< A New Orleans Family's Lives Changed In An Instant

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin. NPR's Education Team has been reporting on the extraordinary changes happening in New Orleans schools. It's the first city in the nation with an all charter school system. Some of those schools are in neighborhoods where poverty, crime and the threat of violence have taken their toll. NPR's Eric Westervelt saw that firsthand during a recent trip to New Orleans. He met a mother and her young sons who are trying to come to grips with a shooting that changed their lives.

ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: I caught up with 32-year-old Alanna Romain at her oldest son's city recreation league football game.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTBALL GAME)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Oh, come on, Rick.

WESTERVELT: On this night, the Carrollton Saints were getting beaten badly by Christian Brothers. Football, fall - routine stuff in normal times. But for Alanna, these aren't normal times.

ALANNA ROMAIN: Unfortunately, when they shot, they just shot the whole block - or whatever - both houses.

WESTERVELT: In August, dusk was settling in after another hot summer day. And Alanna says she was getting ready to take her kids to get something to eat. Her two youngest, 2-year-old Jamal and 5-year-old Kyle, were playing in the yard of the next-door neighbor's house on Burgundy Street in the Lower 9th Ward when a group of heavily armed men drove up. Police believe it was about money and drugs. The intended target - a man with a criminal record who lived next door to Alanna.

ROMAIN: Supposedly they had some type of problem with him. So it was apparently for him. But it was too many of them shooting, so everyone that was outside basically got the bullets.

WESTERVELT: Like they sprayed the area with gunfire.

ROMAIN: Yeah. Yeah. They sprayed the whole block.

WESTERVELT: Her boys Kyle and Jamal were both hit in the head. A stray bullet sliced into 5-year-old Kyle's optic nerve.

ROMAIN: The bullet went in his head and came out on the other side. It missed his temple by, like, a half a centimeter. So it went behind the eye. That's why he's blind.

WESTERVELT: He'll now have to enter the world of Disabilities Education, of Individual Education Plans, Disability Law, all while navigating the complex world of New Orleans post-Katrina charter revolution. His brother, Jamal, will need a metal plate in his head after a bullet tore up the left side of his cranium.

ROMAIN: So he has staples in right now and a helmet that's holding it all together until the plate comes in.

WESTERVELT: Next month, doctors are scheduled to install that metal plate and try to reattach a piece of Jamal's skull. Doctors are not yet sure what, if any, long-term cognitive or other damage Jamal will have. But Alanna says now the right-hander is no longer using his right side to hold a fork or kick a ball. On this night, the toddler is running around on the sidelines smiling and laughing. He's wearing a blue helmet to protect his damaged head, but he looks like a football player, like he's eager to get into the game.

Alanna still wears white bandages were bullets ripped into her leg and abdomen. The 33-year-old man, the alleged target, was gunned down. Also murdered - 16-year-old Jasmine Anderson, Alanna's neighbor. Two other neighbors were also wounded.

Just after half-time, 5-year-old Kyle sits on his grandmother, Barbara's, lap looking a bit tired and sullen. When he was shot, Kyle was just a few days into kindergarten at one of the city's public charter schools. He liked it, his mom says. He's just now starting to ask his mom will I ever get my sight back.

ROMAIN: Unfortunately, I had to be the one to say, no, not right now. You know, maybe when we get some more medicine or we get some more help you'll be able to.

WESTERVELT: But Alanna knows that's not really true. Doctors say there's almost no chance he'll see again. Nearly all of the schools in New Orleans today are charters. And historically, charters nationally have faced sharp criticism for not doing more to serve and accommodate children with disabilities. Jamal may need special help. Kyle certainly will. Alanna wants to see him mainstreamed and included in regular classes with sighted children as much as possible.

ROMAIN: I want him to be able to, you know, feel like he's a regular child and not secluded 'cause, I mean, eventually he has to face the real world.

WESTERVELT: Alanna says she's been thankful that Kyle's school, part of the Kipp Charter chain, has reached out to her and offered help and support.

ROMAIN: They really want to get him evaluated and get back in school. They want to get him a specialty teacher in the school so where he can still play and be like a regular child instead of going to a school for the blind so where it would just be for blind kids.

WESTERVELT: Police have arrested four suspects in the shooting. They all face multiple murder and attempted murder charges. The arrests give Alanna a tiny bit of satisfaction. But she worries nothing will really change.

ROMAIN: There's no hope. You know? It's like these little boys are just trigger-happy, and they're just gun crazy. So I would hope New Orleans would clean it up a little better by the situations you see, especially with the kids getting hurt. But I don't really think it will.

WESTERVELT: Eric Westervelt, NPR News.

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