By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer

LA Daily News

RESEDA – Like too many other African-American students at Cleveland High, Brae Brown was a slacker – ignoring teachers, cutting class, failing subjects.

Then came the day a dedicated group of educators pulled Brown and his friends into the auditorium classroom for a reality check – dismal test scores, high dropout rates and a bleak future as adults.

That first session two years ago shocked Brown and moved others to tears. It also spurred them to action.

“I got more serious when I saw the dropout rates and talked about how we were doing,” said Brown, now 16 and earning average grades as a junior. “I said, I don’t want to be one of those people. I didn’t want to be a statistic.”

The program known as The Village is one of the success stories in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Targeting the 300 black students among the 3,700 teens attending Cleveland, the monthly workshops seek to understand the connections between culture and academics. (more…)