| Damon Horn: helping kids believe again
The 32-year-old teacher realized he had a knack for numbers and business from the time he was a little boy. He decided to enroll in Grambling college to major in business. He received his Bachelor's of Science degree and had a strong urge to return to his East Palo Alto community. "I wanted to go back and make a difference," said Horn, who was teaching algebra to his students at the academy. "When I got back all the guys I grew up with were either dead or in jail." Horn didn't want to see another community of men wind up incarcerated or in a morgue, so he decided to help rather than hurt the community. "I'm here by the Grace of God," said the six-foot-four-inch, 290-pound teacher. Lt. Ron Sibley, who has worked for the East Palo Alto police department for past 12 years, said he remembered Horn. "I am so proud of him," said a laughing Lt. Sibley. "I remember always warning him and now he's a school teacher." The Grambling business major used to sell marijuana and crack cocaine on the street markets, as Lt. Sibley calls them, on the corners of East Palo Alto. "Yeah, I was a knuckle head like them," said Horn, who is now married to a church-going woman he met in Texas. "I didn't want to listen to anybody." But he had a grandmother "who wouldn't give up on me," said Horn. "I just couldn't lie anymore to her and that's when I decided to straighten up." Today teachers like Horn can join the 49ers Academy, which was built through a joint effort by a private national program called Communities in Schools, the Ravenswood School District in East Palo Alto and the professional football team, the San Francisco 49ers. In September 1995, the 49ers Academy opened its doors to educate 100 12- to 15 year-old males, who have trouble focusing on school and to offer them a deterrent to the violence they often see in their East Palo Alto neighborhood, which was deemed the murder capital of the United States in 1992. That year, there were 42 homicides in the two-and-a-half-square-mile community of 23,000 residents, the highest per capita killing rate in the country. "The bodies were piling up like cord wood," said former East Palo Alto Police Chief Burnie Matthews. "It was just a cesspool with only 35 police officers at the time." And on a rainy night in December, Matthews poured his heart out to the media for help. That is when the neighboring police departments, state agencies, and federal law enforcement sent in a cavalry of police officers from San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol, the California Board of Prison Terms, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Service. This collaboration was called the Regional Enforcement Detail, also known as the RED team. "Nowadays when children come to school they have parents who are strung out on crack," said Horn, who knows the parents of his students. "I can't teach children math, if they're hungry and homeless." Drawing Algebraic polynomials onto the white board with his red marker in an after school program, Horn points out the importance of studying and staying in school to the six lads studying for the Golden Gate Exam. "Remember my rules," said Horn, as he pointed up to the signs hanging along the wall: "Rule number one, "Nobody owes you, you owe yourself!, Rule number two, Respect yourself!, Rule number three, Self preservation is the first law of nature." Some of Horn's students have spent time in Juvenile Halls, and were referred to the Academy by their probation officers. A few students were referred by their parents, who could no longer control them. The rest were out of control in classrooms, acted as class clowns or threatened their teachers. From background working as a field salesman to being often called a "Shiestee" (a hater) by his students, Horn had doubts he would be able to continue his career in education, at first. "When school started it used to be teacher abuse," said Horn. "I felt like throwing in the towel." But Horn didn't give up. "I want little Black and Latino boys to believe in themselves," said Horn. "I want them to know that they come from a rich culture. I want to teach that knowledge of self is the key." |
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