What Sent a Reporter Back to First Grade — Even During Maternity Leave

Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this piece, Elizabeth Harris, a Metro reporter on the education beat, explains why she spent several months sitting in tiny plastic chairs. .

There have never been more homeless people in New York City, and in recent months this crisis has been getting attention. When many people think about homelessness, however, they don’t generally picture kids; more likely they think of a grown man huddled on the street alone. But there are tens of thousands of homeless children in the city — nearly 83,000 in the public school system last year. And where do those kids spend their days? At school.

Homeless students tend to be concentrated in particular schools, creating challenges that traditional schools aren’t set up to cope with. Many of these children are dealing with a level of stress that would strain even the strongest adult, and they bring that with them to class.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/insider/what-sent-a-reporter-back-to-first-grade-even-during-maternity-leave.html?