Washed up

There's a lot to love about kids, especially their honesty and lack of guile. Just hand a 6-year-old a sandwich and ask them later how they liked it. They won't couch their answer based on what they think you want to hear: if they like the combination of peanut butter and pickle, they will tell you so, and if not, they will tell you that as well.

But a 16-year-old, now that might be different. Because you add teenaged insecurity to the urge to speak one's mind, and you hear things that would have better been left unsaid.

And teens are acutely aware of each other's sensitive points, since they have them themselves, and they can lob rocks right where it will hurt the most.

Which brings us to this:

Akbar Cook is the principal of West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, and you don't have to do much digging to find out that is one tough high school, in a crime-ridden urban area.  Students there don't tend to have all the comforts of home, and often show up at school hungry and in dirty clothes.

Or they don't show up at school, and that's even worse.

Instead of commissioning studies about the ill effects of wearing unwashed clothing, Principal Cook took the proverbial bull by the proverbial horns and did something about it!

Note to all of us: this revolutionary response - taking action instead of taking six years to discuss a problem - should be followed in many places, especially schools, before it's too late to educate.

Cook found out why the kids whose families did not have or use laundry facilities were skipping school by asking those kids what the matter was. “They were choosing to stay home rather than coming to school to be bullied or ridiculed,” he told NJ.com. “We didn’t know until we started making calls.”

He found out that the students affected were the object of harsh barbs in school, and the 21st Century version of e-cruelty: other students cruelly took photos of the disadvantaged ones and posted them on social media.

Nice, huh?


Principal Cook contacted PSE&G, New Jersey’s utility supplier, and obtained from them $20,000 to be used to set up five washers and dryers in an old football locker room.




What's more, people are donating detergent to help out. 

“I refuse to let a kid come to school smelling or dirty and I’m sitting on a shirt that says ‘West Side on it,” Cook said.

All the studies and hand-wringing in the world can't take the place of some worthwhile practical action.

“We take things for granted that are easy for us. [Cook] doesn’t,” says Ellen Lambert, retired president of the PSEG Foundation. “You want everyone to succeed, especially young people. He finds those places where success doesn’t happen and he figures out why and he goes after it.”

If this makes a difference for only one student, it would be great.  But you have to figure it will help many, and that's the greatest!