When I found out about a high school principal
from Newark, New Jersey, who is doing incredible things to keep
his students in school, I knew I wanted to have him on the show.
Here's his story.
[MUSIC - MACKLEMORE FEAT.
KESHA, "GOOD OLD DAYS"]
(SINGING) I wish somebody would have told me--
Good morning.
You ready?
You look like you got a smile on.
You good?
Yep.
What's up, baby?
You ready?
My name is Akbar Cook.
I'm the new principal of Westside high school
here in beautiful northern New Jersey.
West side is located.
We call it the number blocks.
And bad things usually happen on the number blocks.
And we have a lot of gangs from different areas.
So when my kids have to travel to school,
they have to navigate through some of those gangs
to get to school.
Two years ago, we had a situation where a young lady
was coming in school.
And while the security guard was getting
ready to go through her bag, she took a full bottle
of water, 16 ounce, and hurled it
at the security guard's face.
She ended up started kicking stuff over, and tearing up
the place.
Police had to come.
And when they called me back in, they said, Cook,
she had a bag full of dirty clothes.
And she was homeless, and she didn't want anyone to know.
Most people take for granted having clean clothes.
Some of my babies were homeless.
Other babies are coming from homes
where there's no parent where they can not wash clothes
in their house.
So this was leading to so many issues in my building, which
was bullying, fights because of the bullying,
and then attendance.
They just wasn't coming to school.
And I knew I had to do something about it.
It was my idea to bring in some washers and dryers in here.
Let's take care of that obstacle,
and that started this whole chain of good things to come.
It's been a long two year journey.
And I'm so happy to say that we have five commercial washes,
five commercial dryers, and a laundry facility
that we were able to open just in time for the school year.
A person like Cook, you don't really
want to let him down, because he always got your back.
He don't let you down, so why let him down?
One thing when I first came to Westside,
he asked what does family mean?
So I'm thinking like, family like, brothers and sisters?
He like, nah, family stands for forget about me.
I love you.
People heard this story and it resonated with them.
And the love that has been coming in is so overwhelming.
This is the new normal for urban education.
We are really laying the foundation for what
a community school looks like.
And what better way to change the world but in a school.
I mean, come on.
Nothing beats that.
Quite impressive.
That's amazing.
First of all, the neighborhood looks very--
like the odds are stacked against them to start
before they even get to school.
Absolutely.
Some of the kids have to travel from two miles or better.
And the miles become longer when you have
to navigate through the gangs.
So it's just-- just when they show up,
I'm just so happy that they came that day.
It's just amazing.
Yeah, because there was a higher rate of losing kids
before this happened, right?
Yes.
So when I first got to the school, I lost a student.
And it was my first bout with death.
And it was like wow, this goes on in schools?
I thought, this is something I've just seen on TV.
And we had to come up with different ways
to navigate the journey for them coming to school
and just be here for them.
This love.
I just call it love.
I just try to give so much love that it's
just they give it back to me.
Well, you can see that in the setup package.
You can see how much that they respect you
and how much you love them.
So you're a brand new principal.
But you've been at the school for how long?
So I've been at the school four years
in a vise principal capacity.
But I'm only three weeks in as a principle.
And I'm so excited that I get to--
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Yes, I'm so happy to lead kids that look
like me, that sound like me.
I'm from the area, so I'm so happy when I got
the opportunity to lead them.
I'm just so happy.
I'm nervous that I'm on Ellen.
This is amazing, wow.
Well, I admire you for what you're doing.
And these kids are really lucky to have you
because you're somebody that they can look up to and say,
look, what I can do.
So you've had this laundry room since the beginning of school.
Yes.
How has that changed things?
Wow, so I know that my students were staying home for a reason.
We had a study that was said that 85% of my students
were staying home, and they was severely--
excuse me-- severely chronically absent.
That means they were staying home three to five times
a month.
And after we started making calls and finding out
what was going on, we had listened to the parents.
And they said, I don't have it.
I can't wash the clothes.
The kids were saying I was being bullied.
Fights.
I want to fight because of this.
So we had to come up with a plan.
And I'm so happy that we started this laundry mat because just
the love has been coming in.
We already did so many loads of clothes.
I'm just so happy that I removed that barrier.
And now we can get to the root of everything, which
is just educating the kids.
And that's what it's about.
Yeah, well you're doing it.
And here's another thing that you're doing.
You have this after school program
called Lights Are Always On.
What's it called?
Lights On.
So we came up with the name Lights On.
Because right now, even in California,
you drive by a school at night, the lights are on.
So I was saying how about we put some loving people in there
that love the kids more than their job,
and let's take care of them and give them a safe place.
Because in my town, crime was most prevalent from 6 to 11 PM.
And the local police department said, Cook,
if you can come up with something, that would help us
out because those kids--
they have nothing to do, so they would get into some trouble.
And I can say that it was new for me.
I told you I opened up with a death.
But we was losing girls, and that's new.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't lose boys,
but when you lose like-- my little baby, my princesses,
it's like you have to do something.
And so I started adding more things like henna and makeup.
I go to the store and I buy the short eyelashes for them.
I make sure that that's taken care of.
But I want to say since we started this program,
I haven't lost any more kids to gun violence.
And I'm just so happy.
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
All right, so you called them your babies.
And why is that?
Yes.
I'm an advocate of the term loco parentis,
in the event the parent is there.
I'm not the parent.
So what better way to show your love than call them babies.
I don't care if they 20.
They're my babies.
So what I do is we say from the time you enter my doors,
until you're gainfully employed, I'm
going to follow you because I really care.
And I want them to know that love
because they know I'm there.
I'm never leaving their side.
So they're my babies and forever.
So sweet.
All right, so here's what we're going to do.
I don't know if you know.
But my friends at Cheerios are so inspired by what you're
doing to support students.
They want you to continue helping young people.
So they're going to give Westside High
School a check for $50,000.
Oh my god.
[APPLAUSE]
Oh my god.
[INAUDIBLE] Yes, thank you.
All right, and one more thing.
They also want to support your Lights On program
by providing a pantry of food for your students
to use all year long.
So they're going to do that.
Oh my god.
Go to our website to find out how
you can help Akbar's school.