“People should care because these scholars, just as much as the scholars on another side of town, are the future of Atlanta. The only way that Atlanta gets out of… this cycle of poverty, I think, is by making sure that scholars are educated and successful and that they are afforded the same opportunities as other students.”
— Justin Browning, Harper-Archer instructional coach
VIDEO: ‘It takes every single one of us’
“Children [are] coming from diverse backgrounds, and they don’t get ‘I love you, have a good day, do your best.’ I always tell my grandkids: ‘Make today count.’ And, a lot of kids just don’t get ‘I love you,’ ”
— Pearl Lilly, grandmother of two Harper-Archer students
“Hope is like a real thing. So if I didn’t have it then how could I do this work every day? Because you could get sad in here; you can cry for sadness as opposed to joy. And the work is so hard because just when you think you’re making some gains then something happens and you fall like 10 steps back.”
— Dione Simon Taylor, Harper-Archer principal
“I think at a turnaround school, you think you want to come in [and] you want to automatically turn around academics. Academics is not first. Academics is not first. The other things, the SEL [social and emotional learning], that building relationships, being mindful — that is the No. 1 thing, and in other schools you don’t have to worry about that.”
— Alecia Westbrooks, Harper-Archer teacher
“I think people should know that this is a fun school, a lot of things for you to do. It’s a good environment, good vibes.”
INSIDE HARPER-ARCHER: MORE STORIES
» Developing a plan for failing schools
» Teachers try to fill academic, skills gap
» Dance students add rhythm, flow, joy to learning
— T’era Stewart, Harper-Archer fifth grade student and student government president
“Right now we have an epidemic of kids who cannot read. So if we don’t help them to do better, to be better for us, then we are going to be the ones that suffer. So at the end of the day we have to care, because though they are not mine, we still have an investment in them because they’re going to have to invest in us.”
Credit: (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@A
Credit: (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@A
— LaJuana Ezzard, Harper-Archer director of partnerships and programs
“I don’t think that … Harper-Archer as it stands is able to close the gap on its own without some other rethinking of all the stuff that’s happening outside the school. And I have nothing but faith in the leadership and the team. We’ve done a high quality process. The building’s beautiful. We’ve lived up to everything that we promised and more, and yet the lift will be real, and there will be some plateau.”
— Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen on the student achievement gap
INSIDE HARPER-ARCHER: THE PHOTOS & VIDEOS
» ‘You can always dance it out’
“I think that they chose a dynamic leader and that they definitely got it right for Harper-Archer.”
— Stephanie Johnson, Georgia Department of Education deputy superintendent for school improvement, on APS picking Dione Simon Taylor as principal
Credit: (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@A
Credit: (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@A
“I don’t want it to be a poverty-stricken school. It does not have to be, but it’s up to the board of education, it’s up to the community or to the civic leaders. It’s up to the neighborhood to see that that changes.”
— Artie Cobb, president of the Charles L. Harper High School International Alumni Association
Our journalists
Vanessa McCray is an education reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She moved to Georgia in 2017 to join the AJC's education team and cover Atlanta Public Schools. Previously, she wrote about K-12 schools, colleges and universities for The Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. She worked for more than a decade at newspapers in her home state of Michigan.
Bob Andres has been an AJC staff member since 1998. A native San Franciscan, he also worked as a photographer and photo editor for newspapers in California and Florida. A graduate of San Francisco State University, Bob has also worked as the AJC's metro photo editor, and has taught photojournalism at UGA and Cal State Hayward.
Alyssa Pointer has been an AJC staff member since 2017. She spent time documenting communities in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Illinois before relocating to her home state of Georgia. Pointer spares no effort when tasked with creating impactful images of the people and places within their communities. Alyssa is a proud graduate of Western Kentucky University.
Jim Pelfrey has been with the AJC 12 years, the last six as an editor working mostly on education stories. He had worked as a reporter or editor on newspapers in Virginia, Washington state and Tennessee before coming to Georgia.
Todd C. Duncan is the senior editor for the AJC's Local and Education team and has been an editor here for more than 27 years. Prior to coming to Atlanta, Todd was a reporter with The Advocate in Stamford, Conn. A graduate of the City University of New York, Todd also produces the AJC Classic Cars video series, and he has taught journalism at Clark Atlanta and Georgia State universities.
Jennifer Peebles and Nick Thieme are newsroom data specialists.
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