EP 05 — FOR REAL
Dr. Reginald Okafor
Counselor at Urbana High with a doctorate and a caseload of 300 kids
SAMPLE PROFILE — FILM SLOT
His story is coming to the series soon.
A Lost Year
Reginald Okafor grew up on the South Side of Chicago, the younger of two boys. When he was twelve his brother caught a case at nineteen and went away for six years. His mother aged a decade in one winter.
School came easy to Reginald, but for a while he stopped caring. Ninth grade was a lost year. What pulled him back wasn't a speech. It was a counselor named Mr. Davies who kept calling the house until somebody answered.
Your grades aren't about being smart. They're a key. I've watched doors open and shut over a GPA.
The Same Chair
He became the thing that saved him. After college he took a counseling job at Urbana High School and figured he'd stay two years. That was over a decade ago.
He finished his doctorate at the U of I while working full time, writing papers at his kitchen table after his kids went down. His office wall is covered in college pennants, but he tells students the pennants aren't the point. The plan is the point. He carries about three hundred kids on his caseload and knows most of their names by October.