A Table for Two by Janet Albert

come from some pretty awful home situations and many of them live in abject poverty. A lot of them have behavioral issues and all sorts of physical and mental problems."
    "God, that's awful."
    "Many of them aren't healthy because their mother's were drinking heavily or taking drugs while they were pregnant with them. They probably didn't get any pre-natal care or take vitamins or eat a healthy diet, either. Thank God we have a full-time school nurse or we wouldn't know what to do about their problems or the constant physical complaints they use to get out of class. And students get injured almost every day from fighting and fooling around."
    "I wouldn't want her job," Dana said.
    "Me either. Her name's Erin Lafferty. I don't know her that well yet, but so far, I like her. She knows all the students and she is so patient with them. Even though she's around our age, she's like a mother to them. You should see how she handles them when they get out of control and start acting crazy. I think she has a gift."
    "I'm not sure I could deal with them at all," Dana said. "I'm not sure I'd want to."
    "Some of them are tough to handle, that's for sure, but we do have a lot of great kids in our school. They have more than their share of hardships, but somehow they rise above it all. They remind me of fragile but beautiful little flowers that push their way through tiny cracks in the sidewalk and grow even though they've been rooted in the worst possible place."
    "What do you think are the biggest problems they face?" Dana asked.
    "I don't have to think about that. It's poor parenting or no parenting at all. A lot of students were born to mothers who were children themselves and many of them are on their own as soon as they learn to take care of themselves. The worst situations seem to happen when the parents are addicted to alcohol or drugs or they're incarcerated. Then there's abuse. Physical and sexual abuse is bad enough, but how can you begin to deal with emotional abuse?"
    "Good Lord. Is it bad?"
    "Bad enough and more frequent than I would ever have thought. Some students have one or two parents or somebody who cares about them, but many don't. It's common for grandparents or aunts to be raising them and I don't even want to tell you about some of the foster parents we come across. Erin told me that the city has thousands of kids who need homes and they can't place them, let alone be too fussy about who takes them in."
    Dana grimaced. "God, I never knew that."
    "I've had students tell me a parent was murdered in front of them or their mother died of AIDS or she's living out in the streets because she's a drug addict and--well, you get the idea. You name it, I've heard it. Every day I see students who act out because they can't keep up with their school work and some of our students can't read above a third or fourth grade level. A lot of them struggle for three or four years in the ninth and tenth grades until they finally give up and drop out completely."
    "How do they get to high school without being able to read? That's shocking in this day and age and aside from that, you don't stand a chance without a high school education."
    "You don't stand much of a chance with one. And another thing that drives me nuts is that they keep having unprotected sex. Teenage pregnancy is a bigger problem than ever and so are sexually transmitted diseases. I go over all those things in my health classes and the nurse gives them classes, but they still don't get the message. Erin brings the public health department in to do voluntary STD testing."
    "What happens if they have something?"
    "The health department comes back to the school and treats them. They don't have to tell their parents, either. It's all confidential."
    "Are some of the students HIV positive?" Dana asked.
    "Yes, I'm sorry to say and I only know that because Erin told me, but I wouldn't know who they were unless they told me themselves. Erin said it's against the law for her to share