INSIDE NEW ORLEANS HIGH

(National Geographic Channel, Sunday, Oct. 26, 10 p.m.)

National Geographic Channel’s documentary Inside New Orleans High gives viewers a very informative snapshot of one of the Big Easy’s high schools as it struggles to get back on its feet after the 2005 devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The one major drawback to the one-hour documentary is that it’s often painful to watch.

The documentary follows loosely the lives of three students at Walter L. Cohen High School who already face daunting obstacles in their very young lives: Tysongi Love, a 19-year-old senior and mother who dropped out of school after Katrina and is now trying to get her diploma; Cardwell Henderson, a popular, rising basketball star at the high school who is struggling to keep his grades up so he can gain a college scholarship; and Charles Tucker, a troubled 11th grader and member of a local “Byrd Gang” clique who only attends school to play on the football team.

Each of the profiled students are given cameras so that they can make personal video “diaries” of their lives as they move closer to what they hope is graduation day. But as the documentary progresses, it becomes painfully clear that negative personal and community-influenced obstacles may make it very difficult for them to achieve their goals.

Also profiled are some of the school’s administrators, including Julie Murphy, a first-year English teacher who tries to make sense of her new surroundings. Of note is one video-diary entry in which Murphy discusses the first time she comes face to face with the violence that these kids face all too often.

During the six months of filming, four students at the school are killed or wounded by gun violence. In several distressing scenes that show both the emotional toll such senseless deaths have on the community and the school’s efforts to reach out and comfort those scarred by the violence, the school’s principal provides honorary high-school diplomas to the surviving members of the deceased students’ families.

Inside New Orleans High does provide a ray of hope as a graduation ceremony — which are held at a local church due to the lack of air conditioning in the school’s auditorium — shows that many of the students do persevere despite the prevalence of poverty and violence surrounding them.