Essay On Eastside High School

Many people are given the opportunity to overcome challenges that can change their life. In the movie Lean on Me, the students and faculty of the inner city school Eastside High School, located in Paterson New Jersey, are given such opportunity.

Over the years Eastside High has created a horrible image. When mentioning Eastside High to the residents of Paterson New Jersey, they will give a look of discuss. People believe that Eastside High is a lost hope. The students’ behavior are unbelievable, with all the fights, drugs that are sold and abused, all the disruption in the classes, would all result in the outcome of students scoring poorly on the state’s test. After a teacher was brutally beaten for trying to break up a fight, the state government recently passed a law stating that schools who could not meet minimum test score requirements will be obtain the school. At that time of trouble Eastside was appointed a new principal named Joe Clark, played by Morgan Freeman.

Joe Clark was a former elementary school principal and teacher at Eastside high 20 years. Once hired as Eastside High principal, Clark was determined to change Eastside High around and make a difference in the community and the students live. When entering Eastside, Clark could see that his goals would not be easy to accomplish. Walking through the halls of Eastside High, Clark could see students misbehaving in the classrooms and hallways, teacher struggling to maintain order in their own classrooms, administration unable to enforce control over the students, students using profanity and disrespecting the teachers and each other. After seeing what was going on in Eastside High, Clark began to enforce his rules in a matter of days.

At his first meeting, Clark talks...

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...dent body came marching to the Central Office of the Paterson Board of Education. They screaming and demanding that Clark should be released from jail and that they would not remove him from Eastside High as their principal. Mrs. Barrett tried to explain to the students that Clark was unfit, but the students would not listen to her. They explained to her and the mayor that Joe Clark was more than principal at Eastside High he was like a father figure. Students were able see that Clark cared more about them and school pride than everything else.

After seeing how much Clark has affected those students’ lives and with enough Eastside High students pass the state’s test, Clark was released from jail and was able to keep his job as principal of Eastside High. Everyone from Eastside High was able to overcome the challenge that would have changed everything in their lives.