The New School for Enterprise and Development was a refuge for Ka’Trina Andrews.
When she entered the charter high school in 2001, she needed a break from the fighting and violence in and around Wayne Place, the public housing project where no kid should have to grow up. Her mother and uncle refused to send her to Ballou, the public high school up the hill in Anacostia. Too violent.
“My mom was real excited about Enterprise,” Andrews tells me.
Her mother was even more excited four years later when Ka’Trina graduated first in her class with a full-ride scholarship to Temple University.
“It was a great alternative for me,” Ka’Trina tells me.
And how does she feel about the recent D.C. Charter School Board decision to revoke Enterprise’s charter and close it down by the end of the school year?
“It would be a huge loss,” she says. “A lot of students come there to escape from something: terrible neighborhood schools, friends who are getting into trouble, problems at home.
“I think Enterprise could be very important for many kids,” she says. “I really believe that.”
We are sitting in the Student Activity Center at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Students are beginning to shuffle in for coffee. Ka’Trina is gearing up for classes in English, Asian religion and dimensions of racism.
Growing up on Wayne Place, she never dreamed of attending a top college. She grew up with kids selling drugs on the corner. She went to sleep to the sound of gunshots many nights. Her neighbors in the past few years were crack addicts.
“They were nice,” she says. “They took out the trash.”
Ka’Trina got turned on to education at Hart Junior High. “Once I got on the honor roll,” she says, “it was history. That was my thing. I wanted to continue 4.0 through high school.”
Was the New School for Enterprise and Development perfect? No way. She was frustrated by the shifting classroom locations and the changing teachers and inconsistent administration. But she thrived in the small classes and found teachers who inspired her, especially Antoinette Dempsey, a history teacher who happened to have graduated from Temple.
“She took me and another student up to visit her sorority and attend some classes,” Ka’Trina says. “I fell in love with the school.”
And Temple fell in love with her enough to admit her with a full scholarship.
Ka’Trina has no illusions about Enterprise. She was there when it was nomadic in 2001. It had some great teachers and some who talked on their cell phones during class time. It could use better accountability.
But should it be forced to close by the School Board?
“No way,” she says. “In a small-school environment like Enterprise, teachers and students can get attached. It can really make a difference.”
It got Ka’Trina from Wayne Place to Temple University.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
