The direc T ion righ T B

ryan Adams High School in the 1990s could be a rough place. Some students carried weapons, affiliated with gangs and used drugs in the dried-up creek bed near the campus.

Fights regularly broke out in the hallways or cafeteria.

By 2006, the school had been rated academically unacceptable three years running.

DISD Teacher of the Year John McCollum is a guiding light for drama students Gerame and Jenae Green, and Kelsey Cook.

story by Christina h ughes b abb photos by sean mc ginty Fish Pottery Construction Receive 10% off youR next in stoRe puRchase with this ad! www.creativewatergardens.net demically unacceptable” range, but which also set the school on course for redemption. bryan Adams has seen periods of “student unrest,” says drama and math teacher John mcCollum, who has been at bryan Adams the better part of the last 25 years. He left bryan Adams for three years in the late 1990s to work in Cape Cod, then moved to Gaston middle School in east Dallas before returning to bryan Adams in 1997. even when things looked bleak for bryan Adams, mcCollum and likeminded teachers and coaches pro- vided light for students who wanted to learn.

“When I came back, the school really didn’t feel happy,” he says.

Neighborhood resident Quentin m endoza, a 1993 graduate, says even though he was aware of bad things happening around him, he had a good group of friends — “We kept each other out of trouble,” he says and he had a mentor in mcCollum, affectionately known as “mac” by his students.

“He inspired us to step beyond ourselves and think outside the confines of our petty high school existence. At least half of the memories I cherish from bryan Adams are a result of my involvement with theater and the influence of mac,” mendoza says.

“He and [a few other teachers and coaches] inspired me to focus my energy on developing my talents and intelligence, so the more dubious distractions of high school seemed a great deal less interesting.” mcCollum says he has always loved bryan Adams (“I bleed kelly-green blood,” he jokes), but when the new principal came on board, she greatly improved campus life, he says.

“We became a much tighter ship,” mcCollum says.

With almost 30 years of experience under her belt, one of Goodsell’s first moves was pinpointing and rid- ding the campus of unauthorized enrollees. there were about 700 students at the school who didn’t live in bryan Adams’ attendance district. removing the students caused temporary turmoil, she says. Some of the transferred students hung around the campus and committed petty crimes in the surrounding neighborhood.

And after enrollment dropped from 2,600 to 1,900, Goodsell faced criticism for costing bryan Adams academic ratings — because the drop affected the “graduation rate”, which is weighed heavily by the t exas education Agency when determining school ratings — and money — since state funding for schools is based upon student enrollment. but as the dust settles, she says, the school is left with a more manageable student population.

After a student came close to dying from a drug overdose, Goodsell learned that students were using drugs near the creek along the campus perimeter. Goodsell says she found a way to keep students out of the creek area (she won’t reveal the secret). She curbed rampant tardiness (300-400 tardy reports a day) by corralling late students into