Picture this: It's a fine spring day at the University of New Hampshire. You're a junior studying English and education. The school year is over except for an exam or two, and you've just received your student-teaching assignment for the following fall. So you decide to go for a swim in the Lamprey River a few miles from campus. You park by the side of the road and walk down the grassy bank to the river's edge. You strip to your bathing suit, look down at the smooth tannin-dark water. You take a deep breath and dive in.

What you don't see is a whole new life lurking in the river. Your hands break water, then your head. Then you feel the thunk, the shock, the snap of your neck as your head strikes a granite rock just below the surface.

That's what happened to Rob DeBlois '76 back in the spring of 1975. The next thing he knew a stranger was dragging his limp body out of the river. By the end of the day, he was lying heavily sedated in a hospital in Portland, Maine, with a broken neck, a shaved head and a stainless steel clamp screwed to his temples to prevent any head motion. At age 21, DeBlois was a quadriplegic for life.

Yet as tragic as the event was, it also signaled the beginning of a remarkable new direction for DeBlois. Now, some 25 years later, in the living room of his ranch house in Seekonk, Mass., he says that the accident confirmed his decision to enter the field of education. "I was heading in that direction," DeBlois says, "although I didn't really think much about it. But afterward it seemed like the right thing to do. It's one of those fields where being crippled can be an asset to the extent that you can focus on possibilities rather than liabilities."

It's hard to complain about having to read Romeo and Juliet or figure out a quadratic equation when in front of you is a dedicated, optimistic teacher who can't even walk across the room or pour a glass of water or tie his own shoes. DeBlois has even used his condition as an occasion for humor, chiding lethargic students, "Hey, even I can walk faster than that."

When, a year after the accident, DeBlois resolved to pursue a career in teaching, he could not have guessed the impact he would have in the field. The list of successes is impressive. He is the founder and director of the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program, a remarkable inner-city middle school in Providence, R.I., for kids at risk of dropping out.

His efforts to help students the mainstream system has largely ignored have earned him an honorary degree from Rhode Island College and a prestigious National Caring Award from the Caring Institute (other recipients include Mother Teresa and Jane Goodall), as well as praise from many of the nation's leading education reform advocates. CBS Radio aired a feature about the school's success with troubled kids. Fox Television followed suit. The U.S. Department of Education has cited the Urban Collaborative as a model program. The Carnegie Foundation has honored DeBlois for his efforts at school reform.

"I think I'm lucky," DeBlois says about the success of his school and the attention he has received, "mostly because I've had great support from my family, especially my wife, Bonnie. I've also worked with some extraordinary people and had some extraordinary mentors. It started right at UNH after my accident. I had fantastic professors, including [education professor] Ellen Corcoran and [English professor] Don Murray '48, who went out of their way to help me. And there was George Griewank, an English teacher at Oyster River High School, who taught me so much about working with kids in the classroom."

That support and mentoring continued at Brown University, where he received a master's degree in English, and with folks like Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and others involved in education in Rhode Island. "I don't know whether people helped me because of my condition or if they did it as a matter of routine as educators, but it certainly made a huge difference. Working with such great people made it that much more exciting to be a part of their world. Through their care and energy, they made education seem like such a vital place to be."

Those who know DeBlois will tell you there is another side to it: DeBlois' own sense of justice and determination. "Rob has an ability to see an alternative reality, and he sees it so clearly, it's impossible for him not to act on it," says Karen Voci of the Rhode Island Foundation, one of the institutions that has supported his school over the years.

Vitality. As DeBlois talks, he throws his arms back over his head to stretch, an oft repeated gesture. It's about all he can do with his body. Having broken his C-5 vertebrae, he has limited control of his neck and shoulder muscles but not much more. He can turn on a phone (usually with his nose) and tap out the numbers with a stick inserted in a brace strapped to his hand. He can scoop food off a plate with a specially shaped spoon. But most actions in his life—getting out of bed, showering, dressing, for instance—require two people from the moment he wakes to the moment he nods off each night. Everything takes time and cooperation. It's tough going and there is little privacy. By day, he has a full-time attendant. At night and on weekends, he relies on his wife and their three children, or anyone else who happens to be around.

