Justice High Puts Students in the Courtroom

It's Tuesday afternoon, and, as usual, T.J. Cole's office is a hotbed of activity. Students dart in and out, the phone rings off the hook, piles of paperwork nearly obscure him behind his desk. But Cole is looking beyond all that, into the future, staring directly at a To Sir, With Love moment, envisioning this year's graduation. He mentions a moment in that film when Sidney Poitier has successfully weathered the storm of his first year of ruffians — only to return to school and encounter a whole new crop of miscreants. In that scene, he realizes that it's time to do it all over again, to roll up his sleeves and get back to work.

This is a scene Cole can relate to, because he lives it year after year. A while ago, a reporter was working on a story about him, talking about writing a treatment for a film about Justice High. She got pregnant and disappeared, but it's still a hell of a story.

anthony camera

Lolita Respectsnothing (right) found herself at Justice High, where students regularly attend classes in the courtroom.

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More About

• T.J. Cole
• T. J. Cole
• Justice High School
• Sidney Poitier
• Boulder County Justice Center

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And what would such a movie look like?

"It would be a motivational film about a bunch of students who no one else wanted," Cole says, after thinking for a moment. "A group of kids who no one thought could learn and who, as a final-ditch effort, were sent to Justice High School, where a group of committed, motivated, deeply caring individuals did whatever it took to get those kids where they needed to be. They would work with the kids who had second-, third-grade reading levels and get them up to speed, and they would take the ridicule they would endure and all the crap they got when the school's scores came out in the papers, because they would know those figures were not reflective of who those kids were and what they were capable of. They would just shrug it off, because those special people would know that the long-term payoff is what they were seeking."

And how would that long-term payoff manifest itself on screen? At Justice High's graduation ceremony, of course.

"People often forget just how miraculous it is for these kids to even get a diploma, knowing where some of them came from," Cole continues. "A graduation ceremony would be a triumphant way to end that film."

And who would play T.J. Cole in the big-screen version? Sidney Poitier?

"Denzel Washington," he says with a grin. "He's the only one who could capture the intensity."

And with that, Magistrate Cole excuses himself and slips on his black judge's robe.

"Time to go be me."