Brownsville, Brooklyn is a neighborhood so crime-ridden that it once held the title of “Murder Capital of New York City.” It’s a neighborhood so dangerous that SpotCrime.com has recorded four reported shootings in the past month and a half alone. A 2015 community health profile ranked Brownsville no. 1 for most non-fatal assault hospitalizations in the entire city. And because high crime rates and poor socioeconomic conditions often go in hand and hand, Brownsville is also the most impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn — with 37% of resident living below the Federal Poverty Level.

With eye-popping stats like these, it’s clear that the odds are pretty much stacked against Brownsville’s children. While over 50% of adults have graduated high school, only 18% of residents are college graduates. The neighborhood’s incarceration rates are the second-highest in the city and 40% of students miss 20 or more days of school. But the local middle schoolers have a secret weapon: Dr. Nadia Lopez, principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy.

Lopez is a revolutionary thinker and a bold dreamer. She empowers kids by believing in them — giving Brownsville’s forgotten kids a path to escape a decades-long pattern of crime and poverty.

“I opened a school to close a prison,” she says.

Dr. Lopez first gained recognition in 2015 when one of her students, Vidal Chastanet, credited her with being the most inspirational figure in his life via a Humans of New York story.

“When we get in trouble, she doesn’t suspend us. She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”

This story went viral and a national spotlight was shone on Mott Hall Bridges Academy — the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-focused school that Lopez launched in 2010.

“I grew up in love with the sciences,” she says. “I wasn’t really a math kid at all, but I was really into technology. My dad was a carpenter, back in his native home of Honduras, so I was into engineering. And then science just became passion.”

As a teacher, Dr. Lopez noticed children weren’t falling in love with science the way she had when she was their age. It made her consider the lack of representation in STEM-related fields.

“You didn’t see people of color being the leaders in that space,” she says. “So, for me, the question was, ‘What type of education are we providing to kids that allow them to see what their possibilities are? What are some of the gaps concerning how kids gain an interest in those industries?'”

When she was given an opportunity to write a proposal for a small New York City public school, she decided to focus on a curriculum that would set up children of color to view science with the same bright eyes she once had. The Department of Education ultimately choose Brownsville as her pilot location and a school was born.

Since Mott Hall’s opening, the Brooklyn native has kept her promise to get students charged up about STEM. She oversees the Lab Rats science club and Mott’s Bott’s robotics club where students build remotely operated vehicles that enable them to learn about basic engineering and science concepts. There’s even a gardening club that students use a living learning lab.

“Our kids have learned Robotics, they’ve learned Veterinarian Science,” she says. “They do gardening. They do dissections as early as 11 years old.”

The arts also matter at Mott Hall. So much so that Lopez prefers to think of her school as a “STEAM” school.

“I just feel there is such neglect when it comes to the arts,” she says. “We’re such a creative group of individuals. And whether it’s dance, music, or visual arts, we’ve had a hand in creating that. The kids do fashion. Music production. Video production. So they’re learning the steps of what it requires to be successful in STEAM.”

Shortly after the Humans of New York story went big, Mott Hall raised over $1 million in a matter of days. The narrative shifted and the question of, “How has Mott Hall Bridges Academy have changed since the influx of cash?” became the first thing people wanted to know. While many believe the money magically solved all of the school’s concerns, that’s not possible. What it did do, however, was afford students more access and opportunities to see the limitless possibilities outside of Brownsville.

Dr. Lopez realized it all boiled down to a lack of exposure and access. Brownsville is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city with less than 20% of residents being college graduates.

“The education system has failed them in the process,” she says. “And so I wanted kids to just love STEM and then understand it applies to every part of life.”

One of the Summer Bridges programs funded by the donations gives students an extra five weeks of learning.

“They do classes from 8:30 to 3:00, Monday through Friday. On Fridays, they go on field trips, which they don’t have to pay for because everything is fully funded through the money that was raised by Humans of New York,” Dr. Lopez explains.

Aside from giving children something productive to do after school lets out — rather than being kept home by parents afraid of the high summer crime rates — the money also means students get to learn through a project-based curriculum that isn’t as restrictive as Common Core. During the school year, students and teachers are more focused on preparing for exams meant to measure the school’s progress and making sure they meet standards.

“The stress that it puts on the teachers doesn’t allow them to really get kids to buy in as much as they need to,” Lopez says. “Even though we try to deviate from the script as much as possible, the reality is that teachers are being evaluated and this is based on whether or not they’re deemed effective or highly effective in their own practice.”

Standardized testing isn’t something Dr. Lopez is particularly fond of — seeing as how Mott Hall was nearly shut down during its infancy due to poor performance. The city used standardized testing results to deem Mott Hall a failure when in actuality, many students entering the junior high school aren’t reading or doing math at their correct grade level.

“This one particular class,” Dr. Lopez says while pointing to one of the many color-coded progress charts taped to the conference room walls, “have never been on grade level. And this is from third, fourth, fifth grade. So we only have seven kids on grade level out of 75 [sixth graders] for English Language Arts and only nine for Math.”

The principal isn’t fully against standardized testing. In fact, she agrees that students do need to take assessment tests. She simply takes issue with the source material and the metrics used for evaluation.

“It doesn’t account for [STEM]. It doesn’t account for kids’ ability to really engage in problem-solving. It doesn’t account for their creativity. It just continues to perpetuate this idea that if you can’t do well on the standardized test, then it means you can’t do well in life.”

A 2017 survey from the Citizens’ Committee for Children lists the community as “the worst neighborhood for children,” citing a lack of fresh food options in the area. While there are six farmer’s markets in the region, they’re only opened during the Spring/Summer and for only one day out of the week. Thanks to the money raised via Humans of New York, this summer, Mott Hall’s sixth graders will be doing research-based projects on the impact of human gardens in this food desert.

“The type of food we find [in Brownsville] is not healthy food. It’s food that helps to exacerbate the types of health risks that are here,” Lopez says. “We have the highest health risks in comparison to all of New York City. So if it’s diabetes, asthma, cancer, the rate of HIV, we have the highest rate with the lowest age group. So it starts at [age] 11 all the way to 21.”

Dr. Lopez has also reached out to Harvard University so kids can “develop a great critical lens around how they would engage in their research.” Students will get to speak with health professionals from NYC’s Brookdale Hospital and visit hospital kitchens to see how food is prepared for those with “dietary needs based off of the health risks they’re dealing with.”