School principal Nadia Lopez was aware of the challenges she would face when she set up a school in what has been known as the "murder capital" in New York. The Mott Hall Bridges Academy, established in 2010 in Brownsville, was smack in the middle of one of New York's poorest neighborhoods with the highest murder rate. But Nadia Lopez made the commendable effort to ensure that the children in this community would get the education they deserve.
Nadia Lopez opened Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville not by her own choice. "It was the New York City Department of Education that saw a fit for a school to come into this community," she said, according to Little Things. "A small school that was specialized in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math]," she added.
It had been a challenge building and developing the school's student body especially with the odds stacked against the school principal. In Brownsville's history, only 61 percent of the students end up graduating from high school because the kids are pushed to get into a life of crime. Many of these students belong to African-American and Latino families and they are learning-challenged.
If you watched @AVAETC 13th, you understand these stats impact mass incarceration. This is why I opened a school to close a prison. pic.twitter.com/Tp1U9E4k13
— Nadia Lopez (@TheLopezEffect) November 19, 2016
But with Nadia Lopez's push, 100 percent of Mott Hall Bridges Academy's students soon graduated from high school. As principal, Nadia Lopez came up with different programs to help the students realize their potentials for a future career and improve their social well-being. Some of these programs are Digital Day for people of color, I Matter for the male students and She is Me for the female students, according to TES.
At her school, the kids are also taught financial literacy and entrepreneurship, as well as encouraged to join school-sponsored field trips. "Taking children on field trips to visit high schools and colleges plants the seeds of where they can go and where they belong," the school principal said.
One student attested Nadia Lopez's style in educating and molding students via Humans of New York on Facebook. "When we get in trouble, she doesn't suspend us," the boy said. "She tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built." Nadia Lopez shares her experience in the book "The Bridge to Brilliance: How One Principal in a Tough Community Is Inspiring the World," via Amazon.
