La Familia

Pecina left too soon for many at Alta Vista. Armed with a graduate education paid for by the Guadalupe Center, Pecina eventually took a job with Central Missouri State University, which sponsors Alta Vista's charter. "He wanted to be a professor," Guerrero says. "Part of our mission was to help him do what he wanted to do." Pecina still comes back every year on field trips, bringing students from his multicultural-education classes.

Pecina was replaced by Larry Pulos, a white man who had once worked in a prison. Pulos didn't last a year. "He had good intentions," Gusman says. "But he didn't have that nurturing, soft, tender way. Which here you really have to have."

Students organized a walkout in February 2001. A few days later, Pulos put in for some time off and never returned. Guerrero filled in while the school embarked on its search for a new principal, which eventually led to Cole.

"At the interview," she says, "when they asked me, 'What is your ideal for a good principal?' I said, 'Me.'"

Cole is short, with a round, young face. Though she's black, she often blends into the crowd at Alta Vista, especially when she wears the school uniform, white shirt and tan pants. "Students have adapted to her well," Gusman says. "They like her personality. She's flexible. She'll work with students if they have a problem."

But she's still tough. Consequently, Sylvia has to endure school without her best friend. Sylvia thinks Cole is a hypocrite. "She talks about how she wants to keep kids in school," Sylvia says. "Then she turns around and suspends them."

In government class, Mendez leads a discussion on Mayor Kay Barnes' big plans to build an arena downtown. "Do you think that's a good idea?" Mendez asks.

Most of the kids in the class say yes, but Sylvia crumples her face into a scowl. "We can use that money to do better things," she says. "We don't even have that much stuff at Kemper."

The bell rings, and she slinks up to the science room for an hour in Dan Groff's class. The room is small, about 20 feet by 20 feet. A dozen or so students crowd around several narrow Rubbermaid folding tables. Sylvia takes a seat in the back corner, near a sink with broken handles. She sniffs at the air. "Mr. Groff, it smells like a sewer," she complains.

"That's what it is," he says without hesitation. "It's sewer gas."

The offending odor appears to be coming up from the bowels of the school through the drain in the sink. "It smells bad," she says, grimacing.

"Well, move," Groff says.

She shrugs and turns her attention to the boy sitting next to her, who sports a thin curl of whiskers on the tip of his chin. She reaches out and fondles them, which doesn't seem to bother the boy a bit. Sylvia seems well aware of her prettiness. She wears her long, black hair pulled back to display her slim face, and her khakis ride low on her hips to show off her belly button.

For today's lesson about crystals, Groff hands out worksheets for the students to fill out independently by hunting through a textbook for answers. Like the rest of the class, Sylvia is immediately bored by the activity and begins chatting with the kid next to her.

"Crap," exclaims Kandi Diaz, a senior sitting on the other side of the room. "I don't like science."

The contrast between Groff's teaching style and that of Mendez is striking. Guerrero says Alta Vista has struggled to find good math and science teachers because there are so few available. But he also admits it's hard to find teachers who fit the needs of this school's students. "A lot of times we end up with teachers that have, on paper, very good credentials, but a lot of times they don't do well in class," he explains. "And in the past, we've had to go through the difficult experience of getting rid of teachers because they don't relate to the kids. We listen to kids a lot as to whether or not we should keep teachers. Kids will tell you, 'We don't learn nothing in that class.'"

Groff believes that he does relate to his students. He likens his work at Alta Vista to a mission of service. He, too, took a pay cut to teach at Alta Vista. He had been a manufacturer's rep for 3M, selling traffic-light control systems to municipal fire and police departments. He's an older man, white, with thinning hair and a widening midsection ("I think he's kinda senile," Sylvia says), and had been pondering seminary school and a late-life career as a priest. But church members persuaded him to return to his earlier vocation of teaching. "I haven't regretted a day of it," he says.