Katie Boody tries to be optimistic, as a teacher in a school where 90% of the students are performing below their grade level.

Katie Boody visits the home of one of her sixth graders to discuss how he’s coping with the death of his older brother.

Katie Boody struggles to console one of her brightest students after his older brother is murdered.

On her first day teaching in one of Kansas City’s poorest neighborhoods, Katie Boody confronts the elephant in the seventh-grade classroom: her last name.