Whether they were among the 10,000 who attended a virtual prom hosted by or celebrated by dressing up at home and dancing virtually with their friends, the Class of 2020 would not be denied a prom.

“I just put on my lamp upstairs so I could have some nice lighting,” Makinde La Veau, dancing in his dining room at his school’s virtual prom, . “I’m a senior. This is going to be my last prom, so I just want to make it fun.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sH2HWTZ72BI

La Veau, a senior at Eastern Technical High School in Baltimore, clearly knows what to do when life gives him lemons.

“We’re still alive,” La Veau said. “Life is like this, so as long as I’m still here, I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest.”

In Sweetwater, Texas, Grayson Chapman’s mother wasn’t about to let her daughter graduate without a little prom fun.

“Grayson thought it sounded a little cheesy at first. But she was so excited to get to be able to dress up after all and go to her last ‘prom,’” Jaci Chapman told . “Once we started getting the porch decorated and cranked up the music, she really started getting into the spirit of it!”

https://www.facebook.com/virtualprom/photos/a.116618289988213/129255215391187/?type=3&theater

At Northwest High School in Jackson, Michigan, seniors Meg Moffitt and Chelsea Devolder made a video of their classmates wearing their prom dresses.

“We wanted to make something for girls to show their dresses,” Meg told , the school district’s video news channel. “Boys were invited, but we didn’t get any of those. We had about 35 or 36 girls, though, so it was a good turnout.”

In Knoxville, Tennessee, a hosted a prom for high school seniors throughout Eastern Tennessee.

Hannah Lucas, 18, a senior at South Forsyth High School in Forsyth County, Georgia, and her brother Charlie, 15, a freshman, created the “We Are Well Prom” to help seniors feel less alone, reported.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_tH2exlX04/

At the Vista Peak Preparatory School in Aurora, Colorado, social distancing didn’t stop students from choosing prom royalty.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_gQzpmlbIt/

As for the prom Michelle Obama hosted, it was put on by MTV and When We All Vote, a nonprofit that aims to raise voter participation, reported. Obama is co-chair of the group and wanted to ensure that COVID-19 doesn’t cause the 18-year-old virtual prom-goers to miss out on another rite of passage — voting in November.

The coronavirus may change the world, but it can’t stifle the creativity of high school seniors who want what seniors before them have always taken for granted — a yearbook that showcases their shared history, presents their photos, lists their accomplishments and, sometimes, includes a silly quote.

Students nationwide have turned to Instagram and YouTube to fill the void left by physical yearbooks that have gone unpublished.

“It’s kind of sad that we can’t physically sign each other’s yearbooks, but in the absence of that, this Instagram account gives us a chance to maintain some sense of tradition,” Billy Duke, a senior at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, told .

The Instagram pages are hosted and designed by students who invite their fellow seniors to submit photos and information to them via direct messages. The submissions are displayed on a single page. Then students, friends, family and teachers can post comments on each student’s entry, just as if signing a printed yearbook.

“We’ve remained together over Zoom and Google Hangouts, and that does part of the trick in maintaining our school community academically, but beyond academics there’s so much more that goes into a school — the clubs, academics, plays, all of which has been canceled,” Duke told NBC. “I think the Instagram account is us trying to find that sense of community outside of the schoolwork.”

At North Attleboro High School in Massachusetts, students created a YouTube video to show that COVID-19 was not going to stop the Class of 2020, which has already lived through major events. It starts with a stream of seniors, each reciting a line about their collective memory.

“We were born in the wake of 9/11,” students say. “We entered a world where technology took over our lives. We entered elementary school at the start of the stock market crash. We were only in fifth grade when the Sandy Hook school shootings happened. We were in middle school during the Boston bombing, and we entered high school as mass shootings became the norm.”

Matt Bieger, a senior at Dunwoody High School in Georgia, set up his school’s Instagram Class of 2020 page.

“These accounts are something a lot of schools have done,” Bieger told . “Every high school I know is starting to use a page like this to celebrate their senior class. I’ve seen it across the country.”

He’s right — yearbook pages are popping up on social media from all over.

From Iowa:

From Ohio:

Some students, like the seniors at Calaveras High School in San Andreas, California, have created a hybrid yearbook, animating their Instagram page in a video on YouTube.

Ariana Mendoza, a senior at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, told the Times she wanted all students, even those without Instagram accounts, to be able to participate, so she asked for submissions through the school’s online learning platform.

Sarah Szabo, a co-creator of an Instagram page for North Springs Charter School of Arts and Sciences in Georgia, told NBC her account started as a way for students to share pictures of their lives but gradually transformed into a yearbook.

“Since we’re not going to really get to graduate together or see each other one last time all together, we thought we’d make an Instagram account,” Szabo told NBC. “Normally at school we’d have pictures and announcements on the monitors showing what people are doing after graduation, but we couldn’t have that this year.”

Randini Rana and Alisha Soni, both seniors at Farragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, told that the Instagram yearbook they jointly created was a kind of civic duty.

“We’re both members of the student government, so we’re used to working in an environment where we try to keep everybody connected,” Rana said. “I think that’s why it seemed like a no-brainer for us, because we want to keep a good community after high school.”

In his entire lifetime, Pythagoras himself probably didn’t teach as many students as Alexis Loveraz reaches in one quick video.

Alexis, who has a knack for simplifying everything from the Pythagorean theorem to algebraic equations, has nearly 700,000 followers on TikTok and 5.5 million likes. Who knew math was so popular? Or that it could be taught in 15-to-60-second snippets?

“I think people have to depend on YouTube videos and TikToks to learn even more,” Alexis told .

A student at New York City’s Harlem Prep High School, 16-year-old Alexis has seen his following on TikTok increase since schools closed due to coronavirus and students are learning online from home. His videos focus on algebra, geometry and chemistry.

“I was really shocked,” Alexis told . “Things that they probably forgot before COVID-19, this is a refresher of what I’m giving them out. It’s really cool because they understand it even better the way I’m explaining it to them.”

Though TikTok is best known as a platform for viral dances and funny gags, Alexis’s videos play it straight. He just stands in front of a whiteboard scrawled with equations in his family’s Bronx apartment and talks — very, very fast.

https://www.facebook.com/likmilian.hiciano/videos/2869815786452755/

“I’m excited about this. I know he can do this and more. I’m so proud that he helped a lot of people,” said Alexis’s mother, Likmilian Hiciano.

https://twitter.com/SmallBusBrain/status/1255844495880568835

Alexis, who has a 4.0 grade point average at Harlem Prep, garnered some of his tech skills at , a nonprofit that seeks to give urban students a career pathway in technology.

https://twitter.com/AmericaOnTech/status/1254832967509176320

He graduated from the group’s afterschool Tech Flex Leaders program for high school juniors and seniors.

In addition to TikTok, Alexis has a channel and teaches students from around the world through Google Classrooms.

“It reached places like the United States, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore,” Alexis said.

To judge from the comments on TikTok, students aren’t the only ones who can learn from Alexis. Maybe educators should check out his teaching style, too. “You explain 1000x better than my math teacher!!!” CBS2 quoted one student as saying.

Doing SAT Math Problems, will be doing basic to complex problems! Stay tuned for more!

If there is any job that requires problem-solving and creativity, it’s teaching. So when the shortage of protective masks for health care workers surfaced, teachers far and wide set out to find a solution.

Middle school science and social studies teacher Emily Frawley read about a doctor who was using a 3D printer to make masks, and a light bulb went off. She knew she had the skills to do that, so she asked officials at her school, The Windward School in White Plains, New York, if she could use the school’s Makerbot 3D printers to help out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_FYAT4ldRg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

“[We can] think to ourselves, ‘What skills do I have that could contribute to a solution, and what resources do I have around me that can help?’ and then tinker around with the ideas that pop into our heads,” Frawley said in a story on . “Instead of convincing ourselves they’re too ambitious, or that they wouldn’t make an impact, we’d be shocked what we come up with.”

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216498250233644&set=a.1237432460810&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/emily.frawley2/posts/10216424666434095

Frawley found a design for an N95-style mask that worked with the school’s printers. She put out a call on social media and received donations of the materials needed to make the mask, including medical-grade filter fabric. The hardest element to find was plain old elastic, but she finally was able to secure 200 yards of that.

Now, Frawley can print up to 12 masks a day.

She’s not the only one.

Jeff Motz and Rob Robison, industrial tech teachers in Iowa’s Johnston Community School District, set up the district’s 3D printers in their garages and stay busy printing all night, making parts of face shields that can be donated to the area’s health care facilities and nursing homes, the reported.

