that’s who the whole fifth grade
expects me to be.
If the Board of Ed sells this place,
all the students will be split up.
That’s why I’m not going
to the sit-in at the Board.
I want a middle school
where no one knows who I am,
a place where I can decide for myself
how I should dress,
which kids I’m crushing on,
a place where I can figure out
who I want to be,
but please keep that a secret.
April 21
STAND UP, SIT DOWN
Hannah Wiles
The phone rings.
I can hardly believe what I see.
Shoshanna’s number on the ID.
She says George is planning a protest
for our school to stay open.
She wants me to come.
Her dad will drive us.
What should I do?
I ask my stepmom, Heather. She says
why is Shoshanna being nice to me
all of a sudden?
I ask my dad. He says,
“Good riddance. Emerson
should have shut down years ago.”
Then I email my mom. She writes
back to say I should stand up
for what I want.
So I call Shoshanna.
I will ride with her to the meeting.
I will sit down
with the rest of my class.
April 22
MY SPEECH
George Furst
Hello, my name
is George Washington Furst.
I am a student
at Emerson Elementary School
and president
of our school’s
student council.
Students, parents, and teachers
from Emerson Elementary
and Montgomery Middle
are here tonight
to give
the Board of Education
a petition
with over five hundred
signatures.
We are asking
the Board
to delay its plans
to close our school
in June.
Some of my classmates
and other students
have prepared statements
explaining why
the Board
should save our school.
We plan
to sit in this room
until you hear
all
of our voices.
April 23
HOW MANY HOURS
Rajesh Rao
How many hours do we have to sit here
before we are called to the stand?
How many kids must fill up the Board room
before we can speak as we planned?
And how many times will we sing this old song
before Ms. Hill’s students get banned?
The answer, my friend, is…
A lot of hours.
A lot of kids.
A lot of times.
I’m glad you taught us those old songs, Ms. Hill,
so we had something to do while we waited
for the Board to let us speak.
Answers blowing in the wind
can get pretty loud
when you’re trying to make grown-ups
pay attention.
April 24
ODE TO MY GUITAR
Mark Fernandez
You were a gift
from my father
on my ninth birthday.
I strum you
and I hear
Papi’s voice
teaching me the chords.
I remember his hands
placing my fingers
on the frets.
I hold you close,
my old guitar,
and you
play happy music.
I bring you
wherever I go,
as if you were
my best friend.
We played together
when my class
sang songs of protest
at the Board
of Education.
Papi
would be proud of us.
April 27
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Katie McCain
I pushed my way through the crowd.
I walked right past my mother
and her fancy architectural drawings
of the new supermarket.
My mom gave me a thumbs-up.
She was the one who told me
how to dress
what to say
so the Board would take me seriously.
I stood in front
of the Board of Education
and told them how,
even though our neighborhood
needs a supermarket,
we wouldn’t be a neighborhood
without our school.
Mom said she’s impressed with me,
even though we disagree.
April 28
BORED AT THE BOARD
Jason Chen
There was a bored student named Chen
who’d been sitting for hours, but then
he said, “Why should I wait?
I’ll ask Kate on a date.”
She said yes! Let’s give Chen an “Amen!”
April 29
NO SHOW
George Furst
My father promised he’d come
to the Board of Ed meeting to hear my speech.
But he didn’t.
Since my dad wasn’t there,
I couldn’t show him how hard I worked
to keep our school the way it’s always been.
I won’t get another chance to tell the Board
they should talk to the students
before they decide to close our school.
Just like my dad
should have talked to me and Mom
before he left our family.
April 30
WHAT I MISSED
Edgar Lee Jones
I missed the sit-in at the Board.
I missed the waiting, being ignored.
I missed it when we lost our fight,
and Emerson was sold that night.
I missed it all. I wasn’t there.
I spent all night in a hospital chair
visiting Grandpa with my dad.
I miss his smile. He looks real bad.
May 4
TIGERS
Rennie Rawlins
I know what I’m going to buy
with my Easter money from Grandmom.
I’ve my got heart set on a red velvet bag
filled with Tiger’s Eye stones.
One stone is for Phoenix
so she’ll feel strong as a tiger
at her new school next year.
One stone is for my friend Norah
so she won’t forget me when
we go to different middle schools.
One stone is for Edgar
to give his grandpa, because
Tiger’s Eye brings good luck.
I’ll keep one stone for myself
so I always remember
I can roar like a tiger.
But the biggest stone,
I’m saving that one
for George.
He’s the spark
that lit up our class this year.
He’s the glint of fire
in the Tiger’s Eye.
May 5
MAKEOVER
Sydney Costley
Mom said I could change my look
over the summer
before middle school starts.
I asked, “Why wait?”
Norah already looks different,
mysterious and older
since she started wearing
her hijab every day.
I think it would be cool
to look older,
but not by covering myself up.
Over spring break
Mom took me to her salon,
dyed my hair black
with a pink streak in front,
gave me a short pixie cut.
She says it shows off my face.
I feel light
without all of that long hair.
At school, everyone says,
“Sydney, is that you?
You look so different.”
I like it. I was always
different from Sloane
on the inside.
We are still twins,
even though
I have been made over.
May 6
ALMOST SUMMER
Rachel Chieko Stein
When it’s almost summer
and the sun stays out late,
my favorite place is the park.
The younger kids are leaving
My brother and I
have the whole place to roam,
me on my bike, him on his scooter.
We ride past the big tree
humming with insects.
The breeze on my face could be
air moved by a thousand cicada wings.
