Dangerous minds

She bullied, bluffed, and bribed her students into caring about school.

And if that didn’t work, the pretty, petite ex-marine told them she’d been trained to kill with her bare hands.

They were called the class from Hell-thirty-four inner city sophomores she inherited from a teacher who’d been “pushed over the edge.” She was told “those kids have tasted blood. They’re dangerous.”

But LouAnne Johnson had a different idea. Where the school system saw thirty-four unreachable kids, she saw young men and women with intelligence and dreams. When others gave up on them, she broke the rules to give them the best things a teacher can give-hope and belief in themselves. When statistics showed the chances were they’d never graduate, she fought to beat the odds.