The single mom

Ann Price loses her voice and tears up as soon as the word “college” leaves her lips. The single mother of four is sitting in an administrator’s office at Prescott Middle School with 2-week-old LaSage in her arms talking about her oldest son, Jericho, a decorated eighth-grader at the school. A former all-star volleyball player at Capitol High School, Price received an athletic scholarship, but she got pregnant and lost the offer. Her college hopes dashed, she has focused her energies on the education of her children.

“I made sure to give [Jericho] my all, and I try to train him to be better, you know, to make it in life,” she says, wiping her cheek. “And I’m proud of what he’s doing. And I want him to better his self and be on top of his game where he can have all the finer things in life. That’s my first boy that I love.”

Price is on maternity leave from her job at Our Lady of the Lake, where she provides valet parking and shuttles elderly patients from the hospital to appointments with specialists. Her typical day begins before 5 a.m. when she prepares breakfast and gets Jericho and 5-year-old daughter Mystique ready for school. Work ends at 4:30 p.m. and she rushes to day care to pick up her 19-month-old, Vendrell. Then it’s home to do dinner and laundry. Sometimes, she admits, there aren’t enough hours in the day.

When the Central School District was established last year, Baton Rouge revised school attendance zones, sending her son Jericho and the majority of his neighborhood peers from Glen Oaks Middle School to Prescott. Price was fully aware that her son’s new school didn’t have a good academic reputation.

“I’m not going to sugar coat,” she says. “I was scared for my son to come here. But once he started enjoying it and studying hard, it changed my perspective of the school.”

Price believes Prescott is on the right track with advanced classes. Her son, she says, is proof of that. She isn’t sure the state’s takeover will change test scores, but does think the state might help to attract more teachers to “fill in any gaps.”

With the state coming in, she sees the role of the parents and the neighborhood as more crucial than ever.

“I know the parents are ready to stand up for their rights,” she says. “This is Jericho’s last year, but if they need my support, I’ll be there.”