DeBlois, now 45, was a whirlwind of physical energy in his youth. While studying literature and education at UNH, he spent much of his free time hiking in the White Mountains with a sort of bird-dog delight about everything outdoors. In high school, he played football, hockey and lacrosse. While all that is gone now, DeBlois has managed to convert that physical energy into mental energy and resolve. As Al Lemos, the Urban Collaborative's counselor, says, "The first year I more or less tried to keep up with Rob. And it was as if I were trying to commit suicide. I couldn't do it. This guy's amazing. He's got endless amounts of energy. No one can keep up with him."

Well, one person can: his wife, Bonnie Hunt DeBlois '75. She was his girlfriend at the time of the accident, and after DeBlois returned to UNH to finish his degree, Bonnie spent many weekends driving to Durham from Rhode Island, where she lived and worked, to be with him. It took them five years to decide to get married but, as Bonnie puts it, "It was not a difficult decision. It's not like I worried about being stuck with a crippled guy. We were very close before his accident, and afterward I didn't think the essential attraction had changed. We had so much in common. We still do."

Their bond may be stronger than the average marriage because of DeBlois' condition. It's not just the unusual intimacy of Bonnie taking care of DeBlois most of the time. It's partly the way DeBlois' lack of mobility has simplified their options. Bonnie has been very involved with DeBlois' post-graduate work and his professional progress over the years. She says she's proud of his accomplishments and is happy to travel with him to his education conferences. They also greatly enjoy their family life, their three children, their visits with friends and their vacations, especially trips to the White Mountains every year.

In the early years of their marriage, DeBlois had a job teaching high school English at a Catholic girls' school, while Bonnie earned a degree in library science and began working as a school librarian (she still does). A few years later, DeBlois enrolled at Brown. He also earned a master's in education from Rhode Island College.

During these years, DeBlois' interest in education sharpened, and he began taking a hard look at the shortcomings of our educational system in the inner city. In the 1980s, drop-out rates in many American cities had climbed to 35 percent and higher. In Providence, this translated into thousands of kids leaving school every year, never to return. DeBlois' response to this in the mid-'80s was to establish a summer school program for urban kids in Providence based on cutting-edge thinking about interdisciplinary learning. This program—SPIRIT—is still in operation.

A few years later, DeBlois started working to establish a year-round program that served at-risk kids, and in 1989 he opened the doors to the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program. The program is designed for middle schoolers, rather than high schoolers, because it's an age when kids, despite their struggles, are still kids and generally willing to listen to the guidance of adults. In short, they still have a chance.

"Growing up, I never realized the advantages I had," DeBlois says. "When I finally understood how tough life is for these kids and how our society is not doing much to correct the disparities, I was astounded. I couldn't believe it. And, as an educator, I felt I couldn't ignore it. It's just one of those things—you go where you are needed."

"Many of these kids have been in trouble with the law and have no real adult guidance," DeBlois says. "As a result, they have not fared well in school. They are all at least one year behind their peers, have poor reading and math skills, low self-esteem, a tendency towards apathy or hostility and a distrust for authority. Without help, they will likely drop out." They are invited to the Urban Collaborative because they've shown at least a spark of desire to change things.

How does the Urban Collaborative turn life around for these kids where other schools have failed? Essentially by marrying academic purpose with compassion and support.

Although not a charter school (it actually predates the charter school movement), the Urban Collaborative acts much like one. That is, it is a public school with the independence to control its destiny. This independence has been both its greatest strength and weakness. Because it is a small, nonunionized program for the children of parents without political clout, the school was exceedingly difficult to establish and even harder to keep alive during the early years. In the first three years of its existence, in fact, the Urban Collaborative was lopped off the Providence school budget. Only a Herculean effort on DeBlois' part to rally supporters and fight for the school kept it alive. Today, thanks to shrewd planning and DeBlois' ability to draw community leaders to his side, the school is on solid footing. Last year, Providence Mayor Vincent Cianci officially proclaimed it a "premier alternative education program."

