Cato Mayberry III

DAYTON BOYS PREPARATORY ACADEMY

Cato Mayberry III has it all figured out.

“I want to be able to lawyer, start that off, then after I’ve reached the age that is the limit for president I’m going to try to become the president, and once my term is up I plan on becoming a biochemist,” the 12-year-old said.

He could totally pull it off. The rising eighth-grader at Dayton Boys Preparatory Academy is captain of his school’s debate team, a straight-A student, and traveled to San Francisco last year as part of a science camp sponsored by Verizon.

Then there’s the school stock-exchange team — where he learned to be cautious with pharma stock — Math Olympics, robotics, track, basketball. He is the kid every school district wants.

And DPS may lose him. After his

eighth-grade year, Cato’s parents are debating whether to send him to Stivers, or try to get into the private Miami Valley School, or maybe Northmont through open enrollment.

His father, Cato Mayberry II, said he chose Dayton Boys Prep primarily because of its breadth of academic extracurriculars, but the school appears to struggle to keep good teachers and he doesn’t feel his son is being pushed hard enough.

“I don’t want him to breeze through. I don’t want him to be the brightest star in the room all the time. He needs to have to grow,” he said. Though he complained about the class size and number of subs, Cato has good reviews of Dayton Boys.

“They provide a good learning span and they give you information that would be useful when it comes to testing and the real world,” he said.