California Police Chief- Fall 2013 | Page 37

17, than it’s been on us.”
When he was 6 years old, he began
attending Performing Stars of Marin’s
programs for disadvantaged kids.
“They had us working on manners
and poise and gave us different experiences — tap dancing, marching band, drama.
Every summer, they had us do plays at
Marin Theater Company summer camps.
As a kid, I grew to love it. I also did drama
at Tam. It became a passion.”
With other Marin City kids, Smith
went to Bayside Elementary, a school in
the Sausalito Marin City District that has
struggled with issues of race and academic
achievement since the 1960s.
When his mother moved the family
to Mill Valley when the twins were in the

fifth grade, they transferred from Bayside
to Edna Maguire School in Mill Valley, one
of the county’s more affluent communities.
At Edna Maguire, the boys found themselves among only a handful of black kids.
“At Bayside I was with all my friends
from Marin City, so going to Edna Maguire was a change from what I was used to,”
he says. “Mill Valley is a much wealthier
part of Marin County, so I got to see the
world from a different point of view. I
made a lot of friends there and it forced
a change in me for the better. I wasn’t the
same person who went to Bayside Elementary. I don’t know where I’d be now if I
hadn’t transferred over.”
Smith went on to Mill Valley Middle
School and then to Tam. His family has

since moved back to Marin City, where the
twins live with their mother, Latosha, an
aunt and their 10-year-old brother. Smith
went out for track and football as an underclassman, but chose to spend his senior
year focused on academics. He’s been
accepted at California State universities
in Chico and Los Angeles, and is trying to
decide between the two.
“I’m really passionate about going
into criminal justice, so I tend to focus on
subjects like economics and American
government,” he says. “We had a semester-long class on street law, which is kind
of the psychology of the streets. All of
those play an important part in taking care
of your community, being a cop or parole
officer or whatever I end up doing.”  ■

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