The Sankofa Passages Program, an innovative mentorship program under the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, targeted at-risk black and Latino boys in the city by placing male mentors, like McKinney, inside schools to meet with students three times a day, five days a week.
Khalifah Bennett, an English teacher at Thomas Edison High School in North Philadelphia who worked closely with the Sankofa mentors, said her students are devastated.
“When they went into that classroom and it was empty, I don’t think the district understands how that can affect a child,” she said. “Now Sankofa has turned into something they cared about that was important to them that just went away.”