Working Together

23 Aug Working Together

“I’m Austin, and I’m seventeen–“

“Eighteen,” Johnathan interjects. “He’s eighteen.”

“Man, he’s right,” Austin says, starting to laugh. “I AM eighteen.”

Austin and his two friends Johnathan and Jasmine, both 17, are the kind of tight where you remember that your friend had a birthday, even if they forgot. The two young men met in third grade and Jasmine joined the crew in sixth grade, when the three were all overage students at P.S. 327.

Since then, they’ve joined Tomorrow’s Leaders NYC, attended Roads Charter, and are nearly caught up to their original peer group in school. Now, less than three years after 7th grade, they’re poised to graduate from high school. For today’s Monday’s Leaders, we caught up with Austin, Johnathan, Jasmine and Toyin to talk school, friendship, and where they’ll go from here.

Journey to Tomorrow’s Leaders

Each of the three ended up at the doors of Roads Charter for different reasons. Johnathan, who was born in Jamaica and moved to NYC at the age of six, sat sixth grade three times before starting with Tomorrow’s Leaders. He freely accepts responsibility for his educational stall-out. “Laziness,” he says, when asked to identify what was keeping him back. “I knew all the work, but I just didn’t want to do anything. I was tired of school.”