In Calabasas, California, teachers and students at The Viewpoint School have printed more than 400 face masks, visors and pieces of protective equipment for local hospitals, the reported.

The Information Services Department at the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania is using seven 3D printers to print headbands for face shields and teaming up with the Kohelet Yeshiva in Merion, which adds the plastic shields, the said.

Jake Spearson, a drafting teacher at Helena High School in Montana, is one of several district educators who are using their own 3D printers to make personal protective equipment for health care workers, reported.

https://www.facebook.com/jake.spearson/posts/10219922900036799

In Rye, New York, the director of Rye Country Day School’s STEAM Initiative, Cathie Bischoff, and a group of five teachers joined forces to make part of the protective face shields that health care workers and first responders so desperately need.

The teachers make rim tops for the shields and deliver them to the at the Danbury Hackerspace, which 3D-prints the face covering, assembles the full shields and distributes them to local hospitals.

“It’s really inspiring to see,” Bischoff said in a story on . “Everyone and anyone can help. For us as STEAM educators, it has been especially meaningful for us to participate in this 3D printing project.”

Students and families from the school who have 3D printers at home have joined the effort, while those who have less sophisticated technology at home — such as sewing machines — are making cloth masks.

Frawley, of The Windward School, said it’s important not to miss the teachable moments that stem from the opportunity to help during the COVID-19 crisis.

“I think it’s really easy for middle school students like mine to write off possible careers in science, art and math — I know I did when I was their age! — but I think this can definitely inspire some of them to see how we can turn such a negative situation into something positive,” Frawley told ����Ӱ��. “Once they’re comfortable with all of the technology we’ve been throwing at them, I’m thinking I might introduce them to a website where they can create their own 3D printer designs. Once things begin to calm down with the hospitals here in NYC, I can print their creations and figure out a way to deliver/mail them.”

Let’s say you’re in a foreign country, seriously ill with COVID-19 and in labor with your second child. Who do you call for help?

Your son’s teacher.

That’s what Zully, an immigrant from Guatemala who is living in Stamford, Connecticut, did, the reported.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10223258839918022&set=a.1130575823322&type=3&theater

Panicked, sick and needing help with translation, Zully called Luciana Lira, her son’s bilingual teacher at Hart Magnet Elementary School, on April 4. Zully asked if Lira would come to Stamford Hospital, where Zully was about to deliver, and help her husband, Marvin, who speaks no English.

But the family needed more than language assistance. Marvin suspected that he and 7-year-old Junior also had COVID-19. He was terrified of taking the newborn home.

No problem, Lira said. She would care for the infant.

For weeks, while Zully was on a ventilator and Marvin and Junior were quarantined at home with the coronavirus, Lira did just that. She made a makeshift nursery in her home and cared for baby Neysel, who was delivered by C-section five weeks early but was perfectly healthy.

https://www.facebook.com/christine.menard.1257/posts/3022811151113231

Joy Colon, a fellow teacher and Lira’s friend, told the story in a Facebook post.

“The nurses at the hospital asked my friend if she was the mother’s sister, or perhaps, a cousin as she was listed as the primary contact,” Colon wrote. “Luciana Lira responded, ‘I’m just a teacher.’”

“She had only known this family since the beginning of the school year, and it was only because their 7-year-old was her student,” Colon wrote. “They were virtually strangers to one another. And yet, my friend did what truly good people do. She said yes.”

“My retelling cannot do justice to the sound of my friend’s voice as she shared the details of the events,” Colon wrote. “This is not what anyone imagined. Essential workers are out there working every day. We’re all at home, working and groping for an understanding of this new normal that caught all of us off guard. But this unselfish act reminds us that our humanity makes us all essential … to each other. How will each of us respond when we are asked to simply show up and help.”

Zully was taken off the ventilator April 19 and got to see her baby for the first time on a video call.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216803149446851&set=p.10216803149446851&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/gettyimages/photos/a.10150265450726297/10156985066001297/?type=3&theater

Lira posted an update on her Facebook page April 26:

“I received an unexpected call from Stamford hospital at 2:45 PM yesterday,” she wrote. “They informed us that Zully would be discharged in a couple of hours! My heart almost exploded of happiness and anxiety. I could not believe the day we’ve been praying for was finally here!”

https://www.facebook.com/luciana.machado.319/posts/10216803018923588

After three weeks in the hospital, Zully was released. She was taken home by ambulance.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216803119486102&set=p.10216803119486102&type=3&theater

“I can’t wait for them all to test negative so they can welcome their almost one-month-old baby boy home,” Lira wrote.

In the meantime, Lira wrote, she would keep caring for Neysel at her home until it is safe for him to meet his mom, dad and big brother.

These days, good news can be hard to find. But a movement that’s taken off in school communities nationwide means that signs of hope are now right there, just outside the front door.

In Jacksonville, Florida, Duval County Public School leaders put out a call for sidewalk art that could keep students engaged while spreading words of kindness through the district, reported.

It’s called the Chalk Your Walk initiative, and it has not only beautified streetscapes, it’s become a social media sensation. (See our full photo gallery of noteworthy street scenes.)

From the elementary grades to middle school and high school, students and teachers are hitting the pavement to create works of art that are colorful, uplifting and fun — if only until the next rainfall.

At Rosenthal Montessori Elementary in Alexandria, Louisiana, gratitude was chalked on the sidewalk to honor the assistant principal for AP Appreciation Week.

At Lake Highlands Elementary School in Dallas, phys ed coach Jessi Pittman combined Chalk Your Walk with a little gym activity that could have been called Chalk the Hop.

https://www.facebook.com/LakeHighlandsElementary/videos/235817427568044/?__xts__[0]=68.ARCy8WTsYLYgc-6TDjLJfdC9GfTrxcCasnkoVMf489x4Fbcf4ODMD3_pJv-AiRNZxe12aaowKHW9rjHgvrA-UTgF2TYrscVCZvRikC0sXEiwyKUCwaZ8aIHpNMH34y2YXsWXWm6dEuvqBoDz1l45Wkg3zimjRpX3ke_y6xLG0WksyIY7Qgmv6jzjPj_QmkQu-Su2AIVhcoNXtl9kao76OCeH02wfKBe1j-AKXOSWbp7PhtcIaNTaaZeHAs_YDW2t0-zotF0dPTlcmcM5Dx1-S7Pdb8DCDiJJHlnMG2VF5eJKe6hgjCzLApqVSVDh26-rQ8gaLPZdVo2qugU1cotLOPcqrrAqBwHuTBzpxg&__tn__=-R

At Kilby Elementary School in Woodbridge, Virginia, art teacher Teresa Woodson tried out her ideas for next year’s projects on her own children.

Some Central High School students in San Angelo, Texas, couldn’t resist decorating their entire walkway.

https://twitter.com/CentralCan/status/1246950944740442112

James Roscoe, principal at Grayslake North High School in Illinois, gave his art a title.

In Iowa’s Norwalk High School, even pets got in on Chalk Your Walk.

But for students at Rucker Elementary School in Houston, Chalk Your Walk was only one of the fun activities school officials dreamed up for Spirit Week. Teachers put out a call for one fun activity after another.

First there was Build a Reading Fort day.

https://twitter.com/WriterMamaTX/status/1247947503703666693

Then there was Silly Dance Day.

And Favorite Snack Day.

But Chalk Your Walk Day got the most posts of all.

Some Rucker Elementary students liked the idea so much, they took it further and created pet rocks.

A quick #ChalkYourWalk highlight reel:

It’s hard to say who thought of it first, but educators from coast to coast have set out to put a smile on their students’ faces — at a safe social distance, of course — with increasingly popular teacher parades. 

Long lines of cars snaking through housing subdivisions, rural roads and even city streets have rarely been such a welcome sight. But across the country, children and families have rushed out to greet parades of teachers and share the photos and video on social media.

Third-grade teacher Julie Sorrells Sides of Eastside Elementary School in Rockmart, Georgia, won the internet with the above photo of an extended family lined up to welcome her and the other teachers. It’s hard to say what’s cuter: grandad’s suspenders, or what the littlest child is holding in her hands. (We think that’s a chicken she brought out to the parade.)

