He has the materials and supplies to do his job. He also has cultivated merchants at Iverson Mall, on the other side of Branch Avenue, to chip in extras. Next year, they've agreed to provide coupons and other treats as incentives for children to stay out of trouble. Next year, too, Principal Banks would like to add a social worker, another guidance counselor and more resource teachers to the school. If there is an upside to being targeted by the state, Bank says, the promise of more resources is it.
Banks is still full of hope.
And there is hope inside some classrooms, inside the hearts of the teachers who carry on in the face of considerable trials. At Overlook Elementary School, Dwayne Peyton cries after a small tussle with other children while boarding the bus. Her students are moving their desks, jockeying for front and center, to see their faces in the anti-littering video spots they wrote and produced. This is one of the creative lessons Pullar, who has taught two years at Overlook, developed after studying her students' personalities. She figured the assignment would fit into their unflagging interest in television and channel their chatter and theatrical urges.