9th grade: Crucial year can be precipice or springboard
Jay Mathews / The Washington Post

By 2001, Margee Walsh had dealt with every variety of that anxious species known as the ninth-grader. So when she met Ishmael Salandy, who had gotten into some minor trouble at school, she thought she knew right away what he needed.

Salandy lived in a low-income part of Alexandria, Va. Only one parent was at home. But there was a spark in Salandy, a yearning for something better that Walsh could recognize in his tone of voice, his choice of friends, his promising grades. Walsh was principal of the Minnie Howard School, one of the few schools in the country that has only ninth-graders, and she had made it a rule that her students would all get personal attention.

Much later, Salandy told Walsh he saw she had written these words on a form with his name on it: "Need to get him a mentor. He's a real leader." The rest