Harry Rivas is a freshman at the Legacy High School for Integrated Studies, and one of the student leaders fighting to save his school.  His Coach, Hunter Jack, offers some thoughts on what makes Harry pretty much one of the awesomest people alive.

Harry Rivas has entered The Future Project world with guns blazing.  He came into TFP with aspirations to pursue acting, and now he’s a leader in a robust grassroots campaign to save his high school from extinction. How’d that happen?

To tell you the truth, I’m not surprised.  Actor and Revolutionary require similar skills – public speaking, improvisation, knowing your lines- but ultimately I think it boils down to being a Good Human. Harry actually communicates with people; he’s present, in the moment and sees into the heart of whatever situation he’s in. He will check you too if he knows you’re talking a bunch of baloney.

With Save Legacy, he’s taken the tools he’s got and maximized their use, sharpening them along the way. I saw him get interviewed on Pix11 morning news, under hot, intense spotlights on live television. Emmy winner Frances Rivera put him in a tough spot with a vague question: “You’re a Freshman at Legacy. What’s that like?”  Harry turned the dead-end question into a heartfelt, eloquent pitch to save his school. Since then, he’s helped found the Save Legacy Coalition, engaged in a student walkout, represented Freshmen on the panel at the Board of Ed joint forum, been quoted in the NYTimes, and I’m sure a million other things that I don’t even know about.  Most importantly, he’s actualized; he’s tuned in.

I have no idea where he will go from here, but I know it’s going to be amazing.

2 Days left until the Panel for Education Policy votes on the fate of Legacy.

Joanna Manzo, a senior at Legacy and a proud member of Team Lavalishé, speaks about why young people MATTER.

Thanks to Richard R. Green High School student and Future Fellow Mariely Garcia for the great footage and killer interview skills!

This Thursday, February 9th, New York City’s Panel for Education Policy will vote on the fate of the Legacy School for Integrated Studies.  Will it remain open or will it be phased out and closed?  Will its Principal, Joan Mosely, be given the chance to continue the transformation she’s already started over the last two years, or will all that progress be thrown out and so much opportunity squandered just as it’s being realized?

Legacy is very special to us at The Future Project, since it is one of our founding partner schools.  Half of our NYC Fellows are students at Legacy.  They consistently awe us with their intelligence, passion and commitment to their community.  So it’s inspiring to see them taking matters into their own hands.  (Check out the Save Legacy Facebook Page to learn more).

If Keyla Marte and Harry Rivas, two student leaders at Legacy (and, we’re proud to say, Future Fellows both) have their way, Legacy will remain open to serve generations of future students.  And they’re not just talking talk.  They’re taking action.  Keyla and Harry led a rally last Wednesday in Union Square, a rally that attracted hundreds of high school and college students, parents and community activists protesting the closing of Legacy and twenty-four other schools in New York.

Harry Rivas (L) and Keyla Marte rally the troops at Union Square.

“Closing down the school will not solve the problem nor will opening up a new one,” Keyla told The Village Voice.  ”We already have so little because of the budget cuts…This policy of closing schools is just leaving us out, leaving us behind…We are just so disappointed.”

It’s definitely an uphill battle.  The Panel for Education Policy approves Department of Education proposals 100 times out of 100.  But we at The Future Project are standing proudly with Keyla, Harry, all of our Coaches and Fellows, and the Legacy School because the 101st time can be different.

Whatever happens, our Fellows have proven themselves to be the young leaders that the world needs.  

The mere act of taking a stand is just as important as what results from it.  

“I think their message is that students deserve to be heard, and that their opinions need to be considered in these decisions — it is, after all, their education,” beamed John-Michael Parker, The Future Project’s Executive Director for NYC.  ”There’s been a noticeable improvement in the performance and the culture of the school under [Principal] Joan Mosely.  To quash that just as it’s happening would be a shame and a lost opportunity for the city to show a real turnaround. The transformation the students and teachers have seen in the school over the past two years has given them a renewed sense of purpose and belonging.”

That’s definitely something worth fighting for.

(We’ll be updating the blog daily in the lead-up to the vote on Thursday, so check back for video and posts from fellows and coaches!)

NEW HAVEN – I’ve always lived in divided cities. First, Washington, DC: a city broken in two by Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River, bounding two polarized and disjointed socioeconomic communities. I attended Woodrow Wilson High School in upper northwest, where 1500+ students filed into two sets of classrooms—AP classes for those with families of means; basic courses for those who had less. Two groups, economically and racially segregated, who shared a lunchroom but never spoke. Today, I live in New Haven: another city of patchwork neighborhoods, where streets are broken into blocks labeled “safe” or “dangerous,” “on-campus” or “off,” “ours” or “theirs.”

Until The Future Project arrived, there were few, if any, opportunities for collaboration across city lines. And so, it felt significant when a diverse group of Future Coaches recently gathered for dinner at a restaurant downtown.

