TEACHER OF THE YEAR HAS THE CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME

In a time when many people consider the quality of education to have decayed, when parents, students and even teachers have little hope for schools, a woman named Sandy McBrayer is named U.S. Teacher of the Year.

She teaches "unattended children" (whom most people refer to as homeless) in San Diego. Her job there isn't an easy one. Children there are like any other - uninterested in going to school, but for reasons besides boredom and fear of homework and pop quizzes.

"When you get to school in the morning, you've had a shower, you have on socks and shoes, you've had breakfast, maybe.

"These kids haven't, so they don't want to conjugate a verb, they don't want to read about Christopher Columbus. They want food, they want clean clothes, they want to brush their teeth," she said.

"Think about it for a minute. You wake up on a rooftop. There's no water; there's nothing. Whatever you're wearing, it's dirty now because you were on the roof, and you come to school looking like that. Would you want to say, `OK, I'm ready for science?'

"They aren't eager to learn. They are eager to get a life."

Despite these circumstances, McBrayer never gives up. That earned her the title of U.S. Teacher of the Year and the opportunity to give hope to children without any.

She shares her enthusiasm with other teachers. In a recent conference in Indianapolis, Children's Express had a chance to talk with her.

In 1987, McBrayer started her homeless school, the first one in the United States. She has since helped other programs start in Chicago, Alaska and New York.

Her school is in a renovated bakery in downtown San Diego and is part of the San Diego Unified School District. The school receives funding from the state based on the number of students attending her school.

It's more than a job

Besides being a teacher, McBrayer does public speaking. For that she receives about $35,000 a year on average, which she gives to her program as scholarship money and to buy necessities for the students, such as shoes, hairbrushes and tampons.

The 1995 Teacher of the Year says she works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She has a pager so her students can contact her, no matter if it's lunchtime or 4 a.m.

Working with 12 other staff members - including three teachers, four teacher assistants, an outreach worker and secretary, among others - she teaches more than 100 students a day, ranging in age from 12 to 19.

Her reference materials and books are standard.

"We have a thing called The California Core Curriculum, which every state provides their teachers with. (It's) what they feel the teachers need to teach.

"We also have a lot of supplementary material because many of my children are many different colors and cultures, so I have added into our collection many books (on subjects) like African-American history, Latino literature, or Asian studies.

"I bring in (these books) so that everyone in the room has something that is from their country or their culture."

The school has MacIntosh computers so students can have access to America Online and the Internet.

She teaches the same academics as the average school, such as science, English and history, but she adds parenting and drug- abuse awareness classes.

McBrayer's requirements for graduation are from the state of California, so they are the same as any other public school's.

"I am a public school. I'm just not a traditional public school," she said.

Scary but fun

McBrayer, who said she never wanted to become a teacher when she was younger, has been teaching for 11 years. She has taught in lockup facilities, psychiatric hospitals, group homes, "every kind of alternative program. I've never taught in a traditional school."

Her current job is "very scary, but it's also very fun. It's very scary because of the life they have to see every day, and there's a lot of destruction; there's a lot of prostitution and drugs. But it's a lot of fun because when you help a child move off the streets, then they have a future."

Her own family worries about the danger.

"My family is very frightened for me because they know how dangerous it is on the streets, and they know that many times when I work at night, I'm with drug dealers and with pimps and with some very dangerous people."

To earn her title, she uses love, caring and understanding. She treats students like individuals. She also uses a lot of humor to help the students relax and laugh - to take them away from their problems for a moment.

Besides teaching, she is into athletics. She sky-dives, mountain-bikes, skis and water skis. She also volunteers at Planned Parenthood. In fact, she is the chairwoman for the education department at Planned Parenthood.

She has faced many obstacles. The recent passage of Proposition 187 in California is yet another barrier in McBrayer's path.

Last November, California voters approved Proposition 187, which says illegal immigrants coming to the United States are not eligible for virtually all public services, including welfare, education and medical care. The proposition is being challenged in court and therefore is not being enforced.

"I think that law 187 is a very negative and harmful law because it says that some people are better than others, and that is not true," McBrayer said.

"Everyone who came to this country was an immigrant, and the people who come here illegally are coming because they want a life. We cannot judge and say they don't have that right.

"It has not affected my school at all yet because it's in court right now and they won't allow it to be implemented, but what it has caused is people to dislike other people."

If this law causes so much hate, why would the state of California go through with it?

"Because California wants money," she replied. "California is a state where everyone wants to own a new car and another boat and a nicer house. They forgot what priorities were. California got confused, and we are trying to say, `So if you die and have four boats, what does that mean?' "

McBrayer won U.S. Teacher of the Year not because she can give harder tests, but because of her heart and faith that America will get better through education.

She once gave an assignment to her students to make a time line of their lives; they marked their lives from birth to when they thought their future would be.

One hundred percent of the students listed their death before the age of 30. She then asked other teachers to do the same; their results weren't much better.

What's the problem? What's the solution?

"It's about hope. It's about a belief. It's about knowing that there is a future in America, and that the children of America don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"We must give it to them. We must find our power and strength and show them there is a future for them, that they can be somebody, and that we'll help them be someone."

EDITED BY: Jennifer Prey, 15, and Felicity Hawn, 14. ASSISTANT EDITORS: Johnny Murff, 14, and Sara Berghoff, 14.