It is true that the school is inside the Baltimore city jail.

And the students taking biology, math, and learning French and sign language are the same ones charged with crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

The steel bars are still there. Armed guards remain vigilant.

However, something has changed at the former Baltimore City Detention Center, School No. 370.

An oft-used PR tactic has transformed inmates into students, prisoners into dreamers.

"At the Eager Street Academy," said city school board Chairwoman Patricia L. Welch, using the school's new name, "there are some young men and some young women who still dream, and who still think they have somewhere to go, regardless of where they have already been."

This month in a unanimous school board vote, the Eager Street Academy was officially christened - the new name a more apt reflection of the school's focus on academic turnarounds, second chances and hope.

The change can be felt most, said Principal Dawn Downing, where it matters most - in the students' attitudes.

"We're unlocking minds here," Downing said. "We've always geared the curriculum toward unlocking the chains that are in these students' minds. They're bound by the area, the neighborhoods they live in. They're bound by negative comments: 'You're no good. You're never going to be any good. You're just like your daddy.' We're unlocking that, saying, 'That's not true.' This name says, 'Yes, you can succeed.'"

The new name was picked deliberately.

"If you change the name to something positive and something that the students can relate to," said school psychologist Mary Henderson, "then that will have an impact on the students' perceptions of themselves."

The school was launched in 1998 as a collaborative effort by the city school system, the State Department of Education and the state Division of Pretrial Detention and Services. Its curriculum is the same as other city schools'. But the 120-plus students, who attend classes there as they await trial, didn't always consider it a "real" school and neither did many in the community who disparagingly called it "the jail school."

"Unfortunately, our justice system isn't always speedy," Downing said. "We have those that are here for a while, long enough to get a report card. When they leave and they're asked for transcripts, it says 'Baltimore Detention Center.' That gives the perception that there must've been a problem with this child's education. ... The name had to be changed, in my opinion, to protect the innocent."

More than half of Downing's students leave without going to prison.

"It's important to note that they received a public school education, not a detention center education," Downing said.

At a recent Thanksgiving Day program, students and their families pulled themselves away from a rare treat - a hot turkey dinner - to consider what the change means to them.

When jail time might be imminent, what could possibly be in a name?

"It gives us a sense of being somewhere where we have a whole lot of supportive people behind us," said Stancil Jackson, 17.

"It makes me feel better," said Linwood Curtis, a baby-faced 16-year-old. "When I was in school, I was in an academy, so it makes me think I'm in a real school."

Linwood was never much of a scholar. Even when he attended class, he confesses, he still didn't do very well. But at Eager Street, Linwood is an honor roll student who is writing a book, a reflective autobiography that brings his teachers to tears. He wants to go back to church, to play keyboards in the choir, the way he used to do. He wants to go to trade school.

"I never even knew he could write a book," said Shirley Battle, 52, his guardian. "He was never that good in English. But he's a good thinker. And I thank God he got the opportunity to know what it's like inside here. I think it's changed him."

Students and officials say the new name more accurately reflects how often such a metamorphosis can take place behind the school walls.

"The name itself: Eager," Downing said. "Our students are eager to make a change in their lives. They're eager for people to see them differently. They're eager to now succeed."

Stancil's mother, Chaney Jackson, agreed.

"There's always a stigma on these children anyway, when they get out into society and try to get back on the right track," Jackson, 42, said. "People are prejudiced. There are some people who keep doing bad. But there's that percentage that jail - or an experience like this - it will change them. They will do better."

Jackson has hope that her oldest son will be one of those moved to change.

She wants to find her appetite, and be able to sleep at night. She wants to see her "baby" smile again.

And she's encouraged that the name change will bring something good to the rest of Stancil's time behind bars.

"This isn't a place that brings out the best in you. It can only bring out the worst in you," Jackson says.

Except for school, Stancil added.

"That's the only place that makes me happy."