My Jailhouse Visit and What I Learned of Missed Potential

My View

As an immigrant child of parents with a 5th-grade education, I entered my first classroom unable to speak or understand a word of English. I was an ESOL student long before teachers received special training on how to teach students who spoke another language. It also was before federal education policies afforded accommodations or support.

None of this really mattered. At the end of the experience, it was the influence and care of teachers, not a curriculum or accommodations, that pushed me to succeed. This experience is forever with me in my role as a teacher, principal and now superintendent.

My childhood relocation to the U.S. could have easily made me a student who succumbed to the risk, storm and stress that many children face daily. As such, I have committed myself to a hypervigilance about understanding the why and how students drift away from our public schools.

Beneath the Surface

As superintendents, our role insists we pull back the veneer of things that sparkle to look hard at students we might be leaving behind. Palm Beach County, Fla., a high-performing school district, is home to some of America’s wealthiest individuals, including our country’s new president. Beneath, however, more than 100,000 of our students are on free and reduced-price lunch and face significant life challenges that inevitably will pull them from their education if we don’t address their needs.

During a recent visit to the Palm Beach County Main Detention Center, I spoke with young inmates — all dropouts prior to incarceration — about the circumstances leading them to walk away from school.

Karla had a sick mother who was dying. She had to quit school to care for her siblings. Looking back, she didn’t know how to reach out to someone at school to share her problem, and no one ever asked. “I really wanted to stay but couldn’t reach out,” she said.

Deandre was 18 and in 11th grade. “I got sick and tired of seeing younger kids in the classroom,” she told me. Kenneth readily admitted he didn’t understand the importance of his education, saying, “I didn’t really think I was going to have to grow up and get a job. … I didn’t look at school like that.”

Each described a love of learning and recalled teachers by name who had influenced them. Karla said she loved Ms. Ingram, her science teacher, because she took the time to visit in her home. “She looked around, met my siblings and saw my struggle.” Deandre remembered Ms. Grace as “a strong black female that would take no mess … always tried to keep me on the right path.”

An Assets Mindset

Unfortunately, fond experiences were not enough to support these young people facing what seemed like life-shattering events. This is where we must stand in the gap. Overaged students, dying parents and the inability to set goals and make good decisions are not insurmountable problems for educators capable of helping students navigate minefields. The growing complexity of student issues requires that we lead with culture first and commit to modeling relationships to our school leaders and teachers.

But how is this accomplished when many principals and teachers are like firefighters, running into classrooms every day to attend to the perpetual crises some students face?

In my conversations with incarcerated young adults in Florida and Georgia, I see the answer as twofold.

First, we must shift our attention to student potential and away from things that lead us to create excuses for students. Potential has no zip code, income level, color, gender, disability or labels. Every former student I have encountered, incarcerated or not, unfailingly references educators who would not tolerate excuses or less than their best. Conversations about students and their potential shifts the conversation from obstacles and toward goals. Every student has potential and it should be the common denominator in all relationships. What’s needed is a mindset based on assets, not deficits.

Second, we need wraparound services and systems to keep students in school. Teenagers never should face a decision between attending school or caring for a dying parent. Longstanding critics of wraparound services who bemoan schools functioning as a social service agency should visit Palm Beach County. When our students walk away from their education, our local jail inevitably becomes the social service agency. Schools are better equipped to build and maintain relationships, and build them we must.

I am pleased to report that Deandre, Kenneth and Bryan earned their diplomas while incarcerated by attending classes run by our district’s teachers. Luke, Carla and Tammy now are attending these classes and working toward their diplomas. When we look for potential, even inside the county jail, students are less likely to walk away from their public schools and more likely to benefit from much-needed second chances.