It is hard to see how many children could possibly succeed: > Most of all, Gunner worried about her students, most of whom lived in four low-income apartment c

It is hard to see how many children could possibly succeed: > Most of all, Gunner worried about her students, most of whom lived in four low-income apartment complexes, which saw a lot of transiency. Thirty-seven percent of the school’s students arrived or left midyear. The day before, a family showed up looking to enroll and was so poor that both the adults and children were barefoot and hoping for a free school lunch as much as classroom seats. When a school-board member asked Gunner at a district event early in the year what she needed as a new principal, Gunner immediately said a washer and dryer, so she could wash the clothes that many students wore day after day. Many students had experienced trauma — the violent death of a loved one or homelessness or physical, sexual or verbal abuse — and arrived in the mornings in emotional distress, easily dissolving into tears or erupting in fury. Over long weekends, students sometimes went untended or had little to eat, which made returning to school both welcome and difficult. Yet the school had only one full-time social worker and a counselor for more than 450 children.