Our wheels rumble like thunder
over the wooden bridge.
We find the baseball diamond—
empty!—so we skid over the bases,
kicking up orange dust.
I forget about torn-down schools
and friends who are changing.
I forget about homework
and teachers who shouldn’t retire.
Then we roll along the shadowy path
toward home, my brother and me,
in the deepening dark
of an almost-summer night.
May 7
JERUSALEM
Norah Hassan
Jaddi is going home soon,
back to Jerusalem.
He asked me to fly back with him,
spend the summer at his house.
I haven’t been there for a long time.
It’s only a visit.
Shoshanna invited me to her beach house.
Will I still have time to go?
I feel I might snap in two pieces,
one part of me here, one part in Jerusalem.
Sometimes wearing a hijab feels right.
Sometimes I want to wear my hair loose, like Shoshanna.
My sister says it’s up to me. She understands.
I want to be both. Muslim, American.
She says I get to choose what is right for me.
I decide my sister is right.
May 8
THE FUNERAL
Edgar Lee Jones
The church smells too clean.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
I escape to the back room,
where they’ve got donuts and coffee.
My brother finds me, fills a cup
halfway with milk, pours in some coffee.
I take small sips. Bitter and sweet.
The flavor makes me think of Grandpa,
his coffee breath in the morning.
I sit next to my brother in the pew,
but I imagine I am in my tree,
looking through the leaves at clouds,
until it seems I will fly upward
into a sea of sky, where Grandpa is waiting.
I touch the walnut turtle in my pocket,
tucked in there with my Tiger’s Eye stone.
I don’t know what it’s going to be like
missing Grandpa. Every morning,
every day after school, he won’t be here.
I see Norah, Rennie, and George at the church door,
coming up the aisle with Rennie’s mom.
When our mothers hug, the girls hug me, too.
George bumps my fist. “You’re here,” I say.
George says, “Sure.” They sit in the pew behind me.
I show them the turtle I made for Grandpa.
May 11
DREAM SCHOOL
Ben Kidwell
The teacher says,
“Come back to Earth, Ben.”
I can’t learn
sitting at a desk.
When they tear down this school
I hope they leave
a field
where new trees can grow.
I wish we had school
in the woods.
For classwork,
we could identify trees,
find box turtles, and
make recordings
of the spring frogs peeping.
The teacher says,
“Come back to Earth.”
I must have been
staring out the window again,
thinking about
my dream school.
May 12
RED DRESS
Brianna Holmes
My mom has an old red dress
in the back of her closet.
She’s been studying hard
for her degree.
She hasn’t had time to dress nice
or even put on makeup.
My mom has a red dress.
She says it’s too shabby
for interviews,
so she borrowed a gray suit
from her best friend.
When Mom told me and my brother
she got a job with Katie’s mother,
I hid her old red dress under my bed.
My mom has a red dress.
I beaded the collar and fixed the hem.
She doesn’t know it yet
but she’s wearing it
to our Moving Up ceremony.
When I walk across the stage
I want to be able to see my mom.
She’ll be easy to find
in her red dress.
May 13
TIME CAPSULE
All year, I pictured
the time capsule
like this:
Silver rocket
blasting off.
Inside, our poems
are astronauts,
asleep in the dark,
waiting for
the ship to wake,
ready to make contact
with people
from the future.
I did not picture:
Plain old
dull metal box,
stuck behind a wall
inside the supermarket
my mom’s helping
to build here
when our school
is torn down.
May 14
ONE WALL
Rachel Chieko Stein
When fifth grade started,
I was sad.
A big part of my life was ending.
I couldn’t believe anyone
would demolish this place.
When fifth grade started,
I was scared.
Certain people were mean.
I couldn’t believe
the things they said to me.
Even though it was hard,
I learned to stand up for myself.
Now fifth grade is almost over.
I’ve been thinking,
what if we saved one wall?
One strong wall no bulldozers
can knock down.
One wall made of many bricks
held together, like our class.
We’ll use it as a special place
to store the time capsule.
We can paint a mural
of all our faces.
One wall to say we were here.
May 15
TO MY TEACHER
Tyler La Roche
Dear Ms. Hill,
No matter what you say,
you are
not too old
to start a new job
at a new school next fall.
Sure, your hair is gray,
but my mom says
you’ve still got a lot
of pep in your step.
Don’t be afraid
of things changing.
I was nervous last summer
when we moved up north.
I didn’t want to start
at a new school.
I thought people
would laugh at my accent
and I wouldn’t make
any friends.
But I did, and even though
we didn’t save this school,
fifth grade was the best
and you are my all-time
favorite teacher.
Think about it. Some poor kid
is packing up his house,
getting ready to move,
nervous about starting
fifth grade at a new school.
Please don’t retire.
Out there, there’s someone
like me who needs
a teacher like you.
May 18
MOVING
Mark Fernandez
My family is moving.
My mom bought a new house
in Ohio so we can live
near my grandparents.
My sisters say they understand.
It’s been hard for my mom
to live in our house,
always thinking of our Papi.
But I want to stay.
I don’t need a change of scenery.
I need my friends.
I don’t want new ones.
I want to stay where it’s easy
to remember my father
packing up our tent, or
taking his bike out of the garage.
Finally, I get
why George tried so hard
to save our old school.
All our memories are here.
My mom says all my friends
will be starting over, just like me.
Everyone will make
new friends in middle school.
You’re moving on, too, Ms. Hill.
Retiring when school ends.
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
I am moving.
May 19