ride,” Bland said. “I’m asking them to push the kids, and we got to push each other a little bit too.”

There’s one more variable that could be far and away the most challenging: the backgrounds of these students and why they are at a juvenile detention facility. It could be easy to treat a student differently knowing who they are or what they’ve done ahead of time, even with the staff members’ best intentions.

But the “hows” and “whys” are removed from the equation to create a fair learning environment. Outside of very specific situations, teachers aren’t told what brought a student into their building. As Bland puts it, these students are still someone’s child, grandchild, sibling, cousin, and they deserve a fair shake.

“What I don’t want is somebody to go into a classroom and be thinking, ‘Oh, you did this.’ … I just don’t want us to be in that predicament, because, again, all of these kids, no matter what they did, still deserve an education,” he said.

The curriculum and programs are also setting students up for success outside of the classroom, helping them find new passions or hobbies to sink time and creativity into. Bland praised his staff members who work within the boundaries of the facility to have, for example, a greenhouse students can cultivate plants in, as well as a Friday music class where students can develop their own beats. The students can also create art that is able to be auctioned off during the holidays.

Bland has described the facility as the “best kept secret” in the region for teachers, primarily because of the structure of the day and the time they are afforded to focus on their students. Classes are always small, and there is more planning time during the school day, allowing teachers to maximize their work-life balance. That extra time to breathe goes a long way, according to Bland. 

For these reasons and more, the staff at JRJDC rarely turns over. A few current staff members are approaching retirement age after working there for a long time, partly because of the positive conditions and partly because of a shared mission to serve a group of students who need an education and support as much as anyone.

“It’s very purposeful, it’s like a calling,” Bland said.

Bland, a self-described “servant at heart,” is thankful for finding his calling at Henrico Schools and the James River Juvenile Detention Center, and he hopes it’s somewhere he can make a positive impact for as long as he possibly can. 

“I love it. I'm so grateful to be here with the kids, the staff,” Bland said with a smile. “It's been a beautiful thing. And I would not trade it for anything.”