We don’t hear much about these students.
They don’t carry guns or belong to a gang.
They don’t believe their school is a “war zone.”
They don’t take drugs.
Their idea of fun isn’t holding up a convenience store or beating up a teacher.
They and their friends are doing their best with what they have, and they’re doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately, we don’t hear much about these “good eggs.”
The Advocate spent some time recently at Woodrow talking to students, teachers and administrators to see what happens behind the high school’s brick walls.
We talked about violence, guns and gangs, which are not as prevalent as most people believe.
We talked about drugs and alcohol, which concern everybody.
We talked about sex, which really seems to be a non-issue.
We talked about education and the role of the school and educators, which is constantly changing.
“I think a lot of high schools have gotten a bad rap,” says Woodrow principal Eduardo Torres.
“These kids, basically, are good. We’re just so conditioned to look at them negative.”
Most Woodrow students come from caring families interested in the best for their kids.
But there are others, students who are dangerously close to becoming the statistics we hear about on the evening news, who need special attention.
“Nobody looks at where these kids are coming from,” Torres says. “Somebody needs to take care of these kids. I want these kids to know someone cares about them. At times, we are the only ones who care for these kids.”
The Typical Students
When Yenivim Mejorada moved to America from Mexico two years ago, she spoke no English. Today, the 17-year-old is a Woodrow sophomore who is enrolled in the school’s English to Speakers of Other Languages program.
After school, she helps her mother care for three younger brothers while her father works in a factory; she is looking for an after-school and summer job. Neither parent speaks English, so she interprets for them. She wants to go to college and study computers.
Nhaila Hendrickse is a 15-year-old sophomore who keeps track of her busy schedule and homework in a small burgundy datebook. She attends honors classes and is part of the swim and track teams, the junior varsity cheerleading squad, the Variations performance choir, and the one-act play competition.
Even though she will have enough credits to graduate a year early, Hendrickse wants to attend Woodrow all four years and graduate with her classmates. She plans to go to college in Florida and study theater.
Israel Leguizamo is a 17-year-old junior. When he was 10 years old, he and his family moved to Dallas from Mexico. He plays soccer and enjoys dancing. He attends regular classes, but wants to move into honors classes to be more challenged. He plans to go to college in Virginia to study dentistry, and he has a girlfriend with whom he shares a locker.
The Big Misconception
The school day starts at 8:15 a.m. A blue metal detector is set up at a door, and all 1,400 students file through it before going to classes, which start at 8:20 a.m.
As they pass through, students place book bags and backpacks on a table, and school administrators check them for weapons.
Majorada says she doesn’t mind going through the metal detectors because they are there to keep the students safe.
But Hendrickse says the metal detectors aren’t needed. They are removed following first period, and someone could bring a weapon in later and hide it in their locker, she says.
“Actually, there’s not that much violence,” Hendrickse says. “I know there’s been fights, I just haven’t seen them. I don’t think anyone has a reason to bring a gun to school.”
Leguizamo says when he walks through the metal detector, he feels as if he is being punished for one student’s accident.
The detectors were installed last fall when a student brought a gun to school and accidentally shot himself in the stomach. The students say he bought the gun because he felt unsafe when he left Woodrow, not because he felt unsafe at Woodrow.
“A lot of people stereotype this school from what they hear,” Hendrickse says. “There’s a lot of great stuff that is happening.”
Principal Torres says he doesn’t like the metal detectors either and will take them down as soon as district administrators tells him he can. He says he didn’t go into education to be a “security guard.”
As Leguizamo walks down the hallway to class, he points to other students and says: “See, everyone is getting along.”
“The way everyone talks to each other, they’re not fighting,” he says. “I visited some other schools, and they don’t like each other.”
Louise O’Keefe, dean of instruction at Woodrow, says during a basketball tournament at Woodrow, a mother from Plano told O’Keefe she was surprised about how nice Woodrow was.
“I would not be afraid to send my children here,” O’Keefe says. “If I was scared, I wouldn’t be here. I think the perception is off.”
The misperception comes from the media and what is reported about public schools – violence, guns, sex, poor education and drugs.
“I think it’s fine that they report these things,” O’Keefe says. “I take this seriously, because we have kids here we have to keep safe.”
“I hope people realize that’s not the whole school,” Torres says. “That’s not the whole faculty. We’re not focusing on positive things.”
Hendrickse says its unfortunate that many adults project that bad perception onto all teenagers and urban public schools.
In one of her classes, Hendrickse debated with a teacher about whether or not there should be open campus lunch at Woodrow, meaning students could leave campus during the lunch period. The teacher says lunch can’t be open because students would leave school and “tear up the world” from noon to 1 p.m.
“We don’t leave the school at 3 p.m. and tear up the world,” Hendrickse says.
“That’s what starts that big misconception that we’re walking around with guns in our pockets. I know kids in this class wouldn’t go out and ransack the world.”
The Lessons
When Mejorada came to Woodrow, she says she was scared because she spoke no English and couldn’t communicate with other students.
But she is one of about 100 students learning to speak and read English in Linda Martinez’s English to Speakers of Other Languages classes.
Mejorada and her friends, who also are from other countries, stick together and help each other. She practices English after school with her brothers.