In North Carolina, students from Henderson County Public Schools were hungry to see their teacher, and she to see them, as she and her family drove by. 

https://www.facebook.com/HCPSNC/photos/basw.AbqXs5kuqE2rY742nqF6OF5wRQxYBtKsJ40YJgFx6MkWXWRPVzcEdk_z2wDWH6zAi6pzAZfr4ISOV0TB6rYiaF8qhy4eTqTzYKM7KUpm1yOX1xOdXoUO08OiJOmgLi-FYnDrWnxIYnqyHmOsmv9yJLFr.3021032971293050.3021035141292833.3021033311293016.3021034951292852.10222944064620083.3021034221292925/3021034221292925/?type=1&opaqueCursor=AbomHvM2gpgrWhFlw153jC4oOziAdMa3WL_sJknGNYI2Oj1L_ocgv1J6wpqNm-SxZUJoejg_gR7moKmICBjyDo4EQ-faub_o60ZkmzfvODn8Mr7jUpsrb7aVBtNBQUZc8HwAInYa_c4bI73I3EvaBmZ69OMKc_cWVV9qiDStdtZ4_AlOKVeQOBEj6V2tDimXPm9nffX-9fE0VA3H_4bBhU9z5fYI5X7z1bO5qjZE1rurV5AH4eNTOI8T_m4lTK2SyyOTzJMTUAocJz6SITHOo_kzBN_EO1_-zK482pnaqnH6KKWDJHBFEkv_i-qA6QlW-ak3xlk-SFIiBC9oCncbpbptoYlZxw_jPbamRquZMMhQYgL5cr3C9fOTVeyuKJ1xr2FSCYZDdY7e9SBS9IJKBUyWYThbMHLkVLSLKPx807saiKW-H5ZUrxmW5w4m0N2p0IG9alWreuJ0BgtuFU09UME-7lbxfYgsaVeC9R2ivpx_JGx4QMr6DyERH9qClinU3TMGYAqxittjeWbjZmbLsvT7Ndngz8z6iD1y1MxjDCOKG9Z-vLhoRVG-VpTXDwRrSofOIjZcmT7ohtDzNbnSwceUUIeLi5v90cvl0wlctpwe5RPiQ19zWQGaraMQeSO8rv3j1Dh-N0yr-zj23kkeLwTH2BXCfg1W3GqygOE8Bt6777-uMiGRjVkvCPWDYpjV8CBCbC4Jzr7afvh5BK8rWc7u&theater

Students and parents from Arbolita Visual and Performing Arts Academy in La Habra, California, decorated signs, flew balloons and popped confetti when the teachers from their arts magnet school drove through the neighborhood to wave hello after weeks of virtual meetings.

In Wharton, New Jersey, a real-life traffic jam was a welcome sight when the teachers from Catherine A. Dwyer Elementary drove around local neighborhoods for two hours, waving to the students they have seen only by videoconference for the past few weeks.

Children in Exeter, California, got lots of love from their teachers during the Rocky Hill Elementary School teacher parade. 

A lot of organization and preparation went into these parades. Teachers from Hobby Elementary School in Houston, Texas, put finishing touches on their cars before they set out.

https://www.facebook.com/Hobby.Mustangs/videos/1185544295171154/

Last year, Beth Nathanson was in Chesterfield County, Virginia. This year, she was the woman of the hour when her fifth-graders at Bon Air Elementary School came out to salute her when she came parading through their neighborhood. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-YR2SQhD7o/

Davenport Community Schools in Iowa got in on the parade action, too. One photo from the school’s Facebook page sums up the reason for the festivities — a little boy reaching out for the teacher he’s missed since schools closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10224129448850349&set=p.10224129448850349&type=3&theater

If there were ever a time to quote Mr. Rogers, it’s now.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping,’” Fred Rogers said.

During this COVID-19 pandemic, school personnel nationwide are showing themselves to be the helpers.

In Anderson County School District 5, in South Carolina, everyone from teachers to principals helped out to provide meals for students of New Prospect Elementary School, the reported. Cafeteria workers reported to schools closed by the coronavirus outbreak to prepare breakfast and lunches, which teachers and staff then boarded buses to deliver.

https://www.facebook.com/andersondistrict5/videos/543297349630138/?__xts__[0]=68.ARArIeOUSyYolbElHtFbFXJLvGf9htkdSWDADXw5pPxYBbL85SdjYhf_j3MwQtUn4gv6k5JW6B-_JFhe9Jydc15EJ1PyeFd2Almxo_VnQtii7ZCO2Evc7jG-t8_XxQzhuolp-n07UK2ki0VZiC9vQ6W7HwydSl-hUEzNHUd5A09Y_IfyNPjvbD3ecezcAgL0ELCbK9amV9qkuCYG8CNjHFuJGDaIYw6YVUNe3p3HjVMKCDB0I_DIWQDVdpOtAgzZTTerAqrUt0SyJdOCCyZaJRW3Dy7bL6BV0rcRZdy7nemqD5EIpGn6DttsWXrZTUnFumzvmf0_zp6sFNGrD6-q-VDFpid7hlAiD78LU5vG&__tn__=-R

In Illinois, students from Carbondale Elementary School District #95 can either come to the school for a grab-and-go breakfast and lunch or have it delivered by school bus. Nearly two-thirds of the district’s students receive free or reduced-price lunch, but as long as school is closed, any student up to 18 years old can request a meal, reported.

“Even if shelves were completely stocked, there would be so many families that would not be able to go to the grocery store to buy food right now,” said Robby Clark-Stokes, interim principal at Thomas Elementary School. “We have a large number of children here that depend on these two meals they get here every day. Any kid that walks through the door is going to get a meal from us.”

https://www.facebook.com/CESDistrict95/photos/a.828412364308491/828413597641701/?type=3&theater

In Missouri, 50 or so food service workers in the Kansas City Public Schools gave up their spring break to make meals for thousands of students who were sent home because of the coronavirus outbreak, the reported.

“This is about feeding the children in this city,” cafeteria worker Stephanie Sanders told the Kansas City Star. “I’m happy to do it.”

Children who are hungry in Wenatchee, Washington, can either come to school to pick up a meal or visit a designated drop-off site, the reported.

“In this time of uncertainty, we want to make sure we’re stable,” said Chris Lutgen, the district’s nutrition services director. “We’re trying to combat the hunger in our community.”

In sprawling school districts like Roscommon Area Public Schools in Michigan, where 850 students are spread out over 350 miles, reaching hungry children means a long bus run, reported. But that didn’t deter the district from providing meals during the school shutdown.

The support staff at Red Lake Middle and High School in Bemidji, Minnesota, jumped at the chance to ride the school bus and deliver meals to the students they have been missing in the week since the district, on the Red Lake Reservation, closed, the reported.

“They’ve just been super excited to see us, even though it’s only been a few days,” said behavior interventionist Jamie Lindseth. “Most of them have come running out, especially kids that we’re close to.”

The Barnstable School District in Massachusetts delivered 5,600 lunches on a recent stay-home-from-school day, reported.

For sheer volume, though, it’s hard to top the Chicago Public Schools, which handed out 90,000 meal packages in three days, the reported. Each package included three days’ worth of breakfast and lunch, adding up to more than a half-million meals.

In about 40 hours’ time, students planned the March 12 ceremony and fashioned their own commencement regalia, everything from cloth robes to black trash bags for gowns and plenty of origami mortarboards and yarn tassels.

With the Olin Conductorless Orchestra playing and students, faculty, family and staff blowing bubbles toward the soon-to-be graduates, college president Rick Miller spoke to the crowd about what matters most. “In the past four years, we have built many things together, but most important among these are the relationships and deep friendships that have shaped our lives — and our institution,” he said.

The included a “fauxmencement” address by an assistant dean, eight seniors sharing messages of friendship, humor and hopes for the remainder of the semester, and seniors receiving “fauxplomas.”

The students’ creativity in planning the last-minute event, which was endorsed by the college faculty, staff and Board of Trustees, was matched only by the ingenuity of Mark Somerville, interim provost and dean of faculty, who capped the festivities with this special something for the students:

Now Fauxmencement’s at an end

And we’re going all online

Olin’s gonna miss you all…

’Cuz you’re awesome, not just fine

The last 3.75 years with you

Have been nothing but fun

But you still have seven weeks of work

So don’t think that you’re done

A year from now we’ll retell this story

We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, you’ll see

By then you’ll all have real degrees

And this will be a memory

So bye for now, Aufwiedersehen

We bid you all adieu

Know that we wish you luck, we’ll miss you all

And … above all …

We love you.

