Retired educator Melvin Steals got the call when his attention was focused mostly on his health. Terrie Suica-Reed, who had her own health concerns, wanted him to head a Phase 4 Learning Center planned for the Beaver Valley Mall.

Dr. Steals, 62, of Aliquippa, had lesions on his liver. Ms. Suica-Reed, of Georgetown Borough, suffering from breast cancer, had at one point been given three months to live.

But both are now involved in Phase 4, a program to help students struggling in traditional school settings. The Beaver Valley center had its grand opening Sept. 29. It is the fourth, with the other three centers in Allegheny County.

"The doctors told her to go plant some grass," Dr. Steals said. So she did; she started the Learning Center. It is still growing, and Ms. Suica-Reed is still "planting," as president and chief executive officer.

"I decided that if God really wanted me to do this, then I would do it," Dr. Steals said.

He got the sign he was looking for -- a clean bill of health -- and is back to his calling. He is director of the Phase 4 center at Beaver Valley.

The center is a nonprofit corporation, supported by foundations and a flat tuition rate of $5,000 a year from its students' home school districts. It offers individualized, computer-based instruction, with teachers on hand trained in various disciplines, is accredited by the Middle States Association and has gotten favorable reviews from the state Department of Education.

Its purpose is to help students with a variety of problems: discipline, social issues, emotional struggles and those simply failing academically.

"I look forward to getting up each morning," Dr. Steals said. "I genuinely love kids, like Terrie does, and to see the transformation ... ."

And at that, Dr. Steals launched into a story about a girl -- particularly morose when she started -- "whose primary assignment is to smile at me so I can have a good morning" and who is now reading Edgar Allan Poe. "Anyone who can read books of that caliber, that excites me," he said.

"I talked to a young man this morning who is in ninth grade for the third year in a row," Dr. Steals said. "I told him that a year from now he could be back where he's supposed to be."

How? Part of it is a credit recovery system -- focused on the instruction and tests necessary to advance students toward graduation, with no frills -- and part of it is an atmosphere of caring, trust and respect.

"I tell the kids the first time I meet them, 'I love you,' " Dr. Steals said. "And I mean that, and I hope they can hear that and see that and feel that."

"Maybe these kids have not heard that," Ms. Suica-Reed said. "We say that we're so proud of them for what they did or what they didn't do. They really need that."

It's a message that has gotten across, according to four students at the center on a recent morning.

"They treat you pretty much like you're their own kid," said Justin Lively, of Center Area School District. He said he was supposed to return to his regular school later this year, but is lobbying to stay at Phase 4 through graduation.

"They don't strive to get you in trouble," said Zach Boring, of Freedom Area School District. "They care about how well you do."

"Other schools, they don't care if you fail," Chester Sipes, of Hopewell Area School District, piped in.

Audeair Marchman, also of Hopewell Area, said he liked the discipline he had experienced at Phase 4, and wants to take it back with him when he returns.

"You work at your own speed," he said. "In class, you might feel stupid. Here, you don't feel stupid. Your education is in your own hands."

Hopewell Superintendent Charles Reina said he was delighted to have the center as an option.

"There are a lot of opportunities for the students to be successful," he said, noting that he had visited the Phase 4 center at Century III Mall. The Beaver Valley Mall Center has the support of the Beaver Valley Intermediate Unit and Beaver County's school districts, most of which are too small to provide alternative learning centers of their own.

Dr. Reina also said the presence of Dr. Steals was a powerful draw.

Dr. Steals is something of a legend in local education. An Aliquippa native, he became an English teacher in his hometown while moonlighting writing songs with his brother, Mervin. They hit it big in 1972 with "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love?" a No. 1 hit for the Spinners that has been played 3 million times on the radio.

Dr. Steals, meanwhile, grew disgusted with what he calls a "plantation system" at Aliquippa -- growing athletes with little regard for their education or level of citizenship. He earned a doctorate in reading education and has spent the rest of his career championing the things he believed were missing from the system.

Ms. Suica-Reed said he is precisely the kind of role model that Phase 4 needs. Many of the program's students are young African-American men who have had few positive examples; Dr. Steals is not just another white person telling them how they ought to be.

"I'm so thankful that Melvin's here," she said.

"I think kids are like a liquid," Dr. Steals said. "They will take the shape of the container around them. Here we can mold them and shape them into the kind of people that can succeed in a global marketplace."