Despite his disappointment, Lewis remains upbeat. But he was not always the smiling, successful, scholar his mentors describe today. He says he owes his change in attitude and outlook to the We Promise program. When Lewis entered 9th grade, he was like a lot of his peers — unaware of how his actions would impact his future.
"Of course people always say school is important," says Lewis. "But because it was 9th grade, I didn't think school mattered at that point. So it really was a hard hit on my GPA."
The following year, things deteriorated even further for Lewis after his father passed away.
"With the loss of my father I had to take on the responsibilities of being the man of the house because I'm the only boy, plus just the emotional stress it put on me, plus just watching my mom go through all of that. It was very difficult," Lewis says. "It just made me not want to do anything at all."
But Lewis says his mentors in the We Promise program wouldn't let him hold on to that mindset. Through his two years in the program, he says, they helped him change socially as much as academically, while steering him away from potentially dangerous distractions in Homewood, where he lives.
"It's difficult living in that area sometimes. I have quite a lot of friends who have gotten into trouble," says Lewis. "My mom and my dad have always been a good influence on me. But once I lost my dad, I sort of had the attitude of, ‘Oh I don't care anymore.' So if I hadn't met some of the mentors in the We Promise program, there's a good chance I might have given into peer pressure.
"I have a lot of friends that are going nowhere with their life, and I couldn't let that distract me anymore."
Receiving the Promise would have signified how much he's overcome. Because his school, Obama Academy has an international baccalaureate program, his courses are more challenging and weighted differently than courses at other schools. Lewis has a weighted GPA of above the 2.5 required to receive the Promise. But his unweighted GPA, the form of data the scholarship recognizes, is 2.4.
"Getting the Pittsburgh Promise would've meant like, ‘Yes, I did it,'" Lewis says. "Once I got in the We Promise Program, I began to strive for better grades. I got a 3.7 and I was like, ‘Yes, I'm definitely going to get the Promise,' and then it was like, ‘No, your average is still too low,' which made me feel like, ‘Why even try?'"
Lewis has filed an appeal, but says losing the scholarship won't keep him from attending Robert Morris to study psychology in the fall.
"It would just open so many more doors, because your college would pretty much be paid for, so you don't have to get a job while you're in college, so you can perform better," Lewis says. "But the We Promise program still improved my performance and my study habits, so I still know I'm going to do great."
Editor's Note: Support for this story was provided by The Equity Reporting Project: Restoring the Promise of Education, which was developed by Renaissance Journalism with funding from the Ford Foundation. Rebecca Nuttall was a 2014 recipient of the Renaissance Journalism Fellowship.
Editors Note: The original version of this story did not include numbers on what percentage of black male graduates in 2007-2008 received the Promise.