It’s not often that high school trade students and high school tech whizzes work together toward one goal, but that’s what happened in Georgia’s Gwinnett County School District when those two student groups, and more, combined forces to encourage local kids to read.

https://www.facebook.com/BuckyConnects/photos/pcb.2804686902911597/2804686512911636/?type=3&theater

It was part of the Gwinnett Reading Exchange & Art Transforms Little Minds, or G.R.E.A.T. Little Minds, program, the reported. The nonprofit Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services recruited students of all ages to make and decorate little library boxes to be installed in low-income neighborhoods across the county, containing books good for readers up to 8 years old.

The little libraries, which will work as a take-one, leave-one exchange, will be placed in stores, with community organizations or on streets in areas where children might not otherwise have access to a rotating supply of books.

Georgia: Gwinnett’s Little Library Project Aims For Big Impact on Early Learning (via )

— Library Journal (@LibraryJournal)

First, the woodworking students from the construction trades program built 200 component parts for the little libraries.

Then, the students from stepped in. They spent months designing digital devices that can record how often a particular little library is being used. This will help the coalition track how well the book exchange is doing it and whether there is a better location for it.

“One of the things we do in our classrooms is we try to have our kids come up with projects that will have an impact in the Paul Duke community,” engineering teacher Stephen Cochran told the . “This one obviously went large, and we’re able to positively impact Gwinnett through literacy.”

Along the way, local artists who work with helped paint the boxes and transform them into welcoming book nooks.

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Gwinnett County middle school students joined in on the decorating, too.

“I had three groups work on a library each,” Stephanie Birmingham, an art teacher at Five Forks Middle School, told the . “They were so excited to be a part of this. They worked on it in class, before school, after school — every chance they got.”

Employees at the Goodwill of North Georgia helped pack up stacks of books to donate to the effort, as did a group of incarcerated veterans, the reported.

“I think by us giving back, this is going to help out to the community, to the kids,” Air Force veteran Martez English, an inmate at the county jail, told the Gwinnett County Daily Post.

Businesses and local organizations have volunteered to be host locations for the little libraries.

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“We haven’t identified all of the sites yet,” Ellen Gerstein, the coalition’s executive director, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But there are 42 Title I schools in Gwinnett County, and we want to make sure most of the libraries are in proximity to those schools.”

Kim Holland, Gwinnett County Public Schools director of early learning and school readiness, is helping the coalition identify communities where the books would be most needed.

“I think this is the true example of a community effort around an issue,” Holland told the Daily Post. “The need was seen that we need to get books in the hands of families and kids. … It will take community members to also steward the books. That’s one of the pieces about this G.R.E.A.T. Little Minds Project that’s truly bringing the community together.”

It’s hard to say who was more excited about Minneapolis Southwest High School’s big win at a city wrestling tournament — the coach, the team or the fans.

The victorious wrestler himself seemed to take it in stride.

Wyatt Speck, a 120-pound sophomore who has Down syndrome, was the only member of the school’s junior varsity team to take the championship in his weight class.

“It was awesome,” Wyatt told , adding that he was not only prepared, he expected the win.

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His team was certainly thrilled.

“I’ve never seen a kid get hoisted so high in the air in a high school gym in my life,” wrestling coach Ben Cousins told CBS Minnesota.

Wyatt’s big victory also had his mother, Amy, floating on air.

On Friday night a Minneapolis Southwest wrestler won the jv city tournament. Wyatt Speck has Down Syndrome and no one was more proud than his coach- who has autism. At 10:00, how their bond has inspired Wyatt’s family, friends and teammates.

— John Lauritsen (@JDLauritsen)

“He got off the mat and I looked over at his team and his whole team had tears in their eyes and smiles bigger than life,” she told CBS. “And they just all embraced him. They picked him up in the air.”

Cousins, who has autism, wrestled in college and knows how hard it can be for someone with learning differences to be accepted.

“We like to preach ‘humans first, athletes second,’” Cousins told CBS. “We want to become the most inclusive team in the state, and Wyatt is a big part of that.”

“We want to be the most inclusive team in the state… “

— MrsT_OT (@MrsT_OT)

Wrestling isn’t the only extracurricular that Wyatt enjoys.

He also ice skates and plays in the string band.

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Still, it’s one thing to participate, entirely another to prevail in a championship match, 11-3.

“Just winning the city championship like that, it enforced all of that,” Amy Speck told CBS. “He can do anything he wants to do, and he’ll continue to do it.”

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Sticky notes, those ubiquitous colorful squares used for everything from brainstorming ideas to reminding forgetful parents to pick up milk, were used in a Golden, Colorado, high school for what may be their highest purpose: to help save a life.

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It all started when Golden High School English teacher Ashley Ferraro found some distressing graffiti scrawled on the girls’ bathroom wall. 

“Is life worth all the bullshit?” was scratched in ink on the white cinderblock. 

“When I first saw it, my reaction as a teacher was, ‘Ah, graffiti! We need to cover this up or erase it or get rid of it,’ Ferraro told . “And then I had the thought of, if we do that, are we ignoring the question and the person that asked it and the pain that they’re in?”

Ferraro encouraged her students to answer, and soon the desperate message was surrounded by sticky notes bearing messages of hope.

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“YES, because you are so LOVED by so many people, even strangers. Sometimes you go through the hard times to get to the good. Trust me, I’ve been there,” read one.

 “There are many more good times in life than bad times,” read another. “Live for those good times.” 

Soon there were so many notes, they spilled out onto the hallway walls. 

“People are going through stuff so severely that they don’t want to be alive anymore,” sophomore Teagan McGovern . “I don’t think people grasp how big of a deal that is.” 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among teenagers. The offers information and ways to help. 

Golden High sophomore Hannah Blackman started a to raise money for suicide prevention. 

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“I think it’s always — always — important to reach out and see if anybody needs help or even just a small act of kindness like the sticky notes,” Blackman .

Ferraro told CNN that no one has yet discovered who wrote the original graffiti message. The responses, however, echoed through the entire school and were undoubtedly heard by others, reinforcing optimism and perhaps even holding off despair. 

Story:

— Mark Neitro (@CBS4Mark)

“Personally, I know going in there even when I’m not having a bad day is just like a good feeling just to see the positivity,” student Taylor Volek told Fox31.

Astrophysicist-in-the-making Wolf Cukier is comfortable with high-level science, measuring distances in light years and observing planetary shifts. But occasionally, he lets his inner 17-year-old show through.

“Think of Star Wars’ Tatooine, Luke’s home planet,” Wolf said on ABC’s lunchtime broadcast. “Remember that double sunset? It’s a planet like that one, with two stars.”

Ah, good ol’ ! Now we get it.

Wolf, a senior at Scarsdale High School in the suburbs of New York City, found a new planet on the third day of his summer internship at in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA revealed earlier this month.

NASAGoddardPix: RT NASAGoddard: Three days into his internship, our very own Wolf Cukier used NASATESS data to discover a new planet orbiting two stars.?? Keep up the good work, Wolf!

“NASA Goddard High School Intern Discovers New Planet” by NASA…

— rmnstr (@rmnstr)

Wolf’s discovery of the massive planet, seven times the size of Earth, is most remarkable because it is the first found to orbit two stars instead of one, NASA said in a press release.

“His job was to examine variations in star brightness,” the release said. He was using the agency’s new , known as TESS.

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TESS, which is expanding our view of the universe, just happened to be pointed in the right direction when Wolf was assigned to study how two stars crossing paths would create an eclipse, he told .

“The planet blocked the light from those two stars, leading to a dip in the amount of light that reached the telescope,” he said. “It was like, ‘Oh, there’s something here. That’s cool.’”

Besides his talent in science, Wolf seems to be a master of understatement.

17-year-old Wolf Cukier discovers new planet during NASA internship

— EnglishForwardNews (@EngForwardNews)

“There are Ph.D. candidates who would die to have the kind of opportunity Wolf lucked into in this internship,” his mother, Beth, told the network.

At home, where Star Wars posters decorate his room, Wolf and his family are hoping his 15 minutes of fame stretches out to the universe. The planet he discovered is currently named TOI 1338 b, for the Tess Object of Interest telescope, but the Cukiers are hoping for a name change that writes Wolf into eternity, he said.

“My brother’s idea is ‘Wolftopia,’” he told .

Wolf Cukier, 17 anos, trabalha na NASA, descobriu 2 sóis…

— c h e i a d e m a n i a s ? (@broclis)

Some teachers never stop guiding their students. And thanks to just that kind of guidance, Denver’s Michael Atkins went from custodian to principal of his very own elementary school.

Atkins, who was bused from his predominantly black Denver neighborhood to a mostly white elementary school in 1986, had the good fortune to get Carolyn Riedlin as his first-grade teacher.

