Getting The Dream Done: Final Part
When Keila Hernandez started to slip in sixth grade, there were plenty of people there to push her forward. But the words of one man in particular made an impression. Part Three: Keila's teacher Brett helps a student in his 6th grade class EAST BOSTON—You might think he’s crazy, handing out his cell phone number and urging his students to use it. Answering their calls after school is over, and dinner is done, and he’s already started grading papers—sometimes as many as 20 calls in a night. Brett Pangburn, 37, just says this: “Well, then don’t be a teacher.” Because this is what it takes to help the students at Excel Academy, the charter school where Brett has taught sixth grade English the past four years. Some kids show up the first day unclear about where to put a period. They use capital letters in the wrong places. Their question marks are upside down. It’s only knowledge, and with time and work and discipline, they can learn it. But often, they’ve failed elsewhere, and the feeling has stuck. Brett is constantly trying to put something better in its place.
Getting The Dream Done
At the end of fifth grade, Keila Hernandez was struggling, and starting not to care. But the support she found in a small storefront middle school changed the way she saw school and herself. Part Two in a series: Keila, The Student  Keila in a study group with friends EAST BOSTON — The kids at the sixth grade assembly were saying her name, like, Oh, Of Course It’s Going to Be Keila. But Keila Hernandez didn’t believe them. This was a big award—the award for perseverance. It had to go to someone else.
Only, it didn't. Mr. Pangburn, her English teacher, made the announcement, and the next minute, Keila was walking down the line of smiling teachers at Excel Academy, shaking everyone’s hand. Her face was all red, and she was trying hard not to cry, but it was only a matter of time.
“When I got to the principal, that’s when it happened,” said Keila,14, several months later. “My glasses fell off and everything.”
There were a lot of things she felt in that moment—excited, nervous, a little embarrassed, to be at the center of so much attention. But the main thing was proud.
This was not an easy school. So many times, she could have stopped trying. But Keila wanted to go to college.
Getting The Dream Done
A few years ago, Keila Hernandez was falling behind in class, afraid to raise her hand, and hopeless at the thought of middle school. This is the story of what it took to put Keila on the path to college. Part One: Her Mother Daisy cooks the family dinner after work EAST BOSTON— Drifting is what she calls it. The way one small decision leads to another, then suddenly, the kids are out of school, standing around with friends on the street. Maybe they’re there for a day; maybe they’re there for a decade.
Daisy Polanco passes them on the street, and she worries: what if it happens to hers? “I pray every day that they don’t drift to that,” says Daisy, 35, a single mother of three. “That’s my always fear.” Drifting can happen in any neighborhood, to any child. But because they live in a low-income neighborhood, and because they are Latino, and because two of them have special needs, the statistics suggest this: Daisy’s children are at higher risk for dropping out of school. Daisy is not interested in the specifics—that in Boston, 30 percent of Latino students dropped out of the class of 2008; that about half graduated on time, the lowest rate of any group of students in the city, according to the most recent state data. This is the kind of thing that interests local principals and national policy makers; it’s their job to close the gap between kids of different cultures and classes and natural capabilities. It’s their job to figure out how to boost achievement for all children—to get them into college, and to help them graduate. It’s Daisy’s job, nearly every hour of every day, to figure out how to save her own.
Moving Men Forward:
Clinic Takes On Health Disparities
 Dalton Skerritt speaks with a student ROXBURY—Other men are fidgeting, staring out the window, waiting for their time at Whittier Street Health Center to end.
Not Charles.
Charles takes a seat in the second row, a 29-year-old man in a crisp white T-shirt. He leans forward. He asks questions.
He’s required to take this class on men’s health, as part of a prison release program. But this is helpful information right here, about disease and how to prevent it. One thing, he already knows:
“Black guys die early.”
For years, Whittier has been trying to change that, working in one of the neediest neighborhoods in the city, and using these Wednesday night “rap” sessions to introduce low-income, men of color to healthy living. One of the main goals: connect them to the health care at Whittier, and keep them coming back.
Dalton Skerritt, director of Whittier’s Men’s Health Clinic, can tick off the facts: higher rates of diabetes hospitalizations, higher rates of death from AIDS. In Boston, black men are about three times more likely to die of prostate cancer than white men, according to the city’s 2009 Health of Boston report. What he wants to know from these students is why.
Bad eating habits, lack of exercise, genetics—all are factors, he confirms, when the men call those answers out. But there’s something else, something bigger.
“Oh!” comes a call from the back of the room. “Check-ups!”
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