Harper High School

I recently was listening to a 2 part This American Life about Harper High School in Englewood. They set up at Harper for around 5 months. They interviewed students and teachers about the high school as well as the neighborhood. The radio show pretty much revolves around gun violence and gangs.  But more importantly it talks about the effects on the students and the teachers.  Harper was a turn around school, so they were getting funneled a lot of money for extra personnel and equipment. The funding went away this year (the radio show is about a year old). Many of the people who are there for students who live rather hard lives will be gone. There is an account of one member of the staff, whose position will be cut, who sees a kid out in the hallway. The student thrown out of class because he took two cookies and refused to put one back. He was just hungry because he wasn't able to go home and thus hadn't eaten. The staff member without any deliberation goes to the cafeteria gets some chocolate milk (they were out of regular) and the brings the student back to his office and gives him a bowl of cereal. This just kind of makes me think about the importance of people and relationships in schools, that education is more than scores.