Khafre Nurse was arrested several times for gang involvement before enrolling at an alternative school, Boston Day and Evening Academy. Now, Nurse is a freshman at Hampshire College on a full scholarship. (Monica Brady-Myerov/WBUR)

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And then my eighth grade year, you know, I realized I couldn’t really read. Like, I could read, but I couldn’t REALLY read. You know, I started like picking up reading on my own and I tried to like read a book, but I was having problems at home and it made it difficult for me to like, you know, pick up a task and run with it. So ninth grade year, I was only there for like a couple months and then I got arrested. It wasn’t my first arrest, by the way. So I get to tenth grade and I went to this school, cuz my probation officer was like, ‘Alright, we need to get you into school, we need to get you to learn. How bout this school, Boston Day and Evening Academy.’ I was like, ‘Pssh, I don’t know what that is.’

I don’t know what they saw in me, like I woulda kicked me out. But they kept me, they just said, you know, ‘We can work on you.’ And there was like certain teachers I was like, ‘You know, I really like you.’ And then I started meeting more teachers that was kinda cool, and I was like, ‘You guys all kinda cool, you know?’ So it’s like, I was there, like, “art project.” They like treated me like canvas and made this beautiful mural out of me. I was 17, I was gonna be 18 soon, and then I realized, ‘You know, I gotta start making some changes or whatever.’ And I was just like, ‘You know, I’m a little behind in school, I gotta pick it up, pick up the pace’ — I started taking things more serious. I was just like, ‘You know what, there’s a future in education.’ It’s not, ‘You graduate from high school and you become the bus driver.’

See everybody’s like, talking bout, ‘Yeah, I’m going here next year, yeah I’m going here next year.’ I’m like, ‘Word? You going to college? Like, how y’all all going to college? Like, don’t that cost money, yo? I heard it’s like 10 grand, 20 grand, 50 grand. How y’all paying for that?’ ‘Yo, financial aid, man. Go talk to Ms. Samp. Ms. Samp got you, yo.’ I’m like, ‘Ms. Samp, who’s Ms. Samp?’ ‘Man, you had her for College and Career.’

You know, we talked and I applied for Hampshire. And, bada bing, I got the scholarship. And I started thinking back, I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, like, I skipped 10 grades.’ I was like, ‘I skipped 10 grades, learned how to read in pretty much like eighth grade.’ You know, if you really work hard, like you can get anything done and anything is possible. And I was like, ‘Yo, wow, your life is absolutely what you make it.’