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“I wanted to make sure that every child that left their home and got on that bus was excited to come to school, that they were excited because they knew there was something really special inside my classroom,” Riedlin told .

Even at that young age, Atkins was aware of racial disparities in education, he told . But something special happened inside Riedlin’s classroom: a deep and lasting bond developed between student and teacher.

“Every child that enters into any educational system needs to know that there is an adult that cares for them and about them as much as Carrie cared for me,” Atkins told Today. “It was more than ‘He is one of my students’ — she really got to know who I was as an individual.”

At 19, he became a father and tried to get a job as a teaching assistant, but no school would hire him. So he took a job as a custodian while studying for a degree in business at night.

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As luck would have it, he ended up on the staff at Lowry Elementary — where Riedlin was the principal.

Former teacher and former student reconnected immediately, and Riedlin created for Atkins exactly the job he had tried and failed to get: reading and writing paraprofessional, he told BBC. He fell so in love with the work and the kids that after three weeks he changed his major to behavioral science with a minor in education.

“There were times where I got comfortable within my custodial position, and I loved the work,” Atkins said to . “I loved the people that I met. I was still able to be in front of youth. But I knew that was just the first chapter of my journey.”

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Atkins went on to teach in Denver schools for 15 years and serve as an assistant principal. And this academic year, he took his first post as a principal, at Stedman Elementary School, just six blocks from where he grew up.

From school custodian to principal. That’s the trajectory for 38-year-old Michael Atkins, the new principal at Stedman Elementary School in Denver, Colorado.

— Action News on 6abc (@6abc)

The bond he shares with Riedlin is as strong as ever.

“I’m just very proud of seeing him be very successful here,” she said during the Today interview. Then she reached in for a hug with Atkins, and the two educators who met decades before shared an “I love you.”

Those who doubt that children hear every word adults say might consider the story of Katelynn Hardee.

Katelynn, a 5-year-old who attends Breeze Hill Elementary School in Vista, California, overheard a classmate’s mother talking about the difficulty of paying for an afterschool program.

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“She started asking me a lot of questions and I just tried to explain to her that sometimes people aren’t as fortunate and that we need to try to be kind and give when we can,” Karina Hardee, Katelynn’s mom, .

The kindergartner asked her mother how she could help, and the two came up with a plan to put Katelynn’s love of baking to good use. In early December, she and her mom made sugar cookies and cocoa and set up a stand at her house, selling the sweet treats to neighbors and friends. Katelynn donated the profits to her , to offset the costs of school lunch for children whose families hadn’t paid their lunch bills.

“I don’t want people to be hungry,” Katelynn told

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The cocoa stand raised about $80, which helped erase the bills of 123 students at Breeze Hill Elementary.

“It is truly inspiring to see Katelynn’s compassion and generous nature utilized to help those less fortunate,” Jamie Phillips, director of child nutrition services for Vista Unified School District, .

Breakfast and lunch in the district can cost $3.50 a day for students up to fifth grade. Children who owe more than $10 get an “alternative meal” of hummus, string cheese, chips, fruit or vegetable and milk, .

Katelynn’s cocoa stand was so successful, she decided to do it again – only bigger this time. She, her mom and some friends organized a cocoa and cookie fundraiser at the school. KikisKindnessProject, as they called it, aimed to raise enough to erase more than 1,000 lunch bills that had accumulated throughout the Vista school district, CNN said.

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“Everybody is just so proud and happy and other students are already talking about ways they can also make a difference,” Breeze Hill Principal Lori Higley . “It goes to show that even one small, kind act from a 5-year-old can mean the difference for someone in their life.”

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Not even the holiday break stopped Katelynn and her mom. On the fundraising website , Karina Hardee notes that KikisKindnessProject has raised more than $23,000. After the lunch accounts are paid off, the money will be used to support school programs that have been removed due to budget cuts, Hardee wrote.

Not a bad start for a kindergartner who keeps her ears open.

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The assignment was persuasive writing, so the first-graders at a school in Muskegon, Michigan, picked a topic nearly every kid has had practice in: They really, really wanted a dog.

But what started as a classroom lesson ended up helping the students, the teachers, the school and even the neighborhood pet shelter, reported.

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The kids at Reeths-Puffer Elementary School wrote to their principal, listing the reasons dogs are good for children and helpful in schools. Apparently, they were good persuasive writers, and they got the administrators thinking.

“We started doing research, and it turns out there is a lot of research that says having a dog in school, a therapy dog, is beneficial,” Assistant Principal Karyn Benner said in a video posted by the Muskegon Humane Society. “Last summer, I want to the Humane Society and asked if they would have a dog that might be hypoallergenic and playful and really good around kids and calm and wouldn’t bark a whole lot. So, we had quite a lot of things we were looking for.”

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Benner soon found Buddy, a cuddly furball who became the school’s therapy dog. She adopted Buddy and now brings him to work every day, where he inevitably sniffs out the neediest child.

“He cheers up teachers who have had a rough moment and supports our school-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) initiative,” Benner told . “We have some highly aggressive students who have elaborate behavior plans. When their behaviors would escalate, our master’s-level staff were often unable to de-escalate them in a timely manner. But when Buddy comes in, the students just melt in a matter of minutes.”

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The story could have ended there, but it was too good not to share. Benner submitted an essay about Buddy to the and noted how the Title I school has many students with diverse social and learning needs.

“Buddy has been an integral part of our ‘support team,’ providing therapy to students when needed,” Benner wrote. “He is used as a reading Buddy, a comfort to those who are sad or upset.”

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The Petco Foundation, which has given $4.2 million in Holiday Wishes awards since 2012, including almost $900,000 in 2019, was persuaded. It awarded the a $100,000 grant.

“Buddy is an awesome dog that was able to reach his full potential because he was given the love and training he needed,” Alexis Ogborn, executive director of the Muskegon Humane Society, said at the ceremony. “There are millions of Buddys out there in shelters, and it just takes people that love them and want to help them find their purpose. We really appreciate you guys doing that for Buddy.”

Kenan Pala likes to say he’s been giving back since he could walk. But when pressed, the teen who has run food drives for the homeless, collected care packages for hurricane victims and organized countless other events in his hometown, San Diego, can pinpoint his first call to activism.

“I was running on the beach with my dad and we came across a baby seal,” Kenan told “We noticed that there were a lot of people caring for the seal. They were feeding it, giving it blankets, calling park rangers. They were trying to make sure it was OK.”

“Later that day,” he continued, “I saw a homeless man in the same situation. He was hungry, he was sick and he was asking for help. But instead of people gathering to help this man, they were ignoring him.”

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At just 12 years old, Kenan set out to change that. With the help of his family and friends from Francis Parker School, he established Kids4Community, a group that partners with other nonprofits to support people in need. His organization taps into kids’ natural eagerness to help and gives them a way to make the world a better place.

That was three years ago. Since then, Kids4Community has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and helped countless people, reported in a segment on Kenan’s latest fundraiser. In November, his group assembled 1,500 tailor-made “Bags of Hope” filled with supplies for the homeless.

“Now we have a volunteer base,” Kenan, now a high school junior, told . “Our email list has 2,000 families and we have had tens of thousands of volunteers, and thousands of kids come to our events.”

“Hopefully, these customized tote bags help homeless people see that people really do care and that there is a chance for a brighter future,” he told CBS8. “And that’s the ‘Bags of Hope.’”

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Kenan is making a splash overseas, too. A Turkish media outlet, the , wrote about him last year, when the city of San Diego named Jan. 23 Kenan Pala Day.

“Kenan is doing important and useful work for the homeless in our city with the organization established by the young students under his leadership,” Kristin Gaspar, a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, told the Hurriyet Daily News. “Last year, more than 8,000 packs of food, beverages, soaps, shampoos and wet wipes were packed and prepared for homeless people. They were donated to many institutions for homeless people in the U.S.”

Turkish-American teen Kenan Pala created Kids4Community to help the homeless in California

— TRT World (@trtworld)

In June 2018, Kids4Community teamed up with another nonprofit for a beach cleanup at San Diego’s Mission Bay Park. For every pound of trash collected, the groups donated $50 to help reunite immigrant families. In all, they collected 85 pounds of trash and donated more than $4,000 to groups that worked to get families back together.

“We tried to stay away from it politically,” Kenan told Teen Kids News. “I’m a kid, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to be separated from my mom and my family. I just wanted to help.”

Kenan Pala, 15, started a nonprofit in 2017 called Kids4Community.

