Complete Coverage

Kids Coming and Going

By Laura Reasoner Jones

It’s Thursday morning and I glance at my open e-mail screen as I buzz by my desk in the computer lab. And there it is again, the fourth time this week. Subject line: “Students coming/leaving.”

Apprehensive, I stop to open and read it. It’s Christina from Michelle’s class. One of my all-time favorite lab-lunch kids. I scroll down to see that she is not only leaving, but she has left. Her family has moved and she is gone without saying goodbye.

I read down the rest of the e-mail. Two students are coming—a boy into 4th grade from Honduras with the ELL level of 1, meaning no English at all, and his sister into kindergarten, also with no English. I will need to watch for them—to help them at the bus...