A day in the life of Clinton Elementary
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7:46 a.m.
A winding line of laughing, noisy children waits outside of the front doors.
The students, in various colors of shirts, pants, hair and skin, sound hungry.
The low-toned bell rings, and they are ushered into the school.
It’s breakfast time.
7:50 a.m.
The students exit the breakfast line one by one, looking to Beverly Wertz who points out open spots at tables. The students follow her lead.
She calls it “organized chaos,” but it’s more organized than chaos as about 300 children eat Cocoa Puffs or Golden Grahams, with milk or orange juice to drink, in less than 20 minutes.
8:03 a.m.
Cora struggles to breathe, but Clinton nurse Hollis Alexander-Ramsay doesn’t seem too worried. The tiny blond-haired girl has been to the nurse’s office before.
She hooks Cora up to a machine with a long breathing tube protruding from a plastic box. The nebulizer eases her asthma, but as a precaution, the school calls home to report the news.
8:08 a.m.
“I know everything about diabetes,” Caleb brags, as he hands a hot pink sticky note to assistant nurse Karina Mendez. The note says Caleb ate all of his breakfast and helps the school keep track of his carbohydrate intake.
Caleb is tough. He tells the room of half a dozen listeners how to stay on top of a diabetes problem as the nurse gives him a shot of insulin.
8:40 a.m.
The ExCITE morning program preschoolers sit at two tables with teacher Danielle Rezac and paraeducator Fay Eby, their eyes fixed on two food carts holding today’s breakfast.
After handing out the milk cartons, the group leaders pour orange juice into little cups. Some of the kids are having a hard time opening their milk cartons.
“Ms. Fay, can you help me with this?” a boy asks shyly.
“Well, you need to pull up the end on this side,” Eby says, pointing to the “pull here” mark on the carton.
8:49 a.m.
The children have toast and scrambled eggs on their plates.
At first, they sit quietly, then some begin chatting about all sorts of things, including what happened yesterday at their homes.
Ms. Rezac tries to engage the children in a conversation.
“We are going to make some peanut butter sandwiches today,” she says. “How do you make peanut butter?”
Everybody chimes in to show off their knowledge.
“I know. I know. I know,” a boy shouts. “You need peanuts!“
“Yeah, you are right!” Ms. Rezac says.
9:01 a.m.
After finishing breakfast and throwing away the leftovers, the preschoolers put their plates and silverware in a plastic basket on the table.
They brush their teeth, and some go to the restroom.
The ones who are ready to head into the classroom line up behind Ms. Rezac and Ms. Eby.
“Can we go into the gym?” a boy asks. “I can do some somersaults. We went there last time. Why can’t we go now?“
He points to older students coming out of the gym, looking frustrated that he can’t go.
Another boy standing nearby says, “They are rich!”
Ms. Rezac intervenes: “No, they are the same people who go to the school like you guys. But we have to wait for our turn.”
9:05 a.m.
After returning to the classroom, the kids set their chairs around a circular mat and start talking and laughing.
“When we count to three, you be quiet,” Ms. Rezac orders the noisy class.
“One. Two. Three.”
The whole class counts out loud.
A calm silence falls over the classroom.
Ms. Rezac takes song requests from the children.
Then they start dancing.
“Are you a bunch of monkeys?” she asks.
“Yeah! Yeah!”
The kids shake their hips and scratch their heads like monkeys.
9:20 a.m.
Jill Wienke flips through the sheet music to “Mary Poppins” as 18 second-graders squirm around on the carpet in front of her.
“Before we go into this, I want someone to tell me an example of another musical that you might have seen,” the music teacher says. “Raise your hand if you can tell me another musical.”
Half a dozen hands shoot up, a couple of them swirling in the air.
The students answer as they’re called on:
“Pocahontas.”
“Beauty and the Beast.”
“Cinderella.”
Then, Mrs. Wienke calls on Giel.
The boy hesitates as he tries to recall what he was going to say. The teacher waits a few seconds.
She repeats the question: “A musical. What musical have you seen on a video, do you know?”
She pauses.
“You might not have seen one, Giel.”
11:01 a.m.
Twenty-two kindergartners sit bunched together on the tile floor in Lorinda Rice’s art classroom.
The teacher asks them about the stuffed paper fish they’re about to finish up: “Why do fish have stripes and spots and different colors?”
A boy in the front row raises his hand. “That way they can look pretty.”
She acknowledges his answer and repeats the question.
A girl in the middle of the group says, “So other fish can think they’re pretty.”
She then asks the kindergartners what the word camouflage means.
She gets 22 blank stares.
11:27 a.m.
Hunter sits in the art room, eyes focused on his piece of paper, ignoring his classmates as he works on his masterpiece.
His teacher has already stapled shut his stuffed paper fish, and he’s busy doodling with crayons.
