West Windsor-Plainsboro North students swap school with Lincoln High in Philadelphia
By: Emily Craighead
During an exchange between their two schools, students at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North and Lincoln High School in Philadelphia discovered that numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Nearly 85 percent of West Windsor-Plainsboro high school students went on to college after graduation in 2004. At Lincoln High School, only 55 percent went on to higher education.
The students encountered other differences, as well, when North students visited Lincoln Nov. 3, and when the Lincoln students came to North on Wednesday.
The metal detectors and security guards at Lincoln High School contrasted sharply with the freedom students enjoy at High School North, where they have free reign over the school during the lunch hour.
"The biggest shock is the freedom," said Lena Namnun, a Lincoln social studies teacher.
Ms. Namnun and Brett Charleston, a social studies teacher at North, who planned the program, thought students at both schools could benefit from taking a step outside their worlds. Both teachers are seeking their principal certification from Holy Family University.
"The difference in settings didn’t really change the people," North senior John Byrnes said. "It was the same kids in a different setting."
Although Nicole Salern, another senior at North, said she contemplated buying pepper spray before visiting Lincoln a few weeks ago, she wasn’t surprised at how well she got along with her counterparts at the inner-city school.
"Education-wise, I thought going in that everyone would be caught up in violence, but they do want to study," she said. "We all have the same ambitions."
Ms. Namnun wants her students to hold onto those ambitions, and reach higher.
"Our kids need to get a fire under them to get motivated," Ms. Namnun said.
Too many students at Lincoln drop out because of problems that seem more urgent than getting a high school diploma a parent in jail, pregnancy according to Kataney Couamin, a junior at Lincoln. The option to leave school at 16 is like an invitation to some students.
"That option alone bothers me, because it’s like saying it’s OK to be dumb," Kataney said.
High School North’s two security guards provided another perspective on life at a suburban school to the Lincoln students who are accustomed to seeing security guards and hall monitors break up fights almost daily.
The most common problem at North, according to Cory Durham, one of the guards, is the theft of a Louis Vuitton handbag or an iPod. Any fights, he said, are usually announced ahead of time, giving the administration a chance to nip them in the bud.
Students from Lincoln and North came out of the exchange perhaps not changed for life, but at least able to put a human face to the abstract idea of urban versus suburban schools.