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA)

That may not be surprising, considering that Kenan’s parents, and the sacrifices they made to immigrate to the United States and give their children better lives, are the true inspiration for his community work.

“My parents came from Turkey in 1998 to pursue their passion and were given opportunities that weren’t available to them there,” Kenan told . “They want me to understand how lucky I was to be born here.”

“Come,” they told him (pa-rum, pum, pum, pum). But it was not a chance to see a newborn king that was calling this little drummer boy. It was a college, with an offer of a full scholarship.

At just 5 years old, Jeremiah Travis is a drumming whiz. He’s used to the attention he gets being the only kindergartner who plays in the drumline of the high school marching band at St. Helena College and Career Academy in Greensburg, Louisiana.

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Having his picture projected on a giant screen after the band played a New Orleans Pelicans game, that’s no big thing.

But when Alcorn State University in Mississippi reached out and offered Jeremiah a full band scholarship when he graduates from high school – in 2032 – well, that was something special, reported.

Having two musical connections to the university who also work in his school district probably helped Jeremiah get the offer.

Chesterton Frye, director of bands at St. Helena Parish School District, was a former student band director at Alcorn State, where he studied music and psychology.

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Frye has been a fan of Jeremiah’s for a long time – at least when measured in a 5-year-old’s timeline.

“He was sitting in the stands, just beating on the stands with some drumsticks, and I was like, who is this little baby who keeps beating drumsticks in the stands,” Frye . “So we told him to come on over and we held the drum out, someone was holding it, and he just started going, going against the other band across the field, and I was like ‘Wow.’”

The little drummer was just 2 years old at the time, Frye said.

Jeremiah’s mother, Nicole Jackson, said her son has been drumming his whole life.

“My child only plays a video game for no longer than 15 minutes, and then he wants to beat on something,” Jackson told the Clarion Ledger. “He’s not a video game person. He likes to move and learn different things with drums.”

Video courtesy of .

Brandon Dorsey, the percussion teacher at the St. Helena school and a 2017 graduate of Alcorn State, is another fan, and another helpful connection to the university.

“I don’t force him to do things, because he is 5 years old,” Dorsey told the Clarion Ledger. “Sometimes, I have to revamp myself and remember that he is so young. What he has, it is God’s gift.”

We’re thrilled to report on inspiring classroom stories each and every week (get the latest dose of good news delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter). And with schools set to close this week as the country gives thanks, we thought we’d also set aside a day to pay tribute to the teachers who had us cheering this year. Here are 19 educators we’re so thankful to have met in 2019:

Ohio’s Barb Fisher, and a Lifesaving Class Lesson: Barb Fisher has been teaching elementary school for 12 years, so she knows a good lesson when she sees one. Still, until this year, she had never delivered a lesson that literally saved a child’s life.

First-grader Zhiouli Wilson, 6, became trapped in a basement during a fire in her family’s Akron home in May. If not for Fisher, the little girl might never have made it out. (Read more about the incredible true story)

Virginia’s Rodney Robinson, and His Fight For Criminal Justice Reform: The National Teacher of the Year for 2019 is Rodney Robinson, a history teacher in a juvenile detention center in Richmond. Robinson planned to use his new platform to highlight issues like equitable school funding and increasing the number of teachers of color. He also wanted to include the sorts of young offenders he teaches in ongoing bipartisan work around criminal justice reform. “They’re just kids. They’ve made mistakes, and America is a country of second chances. We just want to make sure they have a quality education to take full advantage of their second chance,” he said. (Read more about Robinson and his mission)

Kentucky’s Mary Byard and the Faculty of Shelby County West Middle School, for Their Inspiring Food Delivery: In Shelby County, virtually every student in kindergarten through seventh grade gets free breakfast and lunch at school. So when back-to-back snow days kept the children at Shelby County West Middle School home, their teachers realized that the students ran a real risk of going hungry. So they loaded up their cars and delivered food to more than 40 children and their families at home. (Read more about the Shelby County teachers’ missions of mercy)

Virginia’s Vohn Lewis, and an Unforgettable Graduation Gift: Fifth-grade graduation was just about to start at Richmond’s George Mason Elementary School when substitute teacher Vohn Lewis heard a commotion. A soon-to-be graduate had broken his shoe just before he was to walk across the stage. Guidance counselor Natalie Battle and the art teacher were scrambling to figure out how to fix it, but Lewis asked what size the child wore. When he learned that he and the boy wore the same size, he gave the student the shoes off his own feet so he could walk across the stage proudly and get his diploma. (Read more about Lewis and his timely rescue)

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��DZ��ǰ������’s��Lindsay Agbalokwu, and Her Special Delivery: When Denver reading teacher Lindsay Agbalokwu felt minor cramps one morning before school, she brushed them off and headed to work. After all, the baby wasn’t due for a couple more weeks, and her students needed her. But there’s such a thing as being too conscientious. After giving out “core value” awards during morning assembly, she went to her homeroom, where the contractions started again. She asked co-teacher Marissa Kast to notify the principal and dean, who helped Agbalokwu outside while Kast ran to get her car. But there was no slowing down the 8-pound, 6-ounce baby girl who was rushing her way into the world. Making it to the hospital was out of the question, so Kast threw a sleeping bag on the sidewalk. Soon, with the aid of Principal Natalie Lewis, Dean Chris Earls and some firefighters who showed up at the last moment, baby Zara was born. (Read more about Agbalokwu and her unforgettable special delivery)

New York’s Elisa Espinal and Ambar Quinones, and Their Year-Long Partnership: Elisa Espinal had wanted to work with young children since she was a kid. But the school in Brooklyn where she was teaching wasn’t preparing her to be the best she could be. So she transferred to Concourse Village Elementary School in the South Bronx, and as a kindergarten teacher new to this rigorous, high-needs school, Espinal was assigned a mentor, fifth-grade teacher Ambar Quinones. Mentoring programs are among the most common methods of support for new teachers in the U.S., but they vary widely in terms of quality; teachers with the least experience are often placed with the students who need the most help, which, in the long run, can be a disservice to both the teacher and the children. The program Espinal and Quinones are participants in, New Teacher Center, is among the largest and most researched in the country, having impacted 250,000 new teachers, mentors and coaches over the past 20 years. To understand what a rigorous, in-depth mentoring program looks like, and the effect it can have on teachers — and student learning — Kate Stringer spent a full academic year shadowing Espinal and Quinones at their school, watching their professional relationship grow as they devised strategies for dealing with an ever-changing set of challenges. (Read more about Espinal, Quinones and the value of mentorships)

�ձ�油��’s��Shannon Grimm, and a Stylish Act of Kindness: Five-year-old Prisilla Perez had suddenly gotten quiet in kindergarten class. She didn’t want to come to school or take her hat off when she got there. Her teacher, Shannon Grimm, realized something was wrong and soon learned that Prisilla was being bullied and called a boy by the other students because of her short hair. So Grimm — whose own hair flowed down to her waist — picked up scissors and got herself a pixie cut to support Prisilla. (Read more about Grimm’s compassionate cut)

��DZ��ǰ������’s��Heather Martin, Michelle Porter and Paula Reed, on How Columbine Changed Everything: The first time teacher Heather Martin experienced a lockdown drill, the traumatic memories from her past resurfaced. As a student close to 20 years ago, she was in the choir room at Columbine High School when two students began one of America’s deadliest mass shootings at a K-12 school, killing 13 people before taking their own lives. In the ensuing years, Martin failed out of college, developed an eating disorder and struggled with paralyzing grief. But somehow, she found herself back at school — this time, at the front of the classroom, and today, she teaches high school English in nearby Aurora, Colorado. Martin is one of three educators who survived the Columbine shooting who spoke to ����Ӱ�� ahead of the 20th anniversary of the massacre. Two were high school seniors at the time who later became teachers, while a third recently retired from Columbine after more than three decades on the job. Each of their lives was deeply disrupted by the experience, yet they emerged from trauma and grief committed to educating students. (Read more about Martin, Porter and Reed, and how mass school shootings have upended the perception of safety in America’s public schools)

New York’s Melissa Salguero, and the Power of Music Education: Bronx music teacher Melissa Salguero was the only American among 10 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize, selected from more than 10,000 teachers in 39 countries. Salguero started a band program that has improved student attendance and increased student confidence at a school where a majority of students live in poverty. She has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for instruments to keep the program going. “I will never say no to a kid, I don’t care if the concert’s tomorrow,” she said in her video entry for the contest. “I will have that kid participate in some way.” (Read more about Salguero and her music program)

