Orchard Gardens, a school in Roxbury, Mass., had been plagued by bad test scores and violence – but one principal's idea to fire the security guards and hire art teachers is helping turn it around.
By Katy Tur, Correspondent, NBC News
ROXBURY,
Mass. — The community of Roxbury had high hopes for its newest public
school back in 2003. There were art studios, a dance room, even a
theater equipped with cushy seating. A pilot school for grades K-8, Orchard Gardens was built on grand expectations.
But
the dream of a school founded in the arts, a school that would give
back to the community as it bettered its children, never materialized. Instead, the dance studio was used for storage and the orchestra's instruments were locked up and barely touched.
The
school was plagued by violence and disorder from the start, and by 2010
it was rank in the bottom five of all public schools in the state of
Massachusetts. That was when Andrew Bott — the sixth principal in seven years — showed up, and everything started to change.
“We got rid of the security guards,” said Bott, who reinvested all the money used for security infrastructure into the arts.
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