When Day-Von Coleman was 16, he and his four younger siblings had to move into a shelter. Their parents were both in jail, and their grandmother was unable to continue caring for them.
Coleman, 21, rapidly fell in with a bad crowd during his year-long stay in the packed Fort Greene shelter, which was more than an hour away from his school, Boys & Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. School became an afterthought.
So, it came as no surprise to the adults in his life when he dropped out during his sophomore year.
“It was difficult because I wasn’t in the comfort of my own home,” Coleman recalled. “I moved around a lot.”
His experience was not unique.
The number of homeless kids attending city schools jumped to 76,816 in 2012-13 from 68,371 the previous year, according to an analysis from the Independent Budget Office.
Coleman — who later moved in with his single mother — got second and third chances at Brooklyn Democracy Academy, a specialized transfer school in Brownsville.
Even with the added academic attention, he had a tough time.
He dropped out again, in 2012, after his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Coleman took an internship at the YMCA in Harlem, hoping it would help him land a job and support his family.
But school staff never gave up and helped coax him back after multiple calls, home visits and even Facebook posts on his wall.
Last Friday, Coleman’s grandmother, Dorothy Jackson, brushed away tears as the school gave him a coveted $6,000 college scholarship during an emotional graduation ceremony. He will move upstate and begin classes at Onondaga Community College in the fall.
“I didn’t think I’d come back,” he told the Daily News shortly before walking down the aisle.
For a time, so did his teachers and advocate counselor, Giselle Gil.
“He was off-track,” she said. “He wasn’t taking advantage of what we offer.”
The school, which is run jointly by the Jewish Child Care Association and city Department of Education, is one of about 48 transfer schools in the city system.
The school offers an intensive, accelerated track to help students catch up before they become 21, the age at which they are no longer included in the city school system.
The school has advocate counselors, mentors who function like virtual family and help the students stay focused despite the obstacles posed by their tumultuous lives.
“A lot of the kids, by the time they get to us they’ve already been to two or three high schools,” Gil said. “We are very rigorous. It’s not something easy for kids to do.”
But the majority of graduates — 51 of the 59, are now headed to college, Gil said.
Coleman hopes to study business. He says he would like to one day open a barbershop.
“I just want to get away from everything,” he said. “I don’t want my family to have to face the same obstacles that I faced. I want to become very successful.”