But while she walks down the halls at Woodrow, she and a friend speak Spanish because they become embarrassed when other students and teachers hear them speak English.
Martinez has been teaching at Woodrow for 13 years. When she came to the school, only three students a year graduated from the school through the ESOL program. Today, about 35 graduate each year. Students participating in the program also hold fund-raisers for ESOL college scholarships, Martinez says.
A majority of the ESOL students are Hispanic, but in the past, many Asian and African students have participated.
In addition to learning academics, Martinez says the variety of students at Woodrow teaches all of them about life and different cultures.
“I think it’s unique because it’s naturally integrated,” Martinez says. “We have a big number of all. No one has to be bused in. I think they are more worldly.”
Leguizamo says he is glad he attends public schools rather than private schools because he has learned more about people.
“You can take care of yourself better,” he says.
He was in honors classes but decided to concentrate more on basic skills when he didn’t perform well on the TAAS test, he says. He is working to get back into honors classes.
“I learn more. I’m more interested in stuff,” he says. “In regular classes, I’m bored.”
Hendrickse attends honors classes, averaging about two hours of homework each night; she says extracurricular activities challenge her.
She keeps track of her schedule in a small burgundy datebook, where she writes down homework assignments and rehearsal times.
“If I didn’t have all that, I would go crazy,” she says.
Caring Education
Woodrow is successful in educating students about the French Revolution, calculus and typing. But in addition to teaching traditional lessons, society seems to have vested teachers and administrators with responsibility for students’ emotional, physical and mental well-being.
Many times, people focus on the students’ negatives, Torres says. But we need to look at are their accomplishments and drive to learn despite everything going on in their lives.
For example, one student was kicked out of her home when she told her mother she was gay. She is an honors student and is working full-time to support herself.
“They have more problems,” Torres says. “They have adult problems.”
“(People) can’t believe the things we hear (from students),” O’Keefe says. “The kids, they want you to know. They want you to help.”
At the beginning of the school year, Torres and O’Keefe started Saturday morning tutoring sessions. At first, only two students attended. Now, 20 students attend on a regular basis.
“This building is being used,” Torres says. “I’m very student oriented.”
Woodrow also offers a class for pregnant teenagers. In addition to learning their regular lesson plans, they are taught parenting skills.
Torres says he tries to give students everything they need, no matter what they have done.
“These kids are having kids,” Torres says. “We’re trying to give them skills to be parents and graduate.”
Hendrickse says there are students who carry their babies to full-term while attending school, but this doesn’t mean all of Woodrow’s students are sleeping around.
“I think it depends on the person,” Hendrickse says. “I know tons of people who wouldn’t have sex until they go married.”
Plus, Hendrickse says there are different cultures at Woodrow with very different ideas about sex and marriage. One of Hendrickse’s classmates is from India, and she was married in an arranged situation before moving to America.
A Different Time
Ruth Pendergrass has been an English teacher at Woodrow for seven years and substituted for six years at the school prior to taking her full-time job.
She lives in the neighborhood and has four children. Her oldest is 30 and graduated from Woodrow. Her youngest, Trey, is 16 and attends Woodrow.
She has seen the changes that have occurred at Woodrow over the years, not only in the school’s hallways, but also in her home.
But she says no one should be surprised by what is happening with today’s teenagers.
“If you have lived in a vacuum for the last 10 years, then you’ll be surprised,” Pendergrass says. “Our schools reflect society.”
It’s hard to measure if teenagers are any worse today than they were in previous generations, Pendergrass says. It’s just that today, we talk about what is going on. Before, she says pregnant girls would be “sent away to visit an aunt for nine months.” Today they stay in school.
“It was always talked about in hushed tones,” Pendergrass says.
Even though bad things happen to students, Pendergrass says most of the students are good.
“These are teenagers,” Pendergrass says. “As teachers, we’re trying to make this a happy time. You only go this way once.”
“We have students who come from those environments who are very motivated,” Pendergrass says. “Our record speaks for itself. We don’t have any problems here.”
“I may have a clouded view. But I think Woodrow is a school that works.”
“I think people are scared of facing reality. They’re scared to put their kids in a situation they wouldn’t know how to handle themselves. But this is real life.”
The School
There are four major hallways in Woodrow and four school administrators – Torres, O’Keefe and two assistant principals.
Each administrator walks a hallway between classes to take care of the students’ and the teachers’ needs. They communicate with each other through hand-held radios.
O’Keefe, who has been in education for 11 years, says all kids want the same thing – someone to care about them – and she and the rest of Woodrow’s staff try to fill that void.
“There’s a lot more responsibility on us to provide things that families used to provide,” she says. “Now, we’re having to make sure the emotional side is taken care of.
The hallways are rotated among the administrators weekly so that all the students see and get to know them, Torres says. The administrators also divide up the sporting events and other activities so students see a school official at every event.
Torres says he stood in the cold rain through a soccer game because he wants the students to know he cares.
One student recently called Torres at home to tell Torres his home had been shot at in a drive-by shooting.
Torres says that was when he knew he was making a difference.
“It speaks highly of the school,” Torres says. “No matter what color you are or language you speak, you will be fed and cared for.”
