The Regrets of a School Dropout

"I've gone to a few places, but I haven't found anything yet," he said.

Tall and lanky with thick tinted locks, Campbell has an easygoing demeanor and a gentle smile. He is uncharacteristically polite for a teenager, answering questions with "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am."

Since he dropped out, Campbell has held several part-time jobs, including ones at Ben's Chili Bowl and McDonald's. He recently got a call to interview at a restaurant at the Boulevard at the Capital Centre, but he didn't go.

"I didn't have no money to get up there," Campbell said.

His aunt's eyes flashed.

"Larue, did you open up your mouth and call them and tell them that?" Hicks asked, hands on her hips. "Did you try to get there? There is nothing wrong with your feet. If you really wanted that job, you would have gone after it. If you wanted to get to the go-go and you didn't have money, you would have figured out how to get there."

The teenager shrugged.

Campbell pines for a more comfortable life, one with more stability and less drama than the one he's lived.

For several years, his home has been the split-level house near the District line that Hicks owns and shares with her family and his grandmother, who is legally blind and chronically ill. Campbell's brother, a student at Largo, lives nearby with other relatives. His mother and father, who live out of state, both dropped out of high school. His mother left him with his grandmother at an early age. His father has spent time in jail, he said.

"When you have absent parents, there's no one who can really discipline the child . . .," Hicks said. "I took a risk and let him come here to live because I believe he can turn himself around."

Campbell points to his sophomore year at Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School in Northeast Washington as the beginning of his school troubles. After a successful ninth-grade year, he began skipping to hang out with older friends about the time he and his grandmother moved to Prince George's County from the District.

"When I started hooking, my grandmother got mad," he said. "She went up to my school and told them, 'He don't want to be here. He lives in Maryland, anyway.' They put me out."