Monday, September 5, 1988/The Battalion/Page 5
Marines
We're looking fora few good men and women.
Capt. Mahany 77 846-9036/8891
#MSC
TOWN HALL
concert committee
is now accepting
NEW MEMBERS
APPLICATIONS WILL BE AVAILABLE
In the Town Hall Cube located In the
MSC Student Programs Office until Thur. Sept 8th.
NEW from Hewlett-Packard
'Principal helps fight drug war
ALLAS (AP) — His arms were
i, driving punch after punch
into Toro’s face, but Frank Romero
coiild not stop. Finally he had the
^-.oversized gang leader’s shoulders
ca yjpifned to the floor in his office.
WToro, an eighth-grader, a man-
icecdbov, had taken on the principal. In a
Ht of strength, Toro had taken the
swing. If Toro won, Romero
' would still be the principal. But
Tiro and his gang would run L.V.
iy... otockard middle school.
, BRomero won. He won because
sm Jtht i e was no other way.
■Stockard lies far across the Trinity
Ri\ ;r from the great glass towers of
0*802401 dowmown Dallas, in west
I Hllas, an expanse of projects, ten-
* Hents and faded little houses forsa
ke! by better times.
^^^■Drugs have invaded schools in all
: Neighborhoods, rich and poor. But,
in the declining years at Stockard,
y^Hy have become an institution, has-
e- fctiing a tragic deterioration. Yet
theie is success, however limited.
uss^iEvery day, violence and despair
tug the school back toward the hell
rr Romero found when he arrived five
years ago. To keep it from falling, to
prove to the seventh- and eignth-
: grade kids who see no hope that
“He’s tough on everybody. He gets what he wants. He’s
been through what we’re going through.”
— Rene Esqueda
Stocksdale Middle School student
someone does believe they stand a
chance, Romero must win — every
day.
He has had scalding water slung
in his face. He has taken pistols from
young men. He has waded into gang
fights alone with a stick.
Each time he has won.
Romero grew up one of 15 chil
dren. He was raised in a two-room
house and endured the roughest of
times. He is not big but rather bear
ish with dark, short hair gone silver
at 54. His eyes can twinkle and he
can laugh. His face can be impassive
as a judge when he hears the latest
excuse of one of his regular truants.
Eighty percent of Stockard’s 1,100
students are Mexican-Americans,
the same culture Romero grew up in
El Paso.
And this is his magic: He can
sense unspoken signals and find a
way to reach students when every
one else has given up. Students
know Romero is willing to go to the
source of their trouble.
He has confronted local mer
chants he suspects of selling dope to
kids, squared off with brutal fathers,
cussed out negligent mothers.
For a certain fragile segment of
Stockard’s student body, the princi
pal is a source of moral support.
“He’s tough on everybody,” Rene
Esqueda, 14, said. “He gets what he
wants. He’s been through what we’re
going through.”
It is not like adolescents to make it
easy, though.
Romero said, “Some need a chew
ing out. Some need h paddle and
you hit ’em hacd.
“The bottom line is you don’t let a
kid in seventh and eighth grade
think he can outsmart you,” he said.
He has initiated special tutoring
and mentoring programs that iden
tify troubled children and help them
— programs successful enough to be
emulated at 25 other Dallas schools.
But it is the violence, the drugs,
the poverty — “the basics,” he calls
them — that have been Romero’s
continuing challenge.
Stockard had chewed up seven
school administrations in the 10
years before Romero came. After
1983, his first year, Romero was
honored as Principal of the Year in
the Dallas school district.
“They think that I deserve this. I
don’t,” he said. They believe you can
change things overnight, in a year,
but 1 didn’t.
“There are probably more kids
doing drugs here,” he said, compar
ing his school to others.
“We may not have made big
changes but we got a handle on it.
They believe in us. Nobody gets
away with squat around here.
Before and after school, during
classes and in between.Sometimes he
carries a walkie-talkie, sometimes his
oak paddle. He is never out of touch
for very long with a front office that
is more like a crisis center. And the
students are never out of step when
they see him coming.
HEWLETT
PACKARD
HP-28S
HP-22S
11C
Scientific
$46.00
22S
$49.95
32S
$59.95
15C
$64.00
27C
$89.95
28S
$185.00
12C
Financial
$64.00
17B
$89.00
19B
$142.95
September 6-Northgate-8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Hewlett Packard Factory Rep. Roy Brezlowski
Texas Instruments Factory Rep. John Fairchild
Er?
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