Teachers tell teen mom's other side (curious article)

The Post Standard

They say Patterson, who admitted beating her child, is a good student.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
By Maureen Sieh
Urban affairs editor

Fowler High School teachers, administrators and staff saw a different side of Cherron Patterson, an 18-year-old student arrested after the beating death of her 20-month-old daughter.

She was on track to graduate in May, the principal calling her a high performing student. She had a 93 grade-point average in English.

She was one of the top students in the digital photography/writing project developed by Syracuse University students.

She wrote in poems about her love for her daughter, Imani. Most of her class pictures were of Imani, too.

"It was definitely a shock," said Adam Lutwin, her English teacher. "Just as it's difficult for the public to understand she was a person, it's difficult for us to understand these things happened."

Police charged Patterson's 15-year-old boyfriend, Anthony Weakfall Jr., with second-degree murder.

Police say he spent nearly an hour Friday beating the toddler with a metal rod, a cable cord, bedsprings and his fist. He then left to attend Corcoran High School.

Police charged PattersonÕ7PattersonÕ with assault and endangering the welfare of a child because she admitted to police that she had beaten her daughter in the past.

"There's this whole side of her" that school officials didn't know, said James Palumbo, Fowler's principal.

Patterson attended school regularly, and always greeted him in the hallway every morning, he said Tuesday. None of Patterson's teachers had anything negative to say about her.

People were stunned to find out what happened, he said.

"There was a whole other side of her that was positive," he said. "This is a nice woman who is trying hard to graduate high school. The whole thing is so unfortunate. There's no script for anything like this. You can't describe it. It's hit our community very hard."

Patterson was a senior taking an junior English class, but she was an active participant, Lutwin said.

"She was a positive influence in the class," he said. "She definitely went above and beyond what she wanted to do."

In her poetry, she wrote mostly about her relationship with her daughter, Imani; her desire to finish high school; going to college and making a better life for herself.

Patterson always had positive things to say about her relationship with Imani, Lutwin said.

Imani loved to have her picture taken, and all of Patterson's pictures display a strong bond between mother and daughter, he said.

In October, Patterson took

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