DON'T COUNT THESE STUDENTS OUT YET

Teachers Hold Out Hope For Unruly Albany Teens In Alternative Program

ALBANY -- There are no happy endings, yet, for the Albany High School
students studying at an alternative program at the University at Albany.

But they also know well that many outsiders have already concluded
they're failures.

That they're tagged as "unruly students." And that Assemblyman Peter
Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, wrote a letter to the editor of this paper
to decry UAlbany's effort as offering little more than "false
promises." That note is hanging in their makeshift classroom, a space
in the basement of UAlbany's science library tucked next to the
stacks, cordoned off with filing cabinets and easels.

It's been a rough year for the school district, which has suffered
through a string of fights, arrests and other violence; the UAlbany
program was approved in the aftermath of some of those incidents, as
a last-ditch effort to offer a different kind of learning experience
for about a dozen hand-picked students.

So Tuesday, when a UAlbany police officer subdued one of those teens
with a stun gun during gym class, it was just another excuse to write them off.

Over the past month, the Times Union has spent several hours in that
class, and talked with many students, teachers and administrators
involved with it.

Sometimes, the students manage to live down to those low expectations.

But they struggle mightily to overcome them, as well.

On one bulletin board -- near a copy of the Rivera letter -- the
students have put their own hopes on paper.

"My mission will be accomplished by the end of this program and that
is to show that I'm really smarter than everyone thinks I am," one teen wrote.

"I believe that everyone is smart, even though it might take some
kids a little longer to learn something," wrote Kayla West.

West, 16, wants to be an obstetrician. She was grateful for the
program, she said, to get "a second chance."

Some of the students didn't want to be identified by name because
they didn't want friends or family to know they were in an
alternative program. Some had moved past that. "People (are) going to
say what they say," said Javon Campbell, a 10th-grader trying to get
a shot in the music business. "We got kicked out. But not for being bad."

Frank Wiley, chief of UAlbany's police department, addressed the
students one morning last month and exhorted them to raise their own
expectations of themselves. Some paid attention. One was writing on his hand.

"You've got to want to," said Wiley, who wore a four-button gray suit
with a neatly folded pocket square. "Wanting to is very important."

Several are there for having lousy attendance, coming late or not at
all. Others had behavioral problems. Their grades need work; the
ostensible goal of the program is to prepare them for Regents exams.

Stupid or unteachable, they're not.

"They definitely weren't what I was expecting," said John Deer, a
teacher in the program. "Much, much brighter. A lot of fun."

And a handful. They can turn on a dime in class. One minute, one is
daring a teacher to toss him out. The next, the same student could be
charming, funny, listening attentively as a representative from a
local credit union discusses money management.

James Anderson, UAlbany's vice president of student success, pays
daily visits to the classroom. UAlbany has taken a special interest
in the school district, and extended its resources so it can invest
in the community. Anderson has taken a special interest, too --
"they're my children," he said Monday morning -- partly because he
knows what it's like.

Anderson, born to a college student, was left in the hospital by his
mother. He never knew his father. The woman who took him home died
when he was 6 -- leaving him in the care of an alcoholic daughter.
But his real rearers, he said, were the nuns at his Catholic school,
"the prostitutes in the neighborhood who adopted me as the son they
never had," and some gang members.

"I see myself in them," he said. "Just as people didn't forsake me, I
didn't forsake them."

Tina Soares, assistant coordinator of undergraduate field education
and the wife of Albany County District Attorney David Soares, was at
the heart of Tuesday's confrontation. On Wednesday, she was back in
class and circumspect. It wasn't personal, she knew. She was just a
convenient target.

"I still believe in them. They're smart, talented kids. And many of
them will make it. I hope all of them make it."

Deer, the teacher, often wonders what good is coming out of the class.

"I go home at night saying, 'Are we really making any progress?' " Deer asked.

And he comes to class the next day.

And the students show up.

And he knows.