dr. Tiffany Anderson superintendent of
the Jennings school district begins her
morning with a four hour commute to work
after which she can be found sneakers
and all out on a crossing guard duty
Anderson oversees seven schools 3,000
students and hundreds of teachers and
staff but there's no job she won't do I
bring hot chocolate coats and the first
place they see me before they walk
through the door Jennings is a town of
15,000 people just outside st. Louis
Missouri it borders Ferguson which was
the center of protests following the
shooting of an unarmed black teenager by
a white police officer in 2014 like
Ferguson Jennings has a population of
mostly African Americans 1/4 of who live
below the poverty line
what was the school district like when
you first arrived four years ago
Jennings didn't really feel like a
community that had hope almost every
month I am attending a funeral of either
a current student or a student's parent
and often those are you know victims of
crime and we have two students at our
element one of our elementary schools
where they literally had to crawl out of
the window as their mother was being
stabbed you know things that we can't
imagine 17 year olds Gabby Scott is a
junior at Jennings high school how old
were you when we found out you're
pregnant 15 it was rough did you cry I
did a lot so much I probably only have
tears left just a few years ago many
students in Jennings were in danger of
not graduating dropping out was not an
unusual occurrence did you think about
like how am I going to go to school and
have this baby it was the first thing
that was brought to him around like I
don't think I'm gonna be able to go to
school
and be pregnant do you think that people
had sort of written this school district
off I think in many ways because
Jennings has so much poverty people
really weren't sure if improvement was
possible with grants partnerships and
some creativity
dr. Anderson balanced-budget launched a
college prep program brought back arts
education she also began to address
issues that stemmed far beyond academics
I learned that food was the greatest
issue so we decided we would open a food
pantry give out 8,000 pounds of food a
month approximately 200 to 400 people
every two weeks get food from Jenny's
and then we looked at health care we
have about two to three mental health
therapists at every school Washington
University they agreed to partner and
they provide a pediatrician so look you
break an arm just come to school we got
it this is a place where parents can
come and do their laundry for free in
exchange for volunteering an hour of
their time at school and it's pretty
incredible when you think about it
because it's such a simple way to get
parents involved while at the same time
addressing their very real needs of many
of these families we generally say if
all you can do is make it to school
we'll take care of the rest
food clothes shoes health care what kind
of changes did you start to see in your
students when you started to remove
those barriers so when kids knew that we
cared there was almost like this light
bulb or this willingness to try we are
now fully accredited four years ago we
were meeting 57 for some of the
standards we now meeting 81%
we've been exceeding the state
benchmarks for two consecutive years
dr. Anderson also introduced a program
to support teen moms like Gabby as well
as parents in the community
it allowed Gabby to stay focused on
school while raising her son Carter on
top of having a baby you are a
straight-a student right yes you are
going to be class president yes and
you're on your way to being
valedictorian yes how are you doing this
all managing it all I have teachers who
are willing to work with me and my time
and Schmidt her car comes with me to my
student council events if you were
pregnant before all of these programs
were introduced before dr. Anderson what
do you think your life would be like
probably would have given up a long time
ago but with the support of like
Jennings and their programs it's been
easier we are all passing our tears what
kind of school it's making us more
excited to be here
this community borders Ferguson which is
seen a lot of unrest this is a critical
time in our country has that brought
greater urgency to the work that you do
here I believe our role is to show
people that there is a system of
oppression and to gain the greatest
amount of education they can so that
they have the power to make changes can
this work be replicated in other places
now this work we've done in Jennings can
happen anywhere in any size district and
in any community zip code should not
determine the quality of education on
health care and we will not allow for
that to determine where kids end up
in many states public schools are
closing their doors and teachers are
calling it quits
so what is the root of problem is the
u.s. education system broken find out in
our video here some experts argue that
inadequate teachers are simply a product
of low salaries as skilled professionals
are less inclined to take a low-paying
job high school teachers make an average
of $50,000 a year compared to roughly
ninety five thousand for higher ed
professors thanks for watching seeker
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