Skylar Griessel - Ads Manager
Upon my first visit to Henderson, I roamed the naked hallways with front desk permission but no visitor’s pass. The front doors opened to the cafeteria, consisting of only nine tables and about 60 chairs. I really wasn’t sure. A short walk about the block brought me right back to the front, and I whispered to myself, “I have shoeboxes bigger than this school.”
Trying to get lost, I ventured to the second floor, where I happened upon what was unmistakably an English room. The lights were off and the entire space vacant, but still the door was open. Peering out the window, I could see a fenced off sandbox adjacent to a plastic slide, a child’s club house and other day care toys. A short comparison took flight in my mind. This was an unusual scene as opposed to the view from the 200s hallways: the Purdy Spit and heavy traffic with a lovely sunrise. I tried to imagine what it might be like to be doing my school work and to look out the window at my son or daughter playing in the sand.
The first floor smelt like brownies: a daycare activity I would have to miss out on. I ran into Dan Gregory, the school principal. After handshakes and introductions, he tells me to call him Dan. He told me it’s more personal this way.
Monday came rapidly. I took my first steps off the familiar PHS sidewalk and into chilly unmarked territory: Henderson Bay High School, an alternative school notorious for housing the drug-addicted, the negative slackers and the pregnant.
“The two things people will pay extra for are energy drinks and cigarettes,” a former Peninsula student said. “You could sell a cigarette for a dollar. By the way,” he said pointing to a friend, “you owe me $2.”
First period: a core class — independent study. My tablemates told me everything’s good here except for the “pee tests.”
“If you just lie when you get in, you’re OK,” one said.
This one’s a year-long veteran with one UA (urine analysis) under her belt, besides the required first. The nurse calls for John, a senior with two children. If he is “busted” John will be suspended for 10 days and will need to go to group therapy every Monday or Wednesday.
“Is that why you’re drinking cranberry juice?” I asked. With a casual shrug, he told me if I ever know for sure that I have “dirty piss” to just pound water to dilute it, but I never once considered my urine to be clean anyway. Here there are four bottles of water and one of cranberry juice.
Cuss words just seemed like a normal part of everyone’s vocabulary, though still frowned upon. Fifteen students in my first period wondered why there are two teachers and four chairs to every two tables.
Second period: a 10th-grade-level English class. I remembered doing D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language) in fourth grade, thinking, “When will I ever do this again?” That day I got my answer.
Again there were 15 students including myself, 11 of them are boys. Henderson seemed to be a very thirsty school. Here there are two bottles of water, one Pepsi, one NOS, and one coffee. Every student had a book. Almost all of them had at least a binder, but this doesn’t mean they use them. “I never doing anything,” an old friend tells me.
I’m so used to doing all my school work individually, normally not even within the walls of a classroom. Working as a class, with table-mates, outside of math class seemed more awkward than the filthy piss conversation first period. Their work ethic seemed rare in comparison to participation. Despite the six pairs of headphones, everyone here had something to say.
During the 15 minute breakfast break between second and third period, I decided to visit the daycare. “Is your name Skylar?” Long Brown Hair And Cute Green Top asks me. “I think you went to Voyager.”
Her name was Michelle, but all those years at KPMS must have erased her from my mind. Why was she here? Talking to the director of the teen-parent childcare center left too much room for questions. Where was the last place I had seen her? On the monkey bars maybe, playing tetherball, and now she could be here dropping off a child nearing that same age — her child. Elementary accusations left me in shock, and she was gone.
Peg tells me about the 32 children in the Henderson daycare program. “We provide comprehensive programming to teen parents in the district,” she says proudly.
“Hello friends!” What Must Have Been Two Years Old said, smiling. I might’ve had class with his mother next. It took me a long time to realize it, but the majority of the women I’ve attended class with today are parents. Some of them might’ve been even younger than I am. I’ve been called a few things, a few weird things, but never “Mom.” One girl said they have a 90 percent success rate. One out of the 10 teen parents that enroll their children here won’t graduate high school. I might eat lunch with that one person. I might bump into them on my way to the bus. It might be my second-grade friend.
My English 10 inmates miss Peninsula’s off campus regulations. To one, Henderson is like a big daycare — or a toned down prison. What students are able or allowed to do is limited, though journal entries are choice, and video notes are handed to students like candy on Halloween. Some students find Henderson boring:
“It’s because when you go to Peninsula you start smoking pot and just go to Henderson by choice,” he said, “then after you get caught and out of rehab, you think you don’t have any friends; so everything just gets boring, and it just sucks.” His answers were simple and blunt, but most around the conversation agreed. Ready to graduate, he could be out within his junior year of high school. “Over the past year, I just got really lazy,” he said. “If I went back to Peninsula, I’d fail.” My temporary peers in science class seemed to disagree with him. “I like class better,” one said, twirling his lip ring. “There’s just more freedom,” but another’s mad pen-clicking denotes a dangerous state of boredom.
Fourth period: Walking Fitness, where they served cocoa and cider with candy canes.
“I used to go smoke weed when we went to the woman’s prison.” The cold bit at my fingertips as this one pointed out all the smoking spots. Not all of them are for weed — there are specifics. This boy’s cigarettes come cheap: a quarter if in luck.
“Last week, I was seriously contemplating it,” another said, but it means suicide. Conversations with past-close friends got serious quickly. Two miles is enough distance to talk about life’s deepest philosophies. The only thing Henderson seemed to be missing is motivation. I could graduate on time, this one told me, if I got motivated. This seemed to be a common thought. As we walked in silence, I thought of all the scenarios where I could use motivation as a valid excuse. The list goes on.
“The army recruiters never come here. They don’t want us,” he says. “I’ll bet if they came here they’d get like half the school,” he said. Our tablemates agreed, still slightly offended. “At Peninsula you might see the booth with a couple kids doing push-ups, but no one actually takes it serious,” he said. “I’d sign up.”
My fifth and final period: Financial Math. Nine students, three of them boys, and one pink lemonade: Tropicana juice. It seemed the students had less to complain about. As a favor, one boy asked me to bring some “hot bitches” back with me next time. The conversation turned to the positive — how clean their school is. With only about 80 students eating lunch, that’s one thing Henderson has over Peninsula.
“Everything’s clean here,” he says jokingly. “Except our piss,” Josh adds. These former rehab residents told me how relevant the two establishments are. “It’s just like this, but you sleep there.”
Dressed all in black, a teen mother brushes her students’ childishness away with her hand. Even the rims on her glasses were the same intimidating shade. Their books smelled new, one of high school’s simple pleasures you take with you when you leave.
I went there to be a Henderson student for a day: to get the concrete story and to feel whatever it is that these students feel; but as disappointing as it is, that’s impossible. I wasn’t the one to get pulled out of first period to go pee in a cup. I wasn’t there for a fix or to pick up my child. I wasn’t there because of expulsion or drug addiction. I was there writing an article, though my pen moved slowly that day, and everyone knew it.