In West Baltimore, federal and state education officials met with students and community leaders in the neighborhood where protests over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray turned violent and captured the attention of the nation.

Some of the 882 students at Fredrick Douglass High School captured the attention of state and federal leaders as they met privately in emotional sessions that discussed the issue, according to The Washington Post.

The high school has routinely struggled with low test scores and rising poverty, and the officials designed the sessions, which were closed to news media, to give the students a chance to be heard.

"[Education Secretary Arnie]Duncan, who with [Labor Secretary Thomas] Perez discussed federal grants that are available to the Baltimore community to help it recover from the traumatic events, said he thinks 'all of us as adults need to do a better job . . . of meeting them halfway and giving them the opportunity to be successful,'" according to The Post.

And more opportunity it desperately needs. In 2014, after aggressive efforts to turn the under-performing school around, the school's graduation rate rose to 57%, a still dismal statistic but an improvement from the 29% the school saw a decade earlier.

As for the sessions, students spoke favorably of meeting with the officials.

According to The Post, "Jade Malonga, 16, an 11th-grader at Baltimore’s Dunbar High School, said the meetings signaled to her that young people were finally getting their say. She suggested getting a group of young people from Baltimore to meet consistently with public officials."

After the sessions, the officials spoke in a news conference and said the meetings went well, but "offered few specifics to address their concerns about a lack of job opportunities and after-school activities."

Read the full story here and comment below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

05/08/2015