Inner City Schools

I'm conducting student interviews at schools this week for new students to join our college preparation program that I work with. The buildings have history and I wonder if anyone appreciates the little architectural details - crown molding, window designs, etc. they are grand high schools that house hundreds of tomorrow's thinkers and workers.

These are inner-city high schools, though. Taxes do not pay enough per student to offer modern advancements or technology. They exist with the possibility of crime all the time. Police officers walk the halls and students refuse to use the lockers (too often they are broken into and everything is stolen).

While sitting this morning at one school, there was a pause in our interviews while a student was arrested. This is ordinary around here. Later in the day, I heard a familiar thing over the loud speaker, "we are going on lockdown." It was just a drill, but it took me right back to the many lockdowns at Carswell. The endless hours in our rooms waiting to be allowed to roam our units once again.

Here, the lockdown means locking your door, moving everyone away from doors and windows, and turning off lights. It's likely a drill due to all the school shootings that happen at every kind of school these days - Sandy Hook to Columbine. All schools have those issues today, not just inner-city schools.

It's scary to think that today's high schools could feel like prisons, ever! They are institutions of higher education. Students should feel safe, secure, and not need the police walking their halls to get themselves into college.

I pass little judgment on students of inner-city schools. I attended one myself for a period of time. Somehow, it just felt safer at that time. Now, 10 year olds have to walk through metal detectors. It all just makes me sad.

As I wait for my next student to interview, I will stare out of the large window before me, take in the beautiful crown molding, and appreciate the beauty of this old building.