Searching for Hope: Life at a Failing School in the Heart of America

15. Could You Image If We Filled the House?

+ + + 15 COULD YOU IMAGINE IF WE FILLED THE HOUSE? By the time late fall arrived, I had fallen quite hard for Manual. I barely tolerated the idea of spending time on any column that wasn’t related to the school. Often I would breeze into my office at the newspaper , fulfill my obligation by cranking out a quick political column for the Wednesday or Friday papers, and then head back to the school. I wrote dozens of columns unrelated to Manual during the school year, but most of them came and went without meaning much to me. My Manual columns, though, meant something. The students and faculty had pulled me in. They had grabbed me with their stories and personalities and problems and dreams. I loved listening to students talk about their goals of graduating or going to college or just being happy. I enjoyed being pulled aside constantly by students and teachers who wanted to tell me the latest development in their life or class. I truly felt honored to be telling their stories, and I hoped they were helping. I even got a kick out of the occasional student or teacher who made clear they just didn’t like my hanging around. Being a witness to scenes like the one that played out after the arrest of Brent Walls, Could you imagine if we filled the house? 145 and getting to know his family, gave me an ever-deeper understanding of the issues standing in the way of improvement at the schools in America’s hard-hit cities and neighborhoods. It was all part of this amazing world I had tapped into. The most surprising development, though, had been the reaction from readers . They weren’t only reading the columns and sending me e-mails, as readers always did. They were also pulled into the story line in a unique way. They were moved, just as I was, by the people inside the school. With every column I received calls and messages from people who didn’t only want to talk but also wanted to help. They were eager to mentor students or help out financially. They wanted to contribute to school programs and send messages of hope to the teenagers and adults in my columns. Throughout the year, several readers sent me money or checks and asked me to pass them along. Some offered to contribute to student college funds. Each time I wrote about a student, readers would send cards and gifts to the school. One Sunday I profiled the school’s sole calculus class. Eight students were enrolled in the class, but on most days a core group of six students actually showed up. There were three boys and three girls. I called them the Calculus Six. They were among the roughly 1.5 percent of their starting freshman class who had made it to the school’s highest-level math class. Unlike the overcrowded class that followed it—the one for students who had failed algebra at least twice—most of the seats in the calculus period remained empty. But the Calculus Six were a dedicated bunch of kids who refused to let the vast array of problems within the school hold them down. The students were focused on college, the future, and avoiding any landmines that might get in the way. Their lives had not been easy. They came from the same poverty-filled neighborhoods as everyone else at the school, and they faced many of the same family issues. But they pushed on. There was Jeff, who wore his crisp green rotc uniform to class on Wednesdays and, between smart-alecky jokes, talked of his dream of going to West Point. He had stopped me in the hall one day to ask about the application process . I didn’t know anything about it but pulled a few forms and tip sheets off of Indiana senator Richard Lugar’s website one day and passed them along. I urged Jeff to go to a seminar being held downtown a couple of weeks later, but he said he didn’t think he could get the day off work. Ultimately he decided that his grades, while good, probably weren’t good enough. TherewasClark.Hehadwatchedhisparentsstrugglefinanciallyforyearsand didn’t want to spend his life that way. His dad had dropped out of high school, 146 searching for hope and Clark had been...