Cal Poly to Screen ‘Paper Tigers’ Documentary

SAN LUIS OBISPO — A free screening of the documentary “Paper Tigers” will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in Chumash Auditorium on the Cal Poly campus.

School of Education building

The 2015 film follows a year in the life of six students at an alternative high school that has become a promising model for how to break the cycles of poverty, violence and disease that affect families.

Studies show that just one caring adult can help alter the cycle of adversity in a

young person’s life. Officials at Lincoln Alternative High School in Walla Walla, Wash., used this information to try a radically new approach to discipline: a system that is based on understanding and treatment rather than judgment and suspension.

Three years later, the number of on-campus fights had dropped 75 percent and Lincoln’s graduation rate had increased five-fold. “Paper Tigers,” written and directed by James Redford, is the story of how one school made such dramatic progress.

The screening is sponsored by Cal Poly’s School of Education. Light refreshments will be served. The film runs 102 minutes.