Searching for Hope , livre ebook

SEARCHING for HOPE
SEARCHING for HOPE

LIFE AT A FAILING SCHOOL IN THE HEART OF AMERICA

MATTHEW TULLY
Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis
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Indiana University Press
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2012 by Matthew Tully
All photos courtesy of Danese Kenon,
Indianapolis Star.

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tully, Matthew.
Searching for hope : life at a failing school in the heart of America / Matthew Tully.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-253-00593-9 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00597-7 (eb)
1. Emmerich Manual High School (Indianapolis, Ind.) 2. Children with social disabilities-Education (Secondary)- Indiana-Indianapolis. I. Title.
LD7501.I4646T85 2012
373.772 52-DC23

2011047610
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12
TO VALERIE,
the greatest thing that has ever happened to me; and

TO REID,
the greatest thing that has ever happened to us.
CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE

1 WHY ARE YOU HERE?
2 I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT HE WOULD BE A DANDELION.
3 CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?
4 WE DO A GOOD JOB WITH THE KIDS WHO SHOW UP.
5 I HATE THIS SCHOOL.
6 GO TO CLASS, ZACH.
7 WE RE NOT GOING TO BE AVERAGE HERE.
8 WHERE S THE SCHOOL SPIRIT?
9 I DON T LIKE BEING CALLED STUPID.
10 YOU HAVE TO CRAWL FIRST.
11 WE RE DROPPING OUT.
12 I GET HIT ALL THE TIME.
13 WE JUST COULDN T GET ANYTHING STARTED.
14 WHAT S GONNA HAPPEN, MR. GRISMORE?
15 COULD YOU IMAGINE IF WE FILLED THE HOUSE?
16 IT FEELS LIKE I M A SOMEBODY.
17 I USED TO BE BAD.
18 I KNEW I DIDN T WANT THAT.
19 THERE S NOBODY THAT CAN T DO SOMETHING.
20 IT NEVER STOPS AROUND HERE.
21 I LIKE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS.
22 I M THE KID WHO DOESN T EXIST.
23 TROUBLE FOLLOWS ME.
24 I M WILLING TO RUN THESE SCHOOLS.
25 NOW I KNOW WHY I M TALL.
26 WOW, THIS IS AMAZING!
27 WE VE ACTED LIKE THIS IS OKAY.
28 YOU ARE SURVIVORS.

EPILOGUE

Illustrations follow page 52.
Manual High School s leaders, teachers, students, and parents provided me with rare and sweeping access to the school for nearly ten months. That access included the ability to sit in on extremely sensitive meetings in the offices of the principal, dean, social worker, police officers and others. Because of the nature of certain stories, I have changed the names of a small number of students.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


T his book is the result of more than two years of support and assistance from family, friends, colleagues, sources, and readers of the Indianapolis Star. To everyone who played a part-and there are so many who did that I cannot name them all-you have my deepest appreciation.
Most fundamentally, this book would not have been possible without the nearly complete access I was given to Emmerich Manual High School during the 2009/2010 school year. For that, I thank Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent Eugene White, former Manual principal Richard Grismore, and former dean Terry Hoover. I would also like to offer my gratitude to all of the teachers, staff, students, and parents who tolerated the sometimes-pesky presence of a newspaper columnist for nearly ten months. Thank you for sharing your stories, thoughts, praise, complaints, and, most of all, your time.
I am fortunate to have now spent several years working for a pair of wonderful editors at the Star, Dennis Ryerson and Tim Swarens, who allowed me the luxury of writing thirty-four columns on one high school and championed my series every step of the way. Tim and Dennis, I couldn t have done this without your expert guidance and support.
I would like to pay a particular tribute to Danese Kenon, a talented photojournalist whose images always make my words look better, and to Andy Murphy, who worked hard to find a publisher for this book. Thanks also to the following people who provided insight into the book s subject matter or agreed to read and critique various drafts of the manuscript: Suzanne Anthony, John Barrow, Scott Elliott, Jill Haughawout, Darolyn Jones, Cathy Knapp, Tammy Laughner, Daniel Lee, Spencer Lloyd, Jay Mathews, Kathleen O Malley, Brendan O Shaughnessy, Julie Steck, Brent Walls, Charles Walls, and Vickie Winslow. I greatly appreciate the effort and support of the staff at Indiana University Press and the methodical and caring work of copyeditor Jill R. Hughes.
I was moved many times by the reaction to my series from readers of the Indianapolis Star. It s easy to be cynical these days. But you weren t, and your support and heartwarming response to my columns week after week turned a project I had haphazardly undertaken into the professional highlight of my life. You strengthened my lifelong love affair with newspapers and made a difference in the lives of many Manual High School students.
Most important, I would like to thank my wife, Valerie, who pushed me to write this book, and my son, Reid, who in the first months of his life allowed me to read chapter after chapter to him while he played with his toys. I love you both.
PROLOGUE


T he third week of the 2009/2010 school year was coming to a merciful end. It had been a week full of problems, headaches, and disasters. But that s pretty much how every week is at Manual High School. Administrators were frustrated that hundreds of students still hadn t shown up for school, or had shown up but immediately stopped coming, or were only coming occasionally. Day after day, teachers complained about students who cursed at them in the hallways, strolled into class late and left early, or threw fits that disrupted their classrooms. A few students in this school of about nine hundred had already been arrested or expelled for dealing drugs, having sex in a locker room, or threatening teachers. Something s in the air this year, Terry Hoover, the school s tough-talking dean of discipline, told me that Friday morning. I can already feel it.
I had been at the school every day for the past three weeks, working on a series of columns for my newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, about the struggles and challenges facing failing urban schools. Manual was one of several such schools in Indianapolis, riding a graduation rate of only 39 percent, test scores that showed far more students failing than passing, and a poverty problem that cruelly gripped most of the students who walked through the halls.
My embedment into Manual had been highly successful so far. At least that s what I thought on that hot Friday afternoon as I stood on the steps overlooking the school s courtyard and watched as hundreds of students raced to waiting school buses. I had written two front-page columns so far-one that exposed many of the problems that held the school back, from discipline and drugs to apathy and academic failure, and another that told of the struggles the school faced just to get kids to show up in the first place.
The columns received a tremendous response from readers. Through dozens of e-mails and phone calls, they had told me they d had no idea that the things I was writing about actually occurred in schools in the mild-mannered city of Indianapolis. They cringed at the tales of burned-out teachers and the stories of students with profound personal problems. They were outraged and saddened by what they read and called for sweeping changes to the way schools are run. I was excited about the reaction and the work I d done. It s not easy to get complete access to a school, access that includes the ability to sit in on meetings with social workers and school police that are normally held behind closed doors, but I d been given that access.
Soon, though, before the first buses would roll away from the school that Friday afternoon, I would learn that I hadn t yet come close to painting a full picture of what Manual was all about. My columns had exposed some of what was going on at the surface-in the classrooms, in the offices, and even in the small room that housed the four-person school police unit. But I hadn t gotten to the heart of the school-in other words, the emotion and stories of the students, teachers, administrators, and others who made up Manual High School. Not yet.

Emmerich Manual High School wraps around a grassy, tree-covered courtyard on three sides like a horseshoe. With sidewalks crisscrossing it and sculptures and plaques dotting it, the courtyard is the kind of idyllic setting you might find in many of the wealthier school districts within Indianapolis and its suburbs. It s one of the nicest spots on the grounds of Manual, or anywhere else on the gritty near south side of Indianapolis that houses the school. But I had learned that students entered the courtyard only during those few minutes at the beginning and end of the school day as they made their way to and from the parking l