Counselor helps students deal with the harsh realities of life

K.R. has just been freed from house arrest after serving time in juvenile hall for strong-arm robbery. Polite and neatly dressed, he's sporting blue shoe laces on white tennis shoes and other touches of blue attire to let it be known that he has "claimed" a particular street gang in his Los Angeles neighborhood.

K.R. says he's "associated" with the gang and hangs out with its members, but has yet to be "jumped in" (initiated) and made an official member. Recently charged with attempted murder when members of a rival gang fingered him as the shooter at a party, he has been expelled from two public high schools. Both of his parents have had run-ins with the criminal justice system.

Although he looks much older, he is only 14.

Ready to return to the public school system, K.R. is sitting in the office of Kwasi Geiggar, a placement counselor with the Los Angeles Unified School District's Camp Returnee Program. Geiggar, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles, must decide what school might be the best fit for K.R. He can't be placed in a school with too many gang rivals, who might hurt him. And he can't be placed in a school with too many "homies" who will expect him to resume his old habits of cutting school and getting into trouble.

Geigger decides to place him in a continuation school where K.R. is unknown, so that he can have a fresh start, make up credits and hopefully transfer to a regular high school after a semester or two when he gets back on track. He also finds K.R. an after-school job with a community group.

The paperwork is done. K.R. is ready to leave and report to his new school. But Geiggar tells him to sit down. The counselor is just getting started.

He begins to talk to K.R. in a soft-spoken, friendly, fatherly manner about the harsh realities of life. He tells K.R. that he is someone who is worth saving.

"You've been labeled a hellion and you've just dodged a bullet," he says as K.R. listens, wide-eyed. "You are very, very intelligent. There are a lot of things you can do in life. Now, you are associating with known gang members. You can't help where you live, but you don't have to become who they are. Even if you say you aren't a member, what happens to you will be based on your reputation, and that's based on who you hang out with. If you want to survive, you have to change that reputation and who you hang out with. You almost had a felony pinned on you. And once you have a felony on your record, your life is over."

He tells K.R. that "the system" only cares about punishment, not rehabilitation, when it comes to convicted felons. "You wouldn't last for a second in prison with that pretty boy smile," he says. "You'd be somebody's girlfriend, and you wouldn't have the strength to fend them off."

K.R. is no longer smiling after hearing that. He tells the counselor that it's difficult to say no when the gang comes calling. "Everyone from my mom's side of the family is associated, and they come and pick me and my homies up and take us out," he says. "My friends pressure me to sell drugs, but I'm paranoid because I'm on probation."

"The 'bling bling' all looks good, but the moment you hook up with the wrong dealer you could lose your life," says Geiggar. K.R. nods solemnly in agreement, well aware of how drug deals can go awry.

"You don't have to do these things," says Geiggar. "Your mom loves you dearly. You have to show her the person you are on the inside. You don't have to prove anything to anybody but yourself - and be true to yourself. Being tough doesn't get you anyplace; it gets you nowhere. When gang members come calling for you, tell them you have other things you have to do. Stop wearing the colors. Put the white shoelaces back on. Start over again in a school where nobody knows anything about you. Remember this rule: 'No talking back, no defiance, no problems.'"

He asks K.R. what he would like to do with his life. K.R., who plays an instrument, says he would like to be a musician. "If you want to be a musician, study English to write lyrics and study math, because music is math," says Geiggar.

"Life is about making choices. You have made some bad choices. But the choices that you make from now on are up to you. I want to keep you from becoming a statistic."

K.R. thanks Geiggar and prepares to leave. But Geiggar isn't finished with him yet. "Let's take a walk," he says.

They leave Geiggar's office, which is located in "gang neutral" territory in the heart of the garment district, and take a short ride in his car to the "Skid Row" neighborhood of Los Angeles, where the homeless, drug addicts and hookers are crammed between shopping carts and food lines on the sidewalk. It would be easy to view the neighborhood from a moving car, but Geiggar wants K.R. to view the scene up close and personal. They walk.

K.R. has seen a lot in his young life, but he has never visited this neighborhood before. He stays close to Geiggar, who talks to him and ignores the catcalls from the street.

"Hey, boy, you with your parole officer?" calls out a young, intoxicated, homeless man to the pair. "You walking with a police officer? You plan on living on Skid Row, young man? Come see what it's like here."

"They always think I'm a police officer," says Geiggar with a chuckle, then continues talking to K.R.

"This is the real everyday life, 24-7, when you mess up your life and have nobody to take care of you," he says. "For a lot of these people, nobody gives a s-. You don't want that happening to you."

After several blocks, the two turn around and walk back to Geiggar's car. Geiggar drives K.R. back to his office and says goodbye, but lets K.R. know that he'll be checking on him very soon, because he has faith that K.R. can succeed.

It's all in a day's work for Geiggar, a pupil services and attendance counselor with a master's degree in social work. Despite his impressive degree, he did not have an elite upbringing and knows firsthand the challenges K.R. is facing. Geiggar grew up in the projects, and saw his brother go to prison.

"I got arrested in high school and watched the hard look on my mom's face because she thought I would end up like my brother. So I decided to change and told my mom she would never have to worry about that." When he returned to the neighborhood after college, Geiggar was surprised that some people assumed he'd been away serving a prison sentence instead of receiving an education.

He decided he wanted to give back to the community and try to help students leaving the juvenile justice system. Nearly 90 percent of those students are minorities and either affiliated with gangs or gang members. He estimates that 70 percent of them will revert to gang activity and face one of three inevitable futures: prison, a young death or being crippled from a bullet or beating.

"They think it's not going to happen to them and that they can outsmart everybody," he says sadly. "When you're young, you think you know everything. They listen while I'm talking to them, but I can't change the environment that they have to go back to. Many of them revert to what is comfortable. It's hard to expect them not to associate with the people they grew up with.

"Gangs give them status and purpose as kids. But once they become adults, they will have to become real soldiers. They will be expected to do and sell drugs, be a fence, commit heavy burglaries and do other things to maintain their status in the gang they have chosen to connect themselves with. And they will have no employable skills."

"I'm trying the best I can," he says of helping young gangsters like K.R. "I don't go to funerals anymore. I don't do eulogies anymore. I can't be a pallbearer anymore. I just can't do it. I used to have a shoebox full of obituaries, but it's too morbid for me, so I got rid of that."

Mostly Geiggar tries to focus on the positive and the successes that he has. One of his former students now works with him. And even if he can save only some of the youths that walk in his door, they are worth saving.

"One at a time is all that I can do," he says. "I always tell them that if they hold out their hand for help and listen, I will try to pull them with me."

A few weeks after his walk down Skid Row, K.R. was arrested again for selling drugs at one of the schools that had expelled him. Meanwhile, at his new school, staff found out that boys affiliated with a rival gang were planning revenge against K.R. and his "homies." Three days after K.R. left the new school, one of his homies was shot and killed there. Geiggar attended K.R.'s hearing on the new drug charges, where it was revealed that K.R. had been molested by a crack addict when he was 12 and introduced to drugs at that age. Never willing to give up, the counselor is presently trying to get K.R. into a group home far away from the gang's realm of influence.