The Final Exam

The Promise

Nashville Public Radio

Society & Culture

4.9 • 777 Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s February 2020, and Warner Elementary’s star is rising. It’s showing so much progress this year that it might be able to go from one of the lowest performing schools in Tennessee to one of the best. Now it’s just time to hunker down and work until the big state test at the end of the year.

But we all know what happens next. First, a natural disaster in Nashville. Then, a global pandemic. And at a school with low-income students, these challenges hit especially hard.

“I'm tired of fighting for kids. One person can’t consistently carry that burden,” Warner principal Ricki Gibbs said. “I was at a point where I was going to say, ‘You can have Warner. This is too much.’”

In this dramatic final episode of Season 2, crisis brings Warner’s challenges to a breaking point.

The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Previously on The Promise.
0:06.6	I mean, the system is rigged.
0:08.1	The system is rigged against parents.
0:09.6	It's rigged against schools.
0:11.5	A lot of kids that come from this type of background,
0:13.4	they go down to, you know what I'm saying?
0:14.7	They don't go down to gather.
0:15.7	They jump in gangs.
0:17.7	They, you know what I'm saying?
0:19.2	They drop out of school.
0:21.3	He was supposed to be in my class, and I was supposed to make a difference.
0:25.8	Yeah, economics plays a huge role in the success of students.
0:30.5	But if you give me the right environment with a group of highly skilled,
0:37.1	highly trained professionals, we can still make
0:40.7	magic happen for our boys and girls.
0:48.9	It's February 27, 2020, at 130 sharp, when the shiny black SUV pulls up to Warner Elementary.
0:58.7	The school is in tip-top shape. The hedges are freshly trimmed and mulched.
1:03.4	School custodians have cleaned every window, changed out every dingy ceiling tile.
1:08.8	John Wren, the school administrator,
1:13.3	swapped out his usual khakis for a suit.
1:17.3	The librarian, who prefers Adidas Sheltos and jeans,
1:18.6	is wearing a dress.
	...

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