The kindergartner draws a big blue cloud and a row of bright orange pumpkins, then a giant rectangle with a bunch of circles in it and lines coming out of it.
“It’s a robot,” he explains.
A pumpkin-eating robot.
Next, he creates a house with a stick figure standing outside.
“That’s the dentist’s house,” he says, pointing at his drawing, “And that’s the dentist.”
Multicolored raindrops fall on the dentist’s head. Red. Blue. Purple.
The robot gets a wig and the house gets the letter “H” on the roof.
“That stands for Hunter,” he says.
Mrs. Rice glances over at him and tells him to put the cardboard box of crayons back on the shelf, pointing out that he already has crayons on his table. The scrawny boy, swimming in his black T-shirt, lifts the heavy box and places it where it belongs.
He takes one last look at his drawing and rolls up the piece of paper.
Masterpiece complete.
12:20 p.m.
North Star High School students arrive with food from the Food Bank and form an assembly line. One group carries crates to another, which lines them up in the hallway.
They stuff numbered backpacks with items from each food group, then place them in a closet to wait for Friday.
The backpacks filled with nonperishable food go home to Clinton families for use over the weekend.
It’s an effort to ensure that as many children as possible have the same nutrition Saturday and Sunday that they have on school days.
1 p.m.
Kathy Mueller’s third-grade English Language Learners file through a sticker-plastered door into their Wednesday class.
“Read Your Heart Out!” a banner above the door proclaims.
Ten immigrant and six special education students. Black, white, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Kurdish.
Jo Alice Hibbard, a volunteer from the Lincoln Area Agency on Aging — teachers and kids call her “Grandma Jobie” — helps maintain order.
“Stop kicking your desk,” she tells one student.
Grandma Jobie commands respect with firm but quiet orders.
The children don’t make a sound as the lesson begins. They know her reprimands soon turn to grandma-hugs if they behave.
1:08 p.m.
A week ago, Mrs. Mueller’s ELL students went on a field trip to Valentino’s down the street from Clinton. Today, she tells them to remember what they saw, tasted, smelled, felt and heard.
Alice Mildenberger, from Clinton’s special education team, passes out sheets for the kids to fill out. Most write that they tasted pizza under the “taste” column, but Mrs. Mueller prods them to remember other things, such as the tomatoes and spices in the sauce.
The children’s senses also pick up squirrels, dogs barking, cars honking, ice crunching and customers yapping.
1:26 p.m.
Michelle Sievers holds up a copy of Dr. Seuss’ “I Wish That I Had Duck Feet” as 14 preschoolers look at the cover illustration in amazement.
The librarian says the book was one of her favorites as a child.
The thought of Mrs. Sievers as a young girl brings several smiles.
“I want duck feet,” a boy exclaims.
The other children join in: “Me, too.” “Me, too.” “Me, too.”
2:38 p.m.
A first-grader brings her habitat drawing to Mrs. Sievers as the class works on its research project in the library.
The librarian looks over the colorful piece of paper and says: “OK, but your whale is still in midair. Let’s get some ocean under that whale.”
The girl rushes back to her seat and grabs a blue crayon.
3:20 p.m.
“Flutes, the G was scary,” director Brendon Sibley says during after-school band practice. “Play your G for me, please.”
The flutists play the note individually, some with more bravado than others.
It’s Crystal’s turn. She blows into the hole but the note comes out too low.
“Roll it in a little bit more,” the instructor says, speaking over the announcement on the intercom.
Crystal turns her instrument slightly in her hands. She blows. The note comes out too low again.
“Faster air,” says Mr. Sibley.
She tries again. She still can't hit the note.
“Tighten the embouchure. Roll it in.”
She tries again. Nope.
“That one’s not gonna’ work,” Mr. Sibley says, moving on to the next two flutists before returning to Crystal.
“One more shot,” he says.
She tries three more times, unsuccessfully, as her classmates grow impatient. Finally, she hits the note, a little thin but clear.
“Now it’s there,” Mr. Sibley says.
Crystal smiles as she brings her instrument to her lap.
3:35 p.m.
It’s the end of the day, and the school is mostly quiet.
A tiny kindergartner stands in the entryway while a teacher watches.
The girl’s eyes are wide with waiting and wondering. Her lips, pursed for a few minutes, break into a smile as she sees a lanky figure through the glass windows in the doors.
Her Cindy Brady curls bounce up and down as she is hoisted six feet in the air and returned.
“Dad’s late, isn’t he?” he asks as he puts a knee on the cement and reaches out to tie the pink laces on his daughter’s tennis shoes. Her ringlets bob around her flushed little face as she nods.
Dad’s denim-clad arm scoops up the girl, while the other grasps her pink backpack. Spaghetti arms wrap around a weathered neck, and they’re on their way.
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