Lincoln Students React to the Election

Margaret Reist, reporting for the Lincoln Journal Star, did an excellent job of capturing the post-election reaction of students in Lincoln, a Refugee Friendly city. I think it’s safe to say these Lincoln Public Schools teachers and administrators earned their salaries this week.

Lincoln High School principal, Mark Larson:

“When students began to enter the building there was a palpable tension, a palpable anxiety in the air,” he said. “You could feel it. Students were raw yesterday, emotionally. More than any other day that I can remember in my career.”

And it wasn’t just the older high school students who were affected:

At Belmont Elementary, a first-grade student in Laurie Martinez’s English Language Learner class raised her hand.

“How soon am I going to have to go back?” she asked. 

Martinez said she was not prepared for first-graders to be worried about the election.

“I was naive,” she said.

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