Page 3 Portland Observer AUGUST 31,1989
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toon o f achievement that more than
90 percent o f the students earn in
»me top New Y ork schools. “ T aft
was near the top o f every negative
••si the city produced,“ Principal
Warren remembered. “ It had one o f
the highest drop-out rates, just about
the lowest attendance and achieve­
ment rates, nearly the highest sus­
pension rate. The school had a very
bad reputation. I had kids com ing
into my o ffice w ith tears in their
eyes, saying, “ W e don’ t think w e’ re
that bad.’ I said, ‘ L e t’ s prove it.”
They did-and Warren is proud o f
the fact that he never used bullhorns
or baseball bats or any o f the other
flamboyant devices that have been
glorified in the media in recent years,
"y o u can’t intim idate people into
learning,” he said, “ you can’ t use a
baseball bat and say, ‘Hey, you:Leam.’
you have to serve as a positive role
m odel.”
There are few better role models
than Jimmie Warren, who lives north
o f the Bronx w ith his w ife, Freda,
and their two sons. He was raised in
Harlem. He worked his way through
college-acquiring a bachelor’ s de­
gree from Long Island U niversity
and a master’ s from C ity College o f
New Y ork.(H e is now earning a
doctorate at C olum bia.) By his own
account, he was the o nly kid in his
neighborhood to make it to college-
and many o f his friends ended up
dead o r in ja il. S till, kids at T a ft had
life rougher than he ever knew.
“ I was shocked,” he said. “ I had
a teacher com plain to me about one
student who was not doing his
hom ew ork.l said, ‘ B ring him in. I ’ ll
read him the rio t act.’ They brought
him in, and I said, ‘James, I want you
to bring your mother in .’ He said.’ I
can’ t. She’ s a drug addict. The courts
took me away from her.’ I said, ‘Okay,
bring your father.’ He said, ‘ M y fa­
ther’ s a fugitive. I haven’ t seen him
in fo u r years.’ I said, ‘ W ho are you
liv in g w ith ? ’ He said, ‘ I was liv in g
w ith m y aunt. She threw me out.’ “
W arren worked w ith a social w orker
to fin d the boy a foster home, and the
new p rincipal realized the kind o f
challenge he was facing.
Instead o f a quick, g litzy solution,
W arren developed a series o f an­
swers to T a ft’ s many problems. A
child in danger o f dropping out would
be enrolled in the Adopt-a-Student
program, in w hich faculty members-
Warren included-in vited kids to their
homes, called them on weekends and
during vacation, and constantly en­
couraged them to keep trying. There
was a program fo r pregnant girls,
another fo r kids w ith low reading
scores. O lder students who had
amassed a few credits entered an in ­
school GCD diplom a program. Kids
w ith high absenteeism rates were
enrolled in special after-school
makeup classes that enabled them to
gel back in step w ith their class­
mates. Warren added extra periods
o f b io log y, math and chem istry to
help his students do better on stan­
dardized tests-and teachers at T a ft
w illin g ly volunteered their time. “ I
wanted those teachers to think that
their m iddle name was T a ft,” W ar­
ren recalled w ith a smile.
The results were startling. The
school now has a parents’ associa­
tion and active com m unity support.
Eleven percent o f the graduates now
get Regents diplom as, and 80 per­
cent go on to some form o f higher
education. “ D on ’ t get me w rong,”
Warren said. “ W e d id n ’ t solve a ll
the problems at T aft. The dropout
rate is s till too high; the attendance
rate is s till too low . B ut we made
some dents in the problem s.” w ith
T a ft on the road to recovery, New
Y o rk C ity decided it needed Warren
in another tough school.
O ut in the fro n t hall at Monroe,
the kids scurried post in a class change.
You could spot every type you ever
knew in high school-the dreamers,
the intellectuals, the wise guys, the
jocks. They passed by a display o f
photographs o f famous Monroe gradu­
ates: Regina Resnik, the M e tro p o li­
tan Opera star, is there; so is Leon
Lederman, who last year won the
Nobel Prize in Physics. But nobody
has updated the lis t o f 20 years or so-
since the school’ s demographics
changed and the students’ faces be­
came largely black and brown. Jim ­
mie Warren says he plans to make
that honor ro ll current, finding d is­
tinguished recent alum ni to recog­
nize.
“ When I see a k id w alk through
the door at M onroe,” this principal
says, he sees the makings o f another
Nobel Prize-winner. “ These kids have
the potential. A ll they need is proper
encouragement.” Jim m ie Warren is
going to make sure they get it.
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