48 Urban Trailblazers: Teachers set out to help students in tough schools

By Ann Doss Helms for the Charlotte Observer:

Two years ago, Jen Pohl was one of 48 young pioneers who signed up to make a difference in some of Charlotte-Mecklenburg's highest-poverty, lowest-performing schools. Three didn't finish their two-year Teach for America stint. Many others will move on when school ends in June, picking up career paths they started before their teaching detour.
But Pohl, a Wisconsin archaeology major who teaches freshman English at West Mecklenburg High, is one of several who will stay. Nothing, she says, prepared her for how hard this work would be. Nothing braced her for how hard her kids' lives are.
She never guessed how much she would come to love them.