…[Sonya] Romero-Smith’s toughest day, she said, came when authorities removed a malnourished child from her classroom after it was discovered that one of his parents had overdosed on drugs.
“Having a 5-year-old beg not to be taken away by police was devastating. I remember I gave this child the only thing I could find which was a stuffed toy that I had in the class,” she said. “I told this child that I would make sure he was OK and that all I wanted him to do was love and care for this stuffed toy.”
It was Romero-Smith’s desperate, last-ditch effort to comfort the traumatized boy … and, amazingly, it seemed to work.
Alice Gomstyn 