Dudley Grady, a 16-year-old refugee from the apocalyptic government-created flood which temporarily ruined his beloved New Orleans at the end of the summer ’05, wound up in Shreveport at C. E. Byrd High School missing his friends and wondering, “Why are their bathrooms so clean and ours are so not?”

It was the beginning of his transformation into a social scientist. Back in New Orleans the following summer, 20 public school children, ages 10-17, staged a brave news conference outside a storm-ravaged school. They called themselves Rethink, short for Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools. Their message to administrators: We want a voice in rebuilding the school system. After all, who deserves a voice more than the customers who use the schools?

The children didn’t stop with this protest. They garnered allies, Ya/Ya, an inner city guild for young artists, New Orleans Outreach, Concordia Planners and Architects, Global Green USA, Esopus Creek Communications, Tin Foil Media, Spirit in Action, the Fyre Youth Squad, research consultants from UNO and Loyola, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen, a 20-year-old architecture student born in the Magnolia projects in New Orleans and raised in California. They attracted “pre- thinkers”, including 8-year-old George Dixie Carter III, a photographer with a very professional camera, and some teenage interns.

During the school year Rethinkers documented conditions in 9 public schools, a randomly selected sample of locations that included schools from each of the current public school systems operating in New Orleans today. In their meticulously executed report, they explain that this is called “stratified random sampling.” The young people distributed 554 surveys measuring eight key factors: school safety, school cleanliness and bathrooms, school supplies and books, nurses and counselors, cafeteria and food, teachers, extra-curricular activities, and handicap access. Rethinkers also visited schools and documented their personal observations, being careful to use all five of their senses instead of prior expectations. They became adept at both qualitative and quantitative research.

But these are no ordinary social scientists. Not only do they document; they also dream and act. As they worked through the data, the Rethinkers talked about the meaning of their information. They decided that the results of the student surveys on many school dimensions were more favorable to the school system than they expected. But they wondered why the conditions and available resources appear to be so different among public schools in New Orleans. They examined factors such as type of school, neighborhood, and the various cultural connections that affect how students feel about their schools. In addition, they talked about the challenges students who attend schools that lack many resources face and how they must struggle to overcome these obstacles in order to succeed. The Rethinkers decided that the community should work to bring all schools up to the highest standards so that all students would know their education is important. You can read their whole report in a few weeks by visiting their updated website: rethinknola.com.

Courtney French, a Rethinker entering eighth grade, has to go through a metal detector and pass roughly a dozen security guards in the halls of her elementary school. There were no guards before Katrina. The Rethink surveys found that the more security guards a school has, the less safe the students feel. They recommended spending less money on school security and more on hiring counselors. “My school has no kitchen,” says Courtney, “and the edges of the meat in sandwiches are purple.” She adds, “My school has many problems, but I love it.”

Perhaps it’s this love and innocence that propel the young organizers to dream and act. First, they picked a focus: bathrooms. Josephine Bingler, 14, and Victor Carter, 15, noted in the second Rethink news conference held July 20, 2007, that “bathrooms represent everything that stinks in our schools.”

“We decided not just to solve a problem, but also to distinguish ourselves nationally,” said Dudley Grady. The students worked all summer to design a “green” bathroom, one that works with nature instead of against it, saving energy, water, and other natural resources. There are flow reducers for the faucets, low energy windows that let in natural light, but keep out the heat and cold, a water cistern on the roof that collects water to flush toilets, bamboo instead of wood, and recycled materials for counter tops.

They hope their green bathroom will spread to green schools and to the greening of all of New Orleans. The children see this as a way to protect the environment and put an end to global warming. Oliver Thomas, Councilmember At Large, agrees in a letter he wrote for the press conference. “I agree that starting public school change right there in the bathroom – then working our way out – makes a great deal of sense. You Rethinkers are onto something. . . You are showing the way for all of us. Green the belly of the beast – the school bathroom – then green the school and the whole community… .. . . I am proud of you for your forward-looking approach and your creative genius. New Orleans kids design the first green public school bathroom . . . bravo! Go Rethinkers!”

Global Green USA is willing to help. The American affiliate of Green Cross International is offering a handful of grants - up to $75,000 each - to public schools that want to go green. Bigger grants will be available later. Beth Galante, director of Global Green New Orleans referenced a study of 2,000 classrooms in three school districts that found that “children performed 26 percent better on reading tests in classrooms with maximum natural daylight versus those in rooms with the least amount of natural light. . . Green schools use an average of 33 percent less energy than conventionally designed schools. Studies find an average asthma reduction of 38.5 percent in buildings with improved air quality.”

The Rethinkers have given a good bit of thought to maintenance as well as design. Hoang Hoang, 15, said at the news conference, “The truth of the matter is this: No matter how much you repair a bathroom and no matter how green you make it, the bathroom needs to be maintained. If not, it will return to c-r-a-p.” In addition to janitors and supplies, he points out, “Maintaining a bathroom is something the whole school has to do. That means students have to play a role, too.”

The kids suggest trash cans that look like basketball goals or targets, a committee of students and community members to act as monitors, smoke detectors in the bathrooms, and a graffiti wall for student expression with a rapid response to obscene language or forms of vandalism. Students want to decorate their bathrooms, noting that “Kids will take much better care of bathrooms that are personal to them. Kids can not be expected to maintain bathrooms that are impersonal, smell bad and have holes in the walls.”

Aaron Danielson, 12, concluded this section of the conference by addressing Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District and Darryl Kilbert, Acting Superintendent of the New Orleans Public Schools: “Mr. Vallas, we heard you say at a community meeting that you would welcome community members to go to the RSD schools and examine the repairs you have done in bathrooms this summer. We volunteer for that job and would be happy to bring students from other groups along with us. We make the same offer to you, too, Mr. Kilbert, and to all the charter schools in this city. We hope this plan proves to you that we students are experts on our schools and are more than willing to help. Thank you.”

Vallas, in turn, welcomed the information and support. He called the group’s report, “very fair, very objective, very honest and very direct. . . I agree with you 100 percent. There’s not a single proposal I disagree with.” He looked straight at the Rethink students as he promised that this year they would get hot lunches and up-to-code buildings and bathrooms, adequately supplied.

Vallas believes that education is the unfinished business of the civil rights movement and that Rethinkers are acting as good global citizens and not just on their own needs. He wants to institutionalize what they are doing with elected student councils in every school who will report to him about the condition of schools and learning. He also wants a city-wide student council. He promised less money on police and more on support services for which he plans to contract with community groups and faith based organizations. By October he envisions student conservation corps, clubs in schools to decorate and take care of the facility. For these beautification projects, the school board will provide materials, guidance and in some cases stipends. “You can take it to the bank,” Vallas assures those present.

He wants to meet with Rethink soon to plan the conservation corps. They can play a leadership role in getting it started, he says. He prefers working with middle school consultants because it’s hard to keep adults focused these days in New Orleans, he finds. One thing is sure, all the way from school in the Diaspora, through homecoming, research, visioning, and action, these kids stay focused.

They’ve written a regular column in a community newspaper and put on a workshop at the recent U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. They have attracted media attention in New Orleans and nationally. They have scrupulously done their homework and generously offered their expertise. Perhaps it is time for the students to give a monthly report card to their administrators and elected bodies they report to about promises made and progress toward fulfillment. In these areas, we could all celebrate a LEAP to success.