That night, I sat next to Stefan, a student at Southern Connecticut State University. Upon learning I was a student at Yale, he remarked: “It’s terrible, but—do you know what we say about Yale students? It’s a running joke that you guys don’t know how to cross streets. That you feel so entitled you just walk out in front of cars and expect them to stop for you.”

Of course, Yalies like to respond that New Haven residents just don’t know how to drive—they don’t even stop for red lights—so any opportunity to cross the street should be seized with both hands. Continually, two groups justified their silence with comments that reinforced stereotypes of aggression and entitlement. Stefan and I agreed: both campuses should collaborate on some big project, whether a service project or a field day or a dialogue about city relations.
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NEW HAVEN – Future Fellow Kaitlin Pozarlik from New Haven Academy was recognized as the best student in America last week for being an “amazing inspiration” to her school and community!

Kaitlin won Get Schooled’s national Student of the Week Award, an award that she was nominated for by her Future Coach Kristen Pesavento, a student at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. The Student of the Week Award is given by Get Schooled, a national organization that uses social media to help students go to college and beyond. Get Schooled writes:

As a student at the college-prep New Haven Academy, Kaitlin Pozarlik is definitely headed to college. She wants to be a preschool teacher and already has plans to start taking college courses during her junior year in high school. She knows how important education is for future success.

Kaitlin’s future project is called the Purple Ribbon Project, and it encompasses raising money and awareness for domestic violence. Essentially she wants to hold a huge benefit concert featuring local bands to raise money, as well as survivor speakers, and a candle light vigil.
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PART ONE – I opened up the textbook on human intelligence and started flipping through the pages. A chart caught my eye. It listed the average IQ scores of people at different levels of academic and occupational success. At the top was the average IQ of Ph.D.’s. I was way lower than that number. I went down the list. College graduate? Closer, but still no cigar. Semi-skilled laborer? In my dreams. My blood pressure rose as I finally reached my level: lucky to graduate high school.

In a fit of panic, I threw the intelligence book as far as I could. Unfortunately, the librarians didn’t appreciate my display of passion. As they came running toward me, I could just read the look in their eyes, “Code Rainbow, Code Rainbow, learning disabled student acting up again!”

One day, sitting in the ‘resource room’ bored out of my mind, a substitute teacher came up to me and asked to speak to me after class. She looked me right in the eyes. I’ll never forget what she said next: “You seem too bright to be here. Why are you here?” I was startled by this question. No one had ever asked me anything like that before. It had not even dawned on me to ask myself that question. I suddenly realized I had no good answer.
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NEW YORK – Last week Future Fellows unveiled the first-ever class of future projects at our Project Panels in New York, New Haven and Washington, D.C.. Panelists from the community heard groundbreaking new ideas from across the spectrum, whether in the arts, technology, education, politics, music, sports, or more.

There are school clubs, after-school programs, fledgling businesses, books, fundraisers, performances and other ideas. But the thing that tied them all together is the enormous impact they can all have in their school or community – or the world at large.

One panelist, a teacher in New Haven, said: “Often I feel like I’m trying to get my students excited in class, but here they were, lit up and glowing about what they want to accomplish.”
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NEW HAVEN – Check out the article in the New Haven Independent this week about New Haven Future Fellows and their Future Projects. The article focuses specifically on members of Team SWAG who are all working together to create a groundbreaking new documentary about bullying and it’s consequences. But it’s a future project because each of them is focusing on his or her individual passion to make this come to life – including film, writing, production and marketing.

“So many people are bullied in school. I see it on the bus, I see it in class,” said junior Alisha Giglil. She’s dealt with bullies herself at the school. At a time when her dad was in and out of her life, “I didn’t want to come to school, but I didn’t want to go home, either,” she remembered.

You can see Team SWAG presenting their project below.
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NEW YORK – Today, two of our Future Fellows from Legacy School for Integrated Studies in New York City were interviewed on WPIX 11, a local TV station, about their role in working to save their school from being phased out by the NYC Department of Education. Both Fellows, Keyla Marte and Harry Rivas, were invited to appear because they made a very compelling case at a recent town hall meeting about why the school is just at the start of a process of improvement and should be kept open and supported.

The Department of Education has proposed phasing out the Legacy School due to many years of low graduation rates and a failing grade on their progress report. There is controversy in the community due to the fact that a new administration was brought in last year, and many think the new Principal has made substantial improvements but needs more time to show progress. 
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NEW HAVEN – Today on Vision Day, I was inspired. Whenever asked my passion, I would say dance because that’s just what I always did and just do. There were always other things I secretly loved and hoped for, also things I just had a knack for. So today has made me 100% sure of what I want to do for my Future Project, and 99% sure of what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I love kids, specifically ones with disabilities. I love the feeling of guiding people not for the glory or the praise I might get, but to see smiles on young faces.

So I want to start…

Every Star Will Shine. Without Laura Winnick and the Future Project, I wouldn’t have known I had a passion deeper than dance. I also wouldn’t have known what I want to spend my life doing. I feel as though, if you’re going to choose a job, it should be a job that makes your passion be a part of bringing our world into a brighter new world that we have to create. Thank  you, Future Project.
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