Recently, the Washington City Paper featured a cover article accompanied by an online audio/slideshow on H.D. Woodson Senior High School where I taught for 13 years and where Hoop Dreams has had an office.  The headline of the story is ‘The End of an Error’ and it features the school’s physical and all around demise.  It’s a very sad but powerful read - I encourage you, my nonprofit peers and partners, to read it.

The article’s three main voices are Coach Bruce Bradford (a WONDERFUL former long time teacher, swimming coach and dear friend); Mrs Aona Jefferson (the former principal, my former boss and long time supporter of Hoop Dreams) and Latara Meyers (my former colleague).  These three individuals represent the MANY wonderful and devoted teachers who were deeply committed to young people at Woodson.

The article includes a chronology of the history of the building and of Granville Woodson, HD's son who designed the school. (Howard Dilworth Woodson was one of the first recognized professional African American Engineers in the United States.)  It also reviews the plans to rebuild HD as it’s slated to be knocked down this summer. 

Ironically, I wrote testimony in 1995 for the late Senator Paul Wellstone during the proposed national education cuts and a lot of what I wrote in that testimony is depicted in this City Paper article, noting that the school’s downward spin really began then, in 1995, during these massive cuts.  However, the condition that the school fell into is only one of the many unbelievable challenges and realities that too many kids in DC still face every day.  Attending school in a run down building obviously has an impact on them.  (And Woodson is still the newest DCPS school in the city - only 36 years old!)

HD Woodson changed my life dramatically and many of  the most amazing people I have been honored to know were a result of those years at HD.  I will always be grateful for, and inspired by, my years there.  Hopefully the rebuilding will remain a focus of the District and the commitment to make it happen stays a priority - for the sake of the students in Ward 7 and the surrounding community. The plan is for there to be a new school in two years but in the mean time the students will be  dispersed to  another school site.  The rebuilding of the school can and should bring back the sense of pride that young people should feel for their school and for their community. 

(To learn more, read ‘Crossing Color Lines with Miss Kay in Room 406’ Washington Post, 1998)