There is a 90 percent attendance rate. Not surprisingly, there is a waiting list, and to meet the demand, the school is being cloned. This year F.D.A. II opened at 122nd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, and next year F.D.A. III is to be opened at 168th Street and Third Avenue in the Bronx. Dr. John Elwell, executive director of Replication Inc., a nonprofit company based at Columbia University's Teachers College in Manhattan, is in charge of the carbon-copy schools. What we say to the kids when they walk through the door is you are going to go to college, you are going to be smart, and you are going to behave.
Teachers come in early and stay late.
If the kids don't come to tutoring, teachers call their parents at work, because if they call their homes during the day, the kids will erase the messages before their parents get home. The teachers go with them to colleges. Some have gone in their own pockets for supplies. And he's going to do it again this year. Teachers here will do everything they can to make sure kids are successful.