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What would it look like for 100% of high school seniors to be engaged — truly engaged — in a program where being prepared for college and life is the goal?
Dr. Garland Thomas-McDavid, CEO of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools, hopes to find out.
In 2022 she launched Operation: Finishline, a six-week college preparatory program designed to support high school seniors students at the school — known as LAB — through the process of choosing a college that’ll give them the greatest chance of success.
Through small group mentorship, college research, intensive SAT prep, and more, the program focuses on shifting students’ attitudes toward college and increasing their chance of obtaining an undergraduate degree.
“Everybody wants the best for their kids, and everybody wants their kid to succeed — they may not know how to get there,” Thomas-McDavid tells Word In Black. “It’s up to us to light that path. It’s up to us to create that meaningful experience.”
Research by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows a decline of nearly 5% — 662,000 fewer students — enrolled in undergraduate programs in spring 2022 compared to the year before.
The decline among Black students is even steeper, with colleges reporting a nearly 7% decline in enrollment between fall 2020 and fall 2022. Reports like this spurred Thomas-McDavid and her team to figure out how to boost those numbers among their students.
“Feed the spirits of these children and plant seeds that may have never been planted about who they are, about their value, about their worth.”
DR. GARLAND THOMAS-MCDAVID
Brooklyn Lab, a 6-12th grade public school, is located in a heavily gentrified area of downtown Brooklyn. Ninety-three percent of students who graduate are Black or Hispanic, with 77% of students falling below the poverty threshold.
“People would say I went into a really rough community there and worked in really tough neighborhoods, and I would always be like, this feels like home,” Thomas-McDavid says.
That’s because Thomas-McDavid grew up in a poverty-stricken East New York and experienced first-hand the direct impact of family substance abuse, a low-quality education, and a lack of resources.
“Our work has been around getting back in the lab, back to its excellence, getting classrooms stronger, improving the culture.”
DR. GARLAND THOMAS-MCDAVID
“It’s not just about widening the door for the children,” she says. “I also have to narrate, lift up the hood, and teach from this role and help people — women and men around me — get there.”
Thomas-McDavid spent two decades building the future of tomorrow’s leaders in the Chicago Public Schools but felt it was only right to return to her hometown to implement teaching methods, training, and programs that drive students in the right direction.
“Being conscious of our need to feed the spirits of these children and plant seeds that may have never been planted about who they are, about their value, about their worth,” she says.
Through schoolwide programs like a ‘Success Looks Like Me’ career fair and this year’s theme of “Back in The LAB,” Thomas-McDavid is set on rebuilding a school historically known for the quality of education for Black and Brown students, but the campus has culturally shriveled in that aspect over the years.
“I would hear, ‘that was the school you were supposed to send your kids to before, but then something changed,’” she says. “Our work has been around getting back in the lab, back to its excellence, getting classrooms stronger, improving the culture.”
