PHOENIX — A promise kept is a precious gift. And then it becomes a responsibility. That transformation is happening this week at Grand Canyon University here for 15 incoming freshmen. They are at the school because 10 years ago a promise was made to them. VIDEO SERIES: Arizona Republic shows lives changed At the time, they were third-graders at Granada Elementary School in west Phoenix. Many were poor, and most of their families probably didn’t consider college an option. When university officials brought them and their parents together to promise the students that they could go to the college for free, none of them really understood what it meant. Now, it is the students’ time to fulfill that promise. A teacher gunned down “Sydney’s Kids” were named after Sydney Browning, a Phoenix native and a Grand Canyon graduate. On Sept. 15, 1999, she was sitting in Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth when a gunman walked in and started shooting. Browning was the first of seven to die. In life she was committed to educating the less fortunate. She taught at Success High School, a Fort Worth public school that brought former dropouts back to the classroom. Sydney’s Kids were chosen to honor her. Two days before the shooting, a group of students from Granada Elementary visited GCU to sing Happy Birthday for the school’s 50th anniversary. The students impressed GCU administrators who, the next year, made them a promise: If their grades and test scores were good enough to get in, they would go to the university free. Armando Rivera was one of those students. Now 18, he remembers the parents being more excited than the children. “Honestly,” he says, “at the time, I didn’t understand it.” On Thursday, freshmen Jessica Reyes, Cameron Stafford and Daron Beck chatted in Daron’s dorm room. Jessica, like Armando, plans to be a doctor and will major in biology. Daron will study business. Cameron is thinking of business or marketing. They are all aware that being one of Sydney’s Kids comes with responsibility. “It’s a special gift,” Cameron says. “Now, I have to fulfill it.” Some kids can’t be found On freshman registration and move-in day, faculty and school administrators helped freshmen move into their dorms. Among them were people who helped make the promise and keep it. Joyce Hatch is GCU vice president of financial aid. “I was here when they came and sang,” Hatch says. “I was here when the promise was made.” For a while, the promise seemed in doubt. In the early 2000s, GCU was in dire financial shape. It severed its ties with the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention. In 2004, a venture capital firm bought GCU and turned it into a for-profit institution. But GCU remained committed to Sydney’s Kids. Three years ago Jennifer Hatch, Joyce’s daughter and an admissions counselor, began looking for them. Of the 60 students offered the scholarship, 15 are taking advantage of it. One more will start next semester, and a 17th will enroll next year. Some of the other students hadn’t kept up their grades. The rest moved away or just fell through the cracks. GCU was unable to find some of the students. The promise is still open to them.

HOUSTON (AP) — A teacher and three other educators at a Houston charter school were charged Monday in connection with the videotaped beating of a 13-year-old boy who was attending the school. Teacher Sheri Lynn Davis , 40, was charged with injury to a child, a third-degree felony, and could face up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine if convicted, said Harris County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Donna Hawkins. A cellphone video recorded by another student shows Davis pummeling a 13-year-old boy in class on April 29. She was fired the following week from Jamie’s House Charter School in northwest Houston. Three school employees — including school superintendent and founder Ollie Hilliard, principal David Jones and a teacher who witnessed the attack, Gabriel Moseley — were charged with failure to report child abuse, a misdemeanor charge, Hawkins said. Those defendants face up to one year in Harris County jail and up to a $4,000 fine if convicted. In the video, Davis is seen shoving, kicking and dragging the student, Isaiah Reagins, across the classroom floor as he tried to protect himself. Reagins suffered a black eye and other bruises in the attack. His mother, Alesha Johnson, sued Davis and the school. “What today signifies is what the kids have been telling us and what we’ve been saying all along is in fact true,” Brant Stogner, Johnson’s attorney, said Monday. “This goes beyond just one teacher and one kid, this goes to show a deeper problem at that school.” Reagins is living out of town with family and attending vacation Bible school, Stogner said. He will not return to Jamie’s House in the fall. “He’s recovering well from his physical injuries, but it’s hard to tell the extent of his emotional and physical injuries,” Stogner said. “At this point, we’re going to allow him to be a little boy this summer and when school starts up, see how he handles being back in school.” An attorney for Davis, Chip Lewis, has said the attack started when she tried to break up a fight in the hall and heard her classroom door shut and lock behind her. She shook the door until she caught the attention of a student who opened it, and that is when the recorded incident began. Davis has apologized for the beating, saying she was “without excuse” for the attack. She has also met with the student’s mother, and apologized. On Monday, Lisa Andrews, another attorney for Davis, said the full story will come out in court. “I feel very confident that when the entire story comes out and what precipitated Ms. Davis to do what she did, she will be vindicated,” Andrews said. An attorney for Moseley, Carvana Cloud, did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press. It was not immediately clear whether the other defendants had retained lawyers. A voicemail left for the school was not immediately returned. Following the incident, the Texas Education Agency assigned a conservator to the school to review safety, discipline and teacher training and assist with improvements. The conservator will spend the summer reviewing the school’s discipline and training policies, according to an agency spokeswoman. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Students graduating from high school this spring may be collecting their diplomas just in time, leaving institutions that are being badly weakened by the nation’s economic downturn. Across the country, mass layoffs of teachers, counselors and other staff members — caused in part by the drying up of federal stimulus dollars — are leading to larger classes and reductions in everything that is not a core subject, including music, art, clubs, sports and other after-school activities. VIDEO: More deep cuts looming for public schools VIDEO: Hard times for even richest districts Educators and others worry the cuts could lead to higher dropout rates and lower college attendance as students receive less guidance and become less engaged in school. They fear a generation of young people could be left behind. “It’s going to be harder for everybody to get an opportunity to get into college,” said Chelsea Braza, a 16-year-old sophomore at Silver Creek High School in San Jose . “People wouldn’t be as motivated to do anything in school because there’s no activities and there’s no involvement.” The library at Silver Creek High is open for only an hour a day. The career center is closed. There is no more summer school. And student athletes must pay $200 each. State budget cuts will make things even worse next year. The school will probably have five fewer classroom days and lose three of its four guidance counselors and three of its four custodians, as well as its health aide, mental health coordinator and student activities director. The future of student government, clubs, pep rallies, homecoming and prom is in doubt. The federal government’s $787 billion economic stimulus package saved an estimated 300,000 education jobs for this year, but many of those positions are once again in jeopardy as that money dries up. “Literally tens of millions of students will experience these budget cuts in one way or another,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan , who is urging Congress to provide another round of emergency funding for schools. “If we do not help avert this state and local budget crisis, we could impede reform and fail another generation of children.” Sen. Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, has introduced legislation that would create a $23 billion fund to help schools retain teachers, principals and other staff members. The fate of the bill is uncertain. The American Association of School Administrators estimates that 275,000 education jobs will be cut in the coming school year, based on an April survey. Other AASA surveys found that 52% of administrators plan to cut extracurricular activities, and 51% are reducing elective courses not required for graduation. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina, which cut $90 million last school year, plans to slice off an additional $78 million and eliminate more than 1,000 positions, including almost 650 teachers. The district will cut its middle school sports teams next year, and schools are cutting electives such as German and creative writing, Superintendent Peter Gorman said. “I’m very concerned when we can’t offer those courses which hook an individual student to pursue their passion, or what could be their life’s vocation,” Gorman said. In the Tupper Lake Central Schools in New York , the rural district in the Adirondacks will lose 25% of its instructional staff in the upcoming school year, which will probably result in bigger classes and the elimination of electives such as photography, modern art and ceramics, said Superintendent Seth McGowan. “It seriously compromises the depth of the education our students will be receiving,” he said. In Illinois, more than 20,000 jobs in schools — including an estimated 12,600 teachers and administrators — will be lost next school year, said Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. South Florida’s Broward County, the nation’s sixth-largest school district, could lay off 800 to 1,000 teachers because of a $130 million budget shortfall. Officials are trying to figure out how to save sports and electives, considering options like sharing an art teacher between schools. California’s relentless budget crisis is taking its toll on schools like Silver Creek High, part of San Jose’s East Side Union High School District, which is seeking to slash an additional 10% from its $200 million budget. Over the past two years, the district, which has 12 campuses and 25,000 students, has eliminated more than 450 full-time positions, including nearly 200 teachers and certified staff, said Assistant Superintendent Cathy Giammona. Class sizes have swelled to an average of 35 students, with more than 40 crammed into AP Calculus sections. And schools in the district won’t offer any courses unless they are fully enrolled, leading to cuts in electives such as photography, business, woodworking and Japanese. Silver Creek High senior Anthony Chavez, who credits his counselors with helping him win a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, said he worries that students won’t get the same opportunities with just one counselor for more than 2,400 students. “Through my four years here my counselors helped me with everything. I’m the first generation in my family to go to college,” he said. “I didn’t even know what SATs were.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.