8:05 a.m. – Ms. Dozier’s eighth grade literature class

Most of the 21 students in the class of Alethea Dozier ’02 are interested in today’s lesson on the Holocaust, as well as the Japanese internment camps during World War II. Others are asleep on their desks, heads on crossed arms. Others are eating breakfast, which Dozier allows. She knows many face an empty fridge at home. Dozier, 32, is responsible for more than 100 eighth graders each year. She’s also raising, as a single mother, five children of her own, ages 4 through 14. Budgets are tight, time is even tighter, but she makes it work. She even finds time to lead a Young Life group. She’s up around 5 a.m. and home about 8 p.m. She then grades papers once the youngest are in bed, until around 11 p.m. When the bell rings the students head out the door. Dozier stands there, allowing the students out while looking for strays from her next class.

“They’ll get to right there,” she says, pointing about five feet away. “And then turn around if I don’t catch them.

She eyes one last student, loitering before the bell rings, and calls to him. She then shuts the door.

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