DC Met. Image from DCPS.

“Words cannot describe how hard it is to teach physics to students who can’t multiply,” says a science teacher in 180 days: A Year Inside an American High School, a PBS documentary chronicling a school year at Washington Metropolitan (DC Met), an alternative high school in the LeDroit Park neighborhood.

The film captures the emotional and social chaos that can overcome students’ and teachers’ best efforts at a school for struggling students.

In 2012, more than 90% of DC Met students tested at or below basic proficiency in math. Only 10% of students achieved proficiency in reading. Not a single student was advanced in math or reading.

Despite obstacles inside and outside the classroom, teachers and staff of DC Met, along with just under 300 students, pull together to organize a senior prom in the school’s cafeteria, form cheerleading, basketball, and baseball teams, chase after habitual truants, and arrange college visits.

From the ground up, the film reveals the everyday challenges of teaching and learning at DC Met, where teachers have to pay much or more attention to life’s lessons as the objectives on that day’s lesson plan.

“One of you isn’t going to make it.”

When addressing incoming freshmen, administrators at DC Met instruct the unassuming students: “Look to your right, look to your left. One of you isn’t going to make it.” One-third of 9th graders who enter the system do not graduate.

During the film you see why.

“Maybe I should start my own family, because I don’t feel love from my family,” a young woman named Raven Coston confides in part 1 of 180 Days. Her boyfriend, while incarcerated, told Raven he wanted to start a family with her. They did and this makes their situation worse. “I don’t want to be looking for food and clothes. I want to be somebody in life,” Raven shares while coming to the conclusion that being a teenage parent is “too much.”

While getting her daughter immunized at a health clinic, Raven asks the practitioner for a note for school. The nurse is taken back for a moment that Raven requests the note for herself and not her daughter. We don’t get to see Raven’s fate; her mother moves to another state in the middle of the school year, taking her daughter and granddaughter with her.

One of the most compelling characters in the film is 16-year old Rufus McDowney. He lives in a group home while attending DC Met. For students like Rufus, caught between street life and school life, the pull of peer pressure is powerful and alluring. The faculty of DC Met embrace Rufus, providing a family environment where he is challenged and can be feel comfortable challenging himself. His grades improve, and he stars on the school’s inaugural basketball team. In an interview, he makes an introspective pledge to stay off probation once his current commitment is met.

In part 2 of 180 Days, Rufus’ cousin comes to the school to withdraw him from DC Met. Because of problems with missing curfew and other issues, his guardian decides to enroll him at Forestville High School in Prince George’s County in late April. The next month Rufus is charged with theft. His last appearance in the film has him standing on the 7th Street NW steps of the National Portrait Gallery reading a short rap poem while looking over his shoulder.

Another male character featured in the film is Delaunte Bennett, an 18-year old sophomore. Previously jumping from school to school while juggling personal turmoil, Bennett is another wayward soul the faculty of DC Met welcomes with open arms. At one point Bennett flashes a bright smile after winning a small certificate during exercises leading up to the DC CAS.

In another scene, shot out of school, Bennett chronicles the provenance of his various tattoos. The one on the right side of his neck reads, “F.O.E” which, he says, stands for “Family Over Everything.”

It is unclear what happens to Bennett, but for DC Met, a school with a truancy rate of around 50%, his coming to school is an accomplishment in itself and is treated as so.

For seniors Raven Quattlebaum and Tiara Parker, not all is unclear. Throughout 180 Days we see their feelings about the college application process evolve from trepidation to jubilation. They learn they not only get into college but receive scholarships to attend Bennett College and Lincoln University, respectively.

They’re more the exception than the rule, unfortunately. I’ll next look at some of the obstacles to these kids going to college and entering the workforce.