BY Regina Medina, Daily News
Keanu Davis didn’t like going to school during his freshman year at Simon Gratz High School, and the numbers prove it: He was absent 30 times and arrived late 80 more times, he said yesterday.
Davis, now a college-bound senior, decided to stay enrolled at the Nicetown school the following year after Mastery Charter Schools took control of the district school. It took a few months, but Davis noticed a change. Other students started attending Gratz with regularity – as did he.
“My whole viewpoint of school and of life has been changed because of Mastery,” said Davis, 19, who plans to attend Susquehanna University this fall. “I really didn’t care about school or anything [before]. I slept in class.”
That’s not the case anymore. Davis, along with 497 fellow Mastery seniors from five high schools, announced their post-high-school plans at Temple University’s Liacouras Center during the charter operator’s second annual College Signing Day, a lively ceremony celebrating the accomplishments of the senior class.