Alyssa Perren, a senior at Paul Robeson High School, is Harvard University bound. Perren, 17, will be the first student from Robeson to attend an Ivy League school.Alyssa Perren knew the day her future would be decided. It was a Thursday, marked in giant red letters on the family calendar: Harvard Day.
“My last season on horseback, I was thinking about being a father and how I would be able to be that and still play the sport,” Christopher said. He was a young, Black male with middling grades in a sport dominated by wealthy players, “a big risk for a lot of donors — they didn’t know if I was going to stay in school. So I took the route of being a father, focusing on Alyssa’s life, doing the best I could in that arena.”his polo days. She first sat on a horse at age 3.
“Straight from the beginning, you could tell she was smart, just by the look in her eyes,” said Christopher, who eventually got his bachelor’s degree and is now a drone pilot and instructor. “She’s had a brain that’s computing stuff, even before she could talk. Me and her mom didn’t hold back information, we were always teaching her.”
“They treat us like adults, like we’re stepping into the next stage of our lives,” Alyssa said of Robeson staff. “And there’s always something special to do — I never feel bored at school.” “It feels weird, but it also feels empowering,” said Alyssa. “I sometimes forget what I represent to other people.”
Great to see this. We need more uplifting success stories like this…instead of the nonsense that you constantly pump out telling the black community that they’re being held down. This is PROOF that if you show up to school and work hard, you’re gonna have opportunities.