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The first day of my second year of teaching, a third-grader walked into class, saw another student and punched him in the nose. He didn’t say anything or give any indication that he was going to do this. It just happened. After cleaning up the blood and redirecting the class, I asked the attacker why he wanted to punch someone else. “He’s Mexican,” he said. “He don’t belong in my class.”

Last month, 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez used an erasable marker to scribble on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith,” she wrote, along with, “Lex was here. 2/1/10,” punctuated with a happy face. But neither her Spanish teacher nor the principal at Alexa’s Queens, New York, middle school were amused. They called school security—New York City police officers—who arrested and handcuffed Alexa, and walked her across the street to their precinct, according to the New York Daily News.

Denver students confront racial tracking at their high school.

A new third-grader arrives at your school. He is blind. He is autistic. He is developmentally delayed. How does your school deal with the special needs of this child?

Despite language barriers and inadequate translation, teachers can find clarity and solutions by reaching out to students’ families.

I arrived to school ready for our morning staff meeting and took a seat among my colleagues. But today was different. There were about 30 student leaders joining us. As a newer staff member at the school, I had little idea of what to expect for our planned Culture Day, which was based on Teaching Tolerance’s “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” The students were there because they were instrumental in planning and pulling it off.

A former teacher from Crystal City, Texas, remembers the student walkout that helped launch the Latino civil rights movement 40 years ago.

Charter schools tailored to the needs of newly arrived immigrants are getting a lot of attention. But are they working? And will they lead to a new kind of segregation?