Overcoming the odds
Major challenges
Regarding “Troubled schools make the grade, save HISD” (Page A1, Aug. 16), the Chronicle reported the very welcome news that Worthing High School and other challenged local schools have raised performance enough to avoid a state-mandated shutdown. Our organization has partnered with Worthing for nine years, working in the school with at-risk teens of incarcerated parents through our No More Victims program. We’ve seen the work that has gone into this turnaround at Worthing.
Most people may not understand that for many of these students, the family as we know it has disintegrated. Abuse, drugs, extreme poverty and untreated mental illness are common among their parents and relatives. Worthing students are often the “adult” in the family, working evenings to bring in money and making sure brothers and sisters are fed and brought to school before they can go to their own classes. If, as with the teens in our program, a parent goes to prison, the child’s life can cascade out of control.
For Worthing’s students to raise their academic performance in the face of those struggles is remarkable. They had a lot of help from a dedicated staff led by Principal Khalilah Campbell-Rhone. Worthing’s educators understand that improving inner-city schools means more than teaching and testing. It means addressing the needs of the whole child and creating an environment where learning is possible.
As a city, we need to understand that society’s problems don’t stop at the school house doors. Academic progress only comes if we confront all of the issues that make it difficult for children to learn, just as they have done at Worthing. Ken Wells, president and CEO, Cherish Our Children International/No More Victims, Houston