LeBron James Visit To “I Promise School” An Emotional One

Transcript

00:00 I'm Melissa Rowland with Sports Illustrated here with Jill Painter-Lopez.

00:06 In 2018, LeBron James had a game in Cleveland and he stopped by his I Promise school.

00:13 I hear that that had a huge impact on a lot of the students there.

00:18 Well, Melissa, anytime LeBron James goes there, whether he's talking to students or teachers,

00:22 it has a big impact.

00:24 And this time on his visit, he talked to the entire student body.

00:27 It was really interesting to see all the smiles, the shock.

00:30 I mean, it was a surprise visit.

00:33 One girl who was sitting down in the front row started crying, crying with emotion, and

00:37 he picked her up and hugged her.

00:38 That was really cute.

00:40 So they really had enjoyed their time with him.

00:42 A lot of smiles and laughs.

00:44 But what happened afterwards was very interesting.

00:47 Five students were suspended that day.

00:49 Obviously, a lot of these students have behavioral issues and they're at risk.

00:53 And it just, you know, didn't handle that excitement in the right way.

00:57 One boy got into an altercation, Nate, with another student and he got suspended.

01:02 So they show him at his house, you know, watching video games and saying he's bored.

01:06 So what was interesting about after that particular day in November of that first semester of

01:11 the school, the teachers decided, you know what, suspending kids and sending them home

01:15 like most public schools do isn't really working for these kids.

01:19 So what they did is they had made a room inside the school where the kids would work with

01:23 an intervention specialist.

01:24 So now they're still being punished.

01:26 They're not in their classroom.

01:27 They're, you know, not able to do all the things the other kids are doing.

01:31 But they are staying at school.

01:33 They're still getting their meals and they're just not home bored.

01:36 And so they're kind of learning better lessons.

01:38 So it was, you know, interesting to see not only the impact that LeBron's visit had, you

01:42 know, emotionally, but just the way some kids handled it and the way the teachers are kind

01:46 of helping them try to handle those, you know, emotions, the excitement, anger afterwards,

01:52 things like that.

01:53 Thanks, Jill.

01:54 It was really cool to get an interesting behind the scenes look at his school that he founded

01:59 in 2018 through the documentary series, I Promise, which you can check out on the Quibi

02:03 app.

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