The Backpack Drop Zone: One Sixth-Grade Truth That Exposed Our Quiet Crisis

over to the garbage can, not to throw the paper away, but to gently place it on my desk, as if it were a fragile bird.

“Who’s next?” I asked.

Sarah, the girl who usually gets straight A’s and panics if she gets a B, stood up. She unfolded her paper.

“My parents fight every night about money. My dad sleeps on the couch now. I turn my music up loud so I continue reading …