The Daily News spent two months tracking down the 23 kindergarteners who enrolled at Harlem’s PS 36 in 1994. Their journeys illuminate hardships students face in earning their high school degree.
They were smart children who tested into a gifted kindergarten at Harlem’s Public School 36 in 1994, but Lance Patterson and Ronnie Rodriguez would each fall in with the wrong crowd.
Lance would be arrested. Ronnie would join a gang.
Their challenges were similar, but they’ve ended up in very different places. One has a mother who will watch him don a cap and gown this week. The other has a mom who blames herself.
“I should have kept a closer eye on him,” Sandra Lugo said of her son, Ronnie. “I should have been on him maybe a little harder, been a little stricter.”