Q. Can you tell me a little about the students who attend your school?

A. We have a very diverse mix of students. I have a total enrollment right now, counting my pre-K, of about 616. About 150 African-American students, 50 Hispanic students, a few Bosnian, Korean, Japanese but mostly Caucasian. We are 75 percent free or reduced lunch, and a Title 1 school.

Title 1 is a federally funded program. There have to be so many students in a building that fall below the poverty line and then the federal government will give us a certain amount of money per child to spend on extra equipment, supplies. You can pay people to come into tutor, you can pay for additional teachers.

Q. What are the home lives of your students like?

Most of the parents are working two jobs just to put food on the table and pay the rent so there’s not a lot of time left at home to do things with the children that ‘normal’ parents do ... As far as home goes, they’re loving families and they’re doing the very best that they can but for some reason, sometimes life just sends them a blow. We have several homes in which the grandparents are raising the children and some in which the whole family is living with the grandparents, which I think is getting to be a common thing in this day and time.

Q. How many of your students live in Superior Creek Lodge?

A. Last year I had about 40 families from there. And most families had about 2 children in them. This year, we don’t have nearly as many, but the year is young and we get new students every day. Most of the ones that are coming in new are from Superior Creek. This year, I’m thinking we’d probably have about 20-25 families.

Q. I understand the school bus stops near Superior Creek Lodge. Can you explain what happened?

A. We have a bus that picks up children down there. Well, the bus cannot go all the way to Superior Creek because they can’t turn around, it’s a dead end, ... so we had to have a bus stop up at the other end of the street. And when you have that many children walking up that street, going through businesses’ parking lots, and businesses’ front lawns, there are going to be issues.

And the Cracker Barrel is there and very inviting for the children to go in on the way up in the morning and in the afternoon. When you get a lot of children going in with no money to look around there are problems. And so at the beginning of the year, I would go to the bus stop and make sure the parents understood where to walk when some of them walked their children to the bus stop and where to cross the street and where to stand because they can’t stand on private property. They have to stand across the street.

When they started this last year, the children thought they could stand on the lawn of the Cracker Barrel, which meant they’re playing in the flowers, they’re picking the flowers, they’re in the Cracker Barrel, they’re in the rocking chairs.

Q. Where are these families coming from?

A. We get a lot of people coming into Superior Creek from North Georgia, Catoosa County, Whitfield County. We’re not real sure why they choose to come up (I)-75 and that happens to be where they stop. We did ask last year in the spring when a parent would come in and they would be at Superior Creek, we’d say, ‘How did you know about Superior Creek?’ And they said, ‘Well, all up and down 75 at all the gas stations, there’s a sign.’ So Superior Creek is advertising.

Q. How do children who are living in an extended stay situation tend to fare in school?

A. They usually have a lot more freedom at home than other children do. They’re much more independent and they’re used to doing for themselves. They don’t as a rule always have their homework and what they need for school. They generally need more tutoring at school because they’ve moved a lot. And they haven’t been in a place long enough to establish, ‘Does this child have an academic problem or is it a different kind of problem that needs help?’ It take a while to identify an issue.

On our enrollment card it will ask which school a child attended before he came here, well, that’s only one (listed). But when we send for the permanent records, it has on there every school they’ve been in. Sometimes when a parent will come in, just in conversation, we’ll say, ‘Well, what school was your child in?’ and he’ll say, ‘Well, this year, he’s been in three schools already’ and this might be October. As a rule they are in many more schools in a year’s time than other children.

A lot of times children who live in situations like that come to us so behind in their academic growth that it’s very hard to catch up. But we have lots of programs in place that we immediately put them in which as long as they’re with us that’s going to help.

Q. What are some of the services you provide for the students from extended stay motels such as Superior Creek Lodge?

A. All of the kids from Superior Creek qualify for free lunch. We serve breakfast and lunch.

Q. Do you sometimes wonder if the breakfast and lunch you serve are the only two meals that they get?

A. Sometimes. And sometimes you can pretty much tell that it is. Occasionally a bus will have a problem and be late and it’s very interesting that most of the children on that bus that’s the first thing they will want to know when they come in is ‘Can I still get breakfast?’ because they’re hungry ... They’ll be very concerned that they’re not going to get breakfast.

Q. Is there anything else that guides your approach to working with these students?

We make a real effort here not to make a distinction among the kids here who lives that like that and who doesn’t because they get enough of that anyway. Many of the parents from Superior Creek are thrilled that Spring Creek is on a uniform.

And that’s what we’re doing it for. Anybody who walked in our building would never know by looking or by going in a classroom, who lives where. That is our goal. I think probably we work a little bit harder with those children, simply because we know what a disadvantage they’re working under and they may not be here next week.

They feel defeated. They feel defeated before they even get out of the door in the morning.