����ǰ����岹’s��Kelly Cameron, and a Most Unique Wedding Registry: “I call my class ‘my family,’” says Kelly Cameron, a first-grade teacher at Tampa’s Roland Park K-8 Magnet School. “Being a teacher, I know that a lot of kids come with nothing to school.” So, after she and her future husband, Matt Cameron, got engaged in 2018, the couple saw an opportunity to take their good fortune and pay it forward. Instead of listing linens and lingerie on their wedding registry, they filled it with requests for school supplies. Each wedding invitation listed the age and gender of the child for whom the guests would be shopping. (Read more about Cameron and her wedding gift wish list)

��DZ��ǰ������’s��Finn Lanning, and a Life-Changing Homecoming: Would you take in a foster child? What if the child had a chronic illness that kept you mostly homebound, required an expensive special diet and required you to skip two days of work each week for doctor appointments? An Aurora math teacher didn’t let those details stop him. When Finn Lanning met 13-year-old Damien at the start of the last school year, he recognized the seventh-grader was someone special. Damien, who has been in foster care for most of his life, needed a kidney transplant and a permanent place to live — every time caring for him became too much for his foster parents and he lost his home, he would be taken off the transplant list. But then, Lanning stepped in, and not only did Damien get back on the list, it seems he has found a forever home. (Read more about Lanning and his compassionate act)

�䲹�����ڴǰ��Ծ���’s��Nicole Tavera, and Her Deep Passion for Science: Nicole Tavera grew up knowing that education was a priority in her family, but she struggled in school, especially with testing. Tavera, now a fifth-grade science teacher at California’s KIPP L.A. Prep, always had to work really hard in school. But it paid off. “I am the first generation to graduate from college [in my family], and I am proud to say not the last. I have younger siblings as well who are on that road. … Education has just been very, very highly important in our family, and so that’s why I chose to become a teacher.” Tavera talks about the importance of making science more fun for her students, her push to rein in the stress of testing that can build upon other stresses in her students’ lives, and her realization that before she teaches her kids physics or chemistry, she must first focus on reading and comprehension skills; many of her incoming students are years behind the curve. “We read, we read, we read. Reading is so important because not only does it help our English language arts teacher, but it also helps me in science.” (Read more about Tavera and her inspiring story)

Washington, D.C.’s Aaron Cuny and Will Stoetzer, and a Breakthrough in Personalized Learning: When Aaron Cuny and Will Stoetzer were deciding to open their own charter school in 2012, they knew two things: They would locate it in the disadvantaged Washington, D.C., neighborhood most in need of high-quality schools, and they would maximize individual teaching time. “For both of us, it came down to teaching in a small group setting, where you could think about how to reach kids individually rather than spending the majority of time and mental energy thinking about classroom management,” Stoetzer said. To do that, Ingenuity Prep is designed around computer-based learning and a heavy use of co-teaching, which then allows educators to break up their classes and maximize the amount of individual attention students receive. Six years later, Ingenuity Prep is delivering stronger results for some of the District’s most at-risk students but now faces a hurdle in its quest to expand. (Read more about Cuny, Stoetzer and Ingenuity Prep)

Florida’s Joanne Miller, and an Anti-Bullying Campaign Driven By Kindness: Want to know the best thing about being kind? It’s contagious. And Joanne Miller, a fourth-grade teacher in Deltona, is out to spread the kindness virus. Every Friday, about 20 students from Miller’s Kindness Squad line up to spread good cheer and welcome the students at Pride Elementary School. But the good works don’t stop at the front door. The squad spreads happiness before school, after school, during lunch and at recess. “We want to start small here in our classroom, and then to the school and then to the community,” Miller says. “One of my biggest goals is to teach kindness in the classroom, and then we will spread it.” It’s also a way to prevent bullying before it starts. (Read more about Miller and her Kindness Squad)

New York’s Eric Albino, and a New Campaign to Rethink the Way We Teach Slavery: Over years of classes, 11th-grader Jeremias Mata had viewed slavery with a certain simplicity and hopelessness — that many black people had once been slaves and that was that. This year, learning about slavery has been different for students at Manhattan’s Facing History School, partly because teachers are incorporating The New York Times’s 1619 Project — a compilation of essays and poetry that re-examines slavery’s legacy 400 years after the first enslaved people arrived in the U.S. from West Africa. The project is helping schools nationwide reframe how slavery is taught in a way that captures its brutality, complexity and influence in shaping America, while also affirming the experience as integral to black Americans’ identity and their contributions to the country. This reframing is “extremely important, especially with the student body that we teach here,” says history teacher Eric Albino. New York City is a predominantly black and Hispanic district that struggles with inequity and segregation. (Read more about Albino and the 1619 Project)

Need more inspiration in your life? Get a weekly dose of good news from schools delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter.

In some schools, having a robot in class might create a major distraction. But at Castle Hills Elementary in Lewisville, Texas, students treat the robot like just another one of the kids.

It was the chance to help some very sick children that got those fourth-graders hopping.

After Castle Hills student Avery Pacheco was hospitalized with leukemia over the summer, she started going to class via , using technology that helps chronically ill students all around the world attend school. The robot acts as a two-way mirror — when Avery is well enough, she and the robot participate in lessons and attend school events. But it also lets the healthy children in class watch daily life inside a pediatric hospital ward.

“Avery was diagnosed with leukemia at the end of August,” her mother, Emily Pacheco, told . “It was kind of a shock. She went from being a normal, healthy 9-year-old to being sick quickly.”

!!!!!

— Castle Hills ES (@CastleHillsES)

Once they witnessed Avery’s struggles, her classmates decided to hold a toy drive to benefit the hospital where she was receiving treatment, Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

By Oct. 22, the last day of the drive, the students had collected 1,500 toys for the hospital’s prize closet, NBC reported. As they looked over piles of toys in the school gym, excited and noisy fourth-graders packed boxes with card games, LEGO sets, Hot Wheels, Play-Doh and more.

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“I felt very good about it ’cause I’m happy I’m helping someone,” classmate Rahul Meghani told NBC.

We have an awesome God & we ask you to join our gym family in lifting Avery Brooke Pacheco, her family, & medical team treating her in prayer. She was diagnosed with Leukemia on Sat and starts chemo tomorrow. We thank you giving her an XTREME group of prayer warriors!

— Spirit Xtreme (@SpiritXtreme)

Via robot, Avery looks around the gym as the toy pack-up takes place in the NBC video. She and her mother, both wearing pink “Team BrAvery” T-shirts that have become standard wear for those in CHE, as Castle Hills Elementary is known, sit close together. Then, in a sweet, little girl’s voice, Avery shyly thanks her classmates for their generosity and support.

When her classmates first started bugging her to teach them to swim, Sylvie Goldner thought they were teasing. After all, one’s identity in high school is often boiled down to a single attribute – the smart one, the funny one, the swimmer.

But her New York City classmates were not joking, and Sylvie, 16, learned that many of them not only couldn’t swim but had never even been in the water, she told .

“I just assumed everyone knew how to swim,” said Sylvie, a competitive swimmer who began taking lessons in second grade.

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She was mistaken. Research from the shows that 64 percent of African-American children, 45 percent of Hispanic children and 40 percent of white children have little to no swimming ability. Those whose parents don’t swim have only a 19 percent chance of developing this lifesaving skill.

In New York City, fewer than know how to swim.

Sylvie, a certified lifeguard, set out to change that by offering free swimming lessons to her fellow students.

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Sylvie attends , a highly competitive public school in Manhattan that boasts a diverse student body. As the name implies, it is affiliated with Bard College and enables students to complete two years of college while still in high school. Students can earn up to 64 college credits and graduate with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree.

“I go to a super-diverse public school, and a lot of the kids, their parents are immigrants and they’ve never learned how to swim, so they never teach their kids how to swim, and this fear is passed down,” Sylvie told Today. “There’s water surrounding us everywhere, and to not have water safety skills is ridiculous, and it’s a real hazard.”

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In the spring, Sylvie got a $1,000 grant from her school, rented lane time at a nearby pool and signed up her first 10 students for free lessons, the reported. The class, called “” was for high school kids only.

“No kid my age wants to take lessons next to 3- and 4-year-olds,” Sylvie told the . “This creates a community of teenagers who are learning together.”

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By the end of the school year, students who had been afraid of the water could swim the length of the pool.

Buoyed by that success, Sylvie now hopes to expand First Strokes and offer free lessons to all New York City high school students. She has launched a to raise money for more lane time, swim goggles and caps to serve 100 students a week.

