our story is from the roxbury neighborhood which had more than its share of crime and poverty to deal with over the years. but in this case, they have decided to take the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on security and put it to a completely different use at school. our report tonight from nbc's katy tur. >> reporter: it was known as a drop out factory. three years ago orchard gardens school in roxbury, massachusetts, was plagued not only by low test scores, but violence. >> all kinds of dangerous weapons. >> going to the store in the middle of classes, barging into rooms. it was crazy. >> reporter: students couldn't carry backpacks out of fear they would use them to hide weapons. in the first seven years there were five principals. every fall, more than half of the teachers didn't return. that all changed in 2010 with principal number six and his bold idea. >> i had a huge security infrastructure. i decided to eliminate it completely and reinvest that money into the arts. >> reporter: principal andrew bott's goal was to use the arts as a tool for academic success. >> a l

this is a leader who was willing to put themselves in danger path after lexington and concord and roxbury filled up ward would be elected president of the provincial congress also the leading right of the committee of safety so in effect a leader of the legislative body and the executive body and was way over tax was what he had to do but his standing was so high that people in massachusetts felt there was no one else you could do it. a 33 year-old man. by this time his four children and a new fiancee were managing things in cambridge and during those 60 days he would oversee the creation of the war of the army and as the battle of bunker hill approached he was named a major general. so from the beginning he decided if they should turn to for he wanted to be in the fighting at the battle of bunker hill and he would die at the very end and become a hero and because he died many of us had never heard his story. and just a word on the battle of bunker hill it was a mess. it was not supposed to be that way and named for the wrong hill there was named after what they were supposed to be at the