Photo by Daudi Msseemmaa.

Kenneth Blackburn throws a baseball across Commercial Street to Julian Watkins and Lucas Pecord on a Wednesday
afternoon during the teachers' strike at Cairo High School. Blackburn said that the strike doesn't hurt him because he will
still graduate on time, but it hurts those children who rely on schools for hot meals or those parents who work while their
child is in school.

Students might have greater success with standardized tests if additional upper level courses were available. For example, there is only one period of Spanish available and no math beyond algebra. Advanced Placement courses, which provide college-level courses to high school students, were offered for a year but were unsuccessful due to a lack of student interest.

“Some years we don't even have trigonometry,” says Ron Newell, president of the Cairo Association of Teachers. “We simply don't have enough students (at this level) to offer these classes.”

Angela Alexander is in charge of sex education for the children of Cairo. She is the Youth Services Director at the Delta Center, a social services agency that helps young people. Her approach to birth control is simple: “The only thing we teach them about birth control is how ineffective it is,” she says. “Our program teaches students to maintain a high standard and generate positive self esteem.”

The Delta Center's approach doesn't seem to be working. The rate of teen pregnancy at the school is stunningly high. Teachers say that 17 of the approximately 150 females students are currently pregnant. That would make a pregnancy rate of 11 percent, more than twice the national average.

But the school looks the other way. Sex education is not provided by the high school. It is instead provided by Delta Center as a six to eight week addition to students' health classes. They are taught an abstinence-only approach, emphasizing the social, emotional and physical growth they believe is obtained through abstinence. There are no condoms available to students.

When asked to comment about the teen pregnancy problem, Dean Maltbia declined to comment, stating, “We donÕt want to publish that.”

Cairo basketball was the pride of the town and sometimes seemed to offer a way to college for the promising athlete. The team has won 20 regional championships and made it to the state final three times.

In 2004, the team seemed especially promising. It was undefeated going into regional final against Massac. Colleges were recruiting the starting five.

What everyone remembers of that season is that after the loss to Massac a Cairo cheerleader threw a bottle that hit Cairo Coach Larry Baldwin in the head and knocked him down. A melee followed. What few know is that the college opportunities of the starting five also fizzled - not because of fallout from the Massac game, but because the players struggled academically, dropping out of the college programs and returning to Cairo almost as soon as they left.

Despite the 2004 disappointment, Baldwin, dean of students and former athletic director, thinks athletics might be a source of motivation for students. He felt basketball in particular gave students a sense of worth and additional confidence.