“To spread the joy of the pool to all, we are aiming to raise $50,000,” Sylvie wrote on the fundraising page.

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Her timing may be right. In August, called upon New York City to partner with businesses and nonprofits to offer free swimming lessons for all residents.

Want to know the best thing about being kind? It’s contagious. And Joanne Miller, a fourth-grade teacher in Deltona, Florida, is out to spread the kindness virus.

Every Friday, about 20 students from Miller’s Kindness Squad line up to spread good cheer and welcome the students at Pride Elementary School.

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But the good works don’t stop at the front door. The squad spreads happiness before school, after school, during lunch and at recess, Miller says in a video made by Volusia County Schools.

“We want to start small here in our classroom, and then to the school and then to the community,” she says. “One of my biggest goals is to teach kindness in the classroom, and then we will spread it.”

“If you’re having a bad day, this class will make you feel better,” Elizabeth Johnson, principal of Pride Elementary School, says in the video. “It’s a focus on academics and behavior and how do we make other people feel better.”

It’s also a way to prevent bullying before it starts, part of an emphasis on social-emotional learning. Students in Miller’s class learn to regularly give props to one another, complimenting classmates on everything from good grades to a nice smile. They pull “positivity pranks,” like anonymously dropping off a bag of candy in a nearby classroom. Later in the year, the class will go on a road trip, bringing their joy to a nursing home, and one student plans to ask for items for her birthday that she can donate to a homeless shelter.

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While she’s gotten recognition in her school district, Miller has global goals.

She is out to start a kindness revolution, and she knows how to wield social media to create a movement. Her Instagram account has 170,000 followers, while her has nearly 30,000 fans. Not bad for a mother of three who has been teaching for 24 years.

Recently, Miller’s Kindness Squad caught the eye of an editor at Time for Kids, who put them on the magazine’s cover.

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“The small things we do for our class and our school make everyone happy,” 9-year-old Deliana Black told .

“It’s pretty easy to be kind,” Luis Toro, 9, told the . “Just a small thing that’s kind could spread all around the world.”

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It may be easy, but that doesn’t mean teachers should take for granted that kindness will always come naturally, Miller told the paper.

“Kids aren’t born with kindness,” she said. “You have to teach it.”

Barb Fisher has been teaching elementary school in Ohio for 12 years, so she knows a good lesson when she sees one.

Still, until this year, she had never delivered a lesson that literally saved a child’s life.

First-grader Zhiouli Wilson, 6, became trapped in a basement during a fire in her family’s Akron home in May. If not for Fisher, the little girl might never have made it out.

Akron teacher honored for fire safety lessons that saved student’s life.

— Bridgette Pacholka (@BridgetteWEWS)

“We had just done our fire safety not two weeks before that, so it was all so fresh in her mind,” Fisher told . “The firefighter that rescued her said that she saved herself by what she had learned, what we had taught.”

As flames raged and smoke billowed around her, Zhiouli remembered to stay low to the ground and cover herself with a blanket. It is what she had just been taught in the Junior Fire Marshal program, which was developed by The Hartford insurance company 72 years ago and has been taught in schools to 111 million kids nationwide.

This month, firefighters from the Akron Fire Department and executives from The Hartford came to Seiberling Community Learning Center to honor Fisher and Zhiouli.

look an Akron teacher saved students life
Akron teacher honored for fire safety lessons that saved student’s life

— Corey Dreamer (@CoreyDreamer)

“We are here to see a very special teacher,” AnnMarie LaBreck, spokeswoman for The Hartford, said, according to the .

But Fisher said it’s Zhiouli who deserves the accolades.

“She is the bravest person I know,” Fisher told the paper.

The girl has recovered from serious injuries and returned to school, where she frequently .

She missed class the day of the award ceremony, but the assembly included a fire-safety lesson for the rest of the school, complete with red plastic helmets and a simulated blaze.

“It was the teachable moment,” Fisher told the . “It kept the attention of 28 first-graders for two hours.”

If there were a for high schools, two struggling northern Michigan schools could be its poster couple.

Glen Lake Community Schools has a football team but no band. Forest Area Community Schools has a band but no football team. Though the schools are an hour and a half apart, the Warrior Marching Band gladly answered the football team’s call and came to drum up some interschool spirit at a recent Lakers game.

“As we know, Friday nights under those lights are very special, but having a sideline cheer team and a band to be rocking out with our fans and students and for our school and community, nothing like it,” Mark Mattson, athletic director for Glen Lake Community Schools, told .

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Mattson said the idea to invite the Forest Area band came from a board member’s husband who had read that the Forest Area football team because it had too few players.

“When I talked to the band, I said, ‘This is quick. We’ve got a three-day turnaround. You have to make an adult decision on whether you want to do this or not. We can haul all our stuff up there, arrange everything and help these kids out,'” Forest Area band director Brandon Deike told . “All the band raised their hands.”

Without a team of their own to play for, the Forest Area Warrior Marching Band mostly played in musical competitions, drum major Hannah Spencer . The invitation to play for an actual team was too good to pass up.

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“I absolutely flipped. I was so happy,” Ashley Peckat, a senior, told . “Since it’s my last year after playing for six years, it’s the most important thing to me to be able to be out here and show people what we can do.”

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Deike said he believes his students also wanted to make the trip because they know what it is like for a school to be without a band.

“We were worse off than Glen Lake was,” he told . “We’ve been rebuilding since 2011. I think a lot of the kids remembered where we come from and what we had to face, and they really wanted to help these kids.”

And help them, they did.

The Lakers won, beating Gladstone, a team from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 31-7, Glen Lake Football player Ben Kroll . Kroll said the moral support and energy his team got from the marching band probably helped.

“How many points do you figure the band was worth?” asked NPR’s Scott Simon.

“Probably all 31,” Kroll said.

It was a storybook ending, but Deike said he was still surprised by the attention the story received.

“We’re in northern Michigan, in the woods, and we’re removed from the country,” Deike told . “You never go into something thinking, ‘Well, let’s hope this makes the national news.'”

But now that it has, the schools want to take things a step further. They are trying to get the story told on national television.

“Basically, our school is low-income, low socioeconomic status,” Deike said. “We have nothing in the way of money, budget or instruments. We’re working with chicken wire and duct tape here. From what we’ve come from and where we’ve gone, for another school an hour away to call us and say, ‘Hey, come be our band,’ why wouldn’t you want to share that story?”

Pull up to bonita vs Glendora

— Aalias Williams (@kingadub1)

When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the football team he coaches visited the hospital. So, when he was released a week later, John Langilotti returned the favor.

Langilotti, the assistant football coach for Bonita High School in California, showed up to a Friday night game only to find the fans, the players and the cheerleaders all sporting a bit of purple, a symbol of the fight against pancreatic cancer.

What was even more surprising, though, was that the opposing team and fans from Glendora High School also joined in the effort.

“Being in the press box and looking across the field and seeing them all in purple and seeing our last name — ‘We love you, Coach Langilotti’ — that was very, very heartfelt,” he told .

Everyone knew about Langilotti’s unexpected diagnosis after a sportswriter at the devoted much of his column to it and noted that a had been set up to help the Langilotti family with expenses.

“Life isn’t about who scores the most points; it’s about these moments when you’re forced to have perspective, a real eternal perspective about what’s significant and how you should live your life,” Bonita head coach Steve Bogan told reporter Fred Robledo. “… We’ll play on Friday doing everything we can to win a football game, but the real battle is with John, and he’s where our hearts and minds will be and where it should be as he fights this. He’s not alone; we’re all there for him.”

Friday’s game arrived and, as if the signs and emotional support were not moving enough, what happened at halftime made a local event go viral.

Chick-Fil-A had sponsored a contest in which one student from each school would get to try to kick a 30-yard field goal. The winner would get free Chick-Fil-A for a year.

Tiffany Gomez, a junior, was chosen to represent Glendora High.

“I was super nervous,” Gomez told . “I thought I was going to be the only one to not make it.”

Not quite. Gomez, who plays soccer, stood at the 30-yard line and sent the ball sailing straight through the uprights.

But rather than keep the prize, Gomez went over to the press box and gave it to Coach Langilotti.

“My grandma has cancer, too, and so I know how it affects the whole family, not just himself,” Gomez told NBC. “So, I thought he could use it more than I would.”

Amid the outpouring, Langilotti, a former Division I college football player at Tennessee, had remained cool — until then.

“For a young lady like her to come out and want to provide this generosity for a family in need just brought tears to my eyes, and I was ever so grateful,” he said.