Independence has its value, too. DeBlois and his board were able to customize both the school's structure and its educational program to best suit these students. The Urban Collaborative starts with the involvement of teachers in nearly all aspects of the school, placing critical decisions in the hands of those closest to the students. The benefit of this collaboration is that the teachers, by helping to design and redesign the program, feel a sense of ownership and work harder to make the school succeed.

"I love teaching," says UCAP math teacher Brian Fay, who gave up a teaching assignment in a suburban school. "One of the main reasons I like teaching here—why I sought this school out—is that my opinion about education matters. I can help shape the program. That's very unusual in schools."

When the original teaching staff and DeBlois got together in the summer before UCAP opened, they decided to set up a program of individualized instruction that would allow each student to take charge of his or her education. In most schools, instruction is group centered, and advancement from grade to grade is based mostly on the time one spends "in seat," almost regardless of competency. That is why some graduate from high school without learning how to read at the 12th-grade level, or even how to read at all. It's what allows many kids to get out of sync with their classmates and, tired of feeling lost, unsupported and embarrassed, drop out. At the Urban Collaborative, students advance academically only after they complete established criteria for each grade. This system comes with its own set of problems (mostly in the form of more work for teachers), but it also motivates and engages students who would otherwise disappear from the back row into the backwaters of society.

Tied in with the individualized instruction is a high degree of student responsibility for their behavior and for the pace of their work. Instruction is set up so students can see a causal relationship between their academic effort and their rate of promotion. This gives them the opportunity to catch up with their peers, and it helps build self-esteem and character.

The other key component of the program is its relationship with the private sector. Because the school is set up as an independent nonprofit entity, it is able to raise a substantial amount of money each year to augment the program. This is vital mostly because Urban Collaborative students, given the nature of their lives, need so much more than the average student. Donations help pay for equipment as well as school electives such as art, drama and sex education. They fund field trips and outings and extra counseling for students. The process of raising money from the private sector has also helped establish a close relationship between the school and its community. Community business people and other volunteers often work in classes and serve on committees that help shape the school's future. In turn, DeBlois points out, "Such facing public schools."

The school is obviously on to something. From the start, despite all the challenges of a start-up, a difficult population of students and less-than-responsive state and city governments, the school has succeeded. Statistics predict that 80 percent of the Urban Collaborative students are destined to drop out. The school turns these numbers on end and manages to help 80 to 90 percent of them finish high school or get their graduate equivalency diplomas. Some have earned scholarships to college. To date, more than 650 inner-city kids have passed through UCAP's doors and gone on to high school with a better sense of self and view on life.

So what's next? "There's still a lot of work to be done here," DeBlois says. "We feel that what we do we do well—that is, create a sense of community in which these kids feel like they belong and can succeed in school. The next challenge is to take it to another level, to see if we can help these kids do well academically not only relative to where they were, but in comparison to anyone anywhere. I want people to think that this is not just a great school for kids at risk of dropping out, but a great school, period."

In an article he wrote years ago for the Boston Globe, DeBlois said of life as a quadriplegic, "If someone were to ask me what I feel I missed out on most, it would not be sex, athletic ability or even the ability to walk. These are the things that television movies concentrate on because they are easy for physically sound people to understand. What I feel I missed was the opportunity to experiment with my ideals and ideas as I moved into adulthood."

One can't help but wonder what DeBlois might have done had he not broken his neck in the Lamprey River 25 years ago. Yet he has managed, despite all, to test his ideals and ideas more than most. In fact, in middle age, the experiment continues.

Michael Brosnan '80G is the editor of Independent School magazine, published by the National Association of Independent Schools. He wrote about Rob DeBlois and UCAP in the book Against the Current: How One School Struggled and Succeeded with At-Risk Kids. He has a master's degree in fiction writing from UNH.