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Last Day as Fifth-Graders

On the first day of summer and last day of school at Kate Waller Barrett Elementary in Arlington, Va., sat 25 fifth grade students from Donna Barnette's class who were about to become sixth-graders.

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"I've been called Mom so many times this week," Barnette said. "Someone called me Dad. I need to wear more makeup."

All week, between giddy award ceremonies, cake parties and other year-end rites, Ms. B's students had been spontaneously bursting into tears and clinging ever more to their teacher, a former equities trader who runs her class with a procession of hand claps, inspirational chants and hugs.

Barnette, 46, a self-described "Peace Corps girl," entered teaching at 38. Her latest class reveals many facets of public education. There are 10 students with disabilities and 16 who speak English as a second language.

She and her students, as ever happens, have grown intertwined. Imar McKay, 10, is making honor roll for the first time. Bo Sampson, 11, a formidable chess player, is blossoming into a highly gifted child. Adam Michalak, 11 -- dyslexic, like his teacher -- is discovering self-confidence.

In the final days, the class was getting restless. To keep everyone on task, Barnette captured and recaptured their attention with relentless routines. "My management tool," she said, "is no down time."

On Wednesday, after an experiment to determine how many drops of water would fit on the face of a penny, Barnette quieted the class by counting backward from 10 and extinguishing the lights.

"Everybody -- deep breath in, deep breath out," she said.

The class filed into the hallway for lunch, lining up along a bank of lockers, one foot on the black tiles, one on the white tiles.

A sign in the lunchroom warned that there would be no more ice cream until fall.

At long, rectangular tables, talk turned to middle school.

"They say at Kenmore [Middle School] there's a 'beat-up day,' " said one boy, a fifth-grader from Ronna Weaver's classroom next door. "And there's like blood everywhere, so they had to close down the school to clean up the blood."

Back in class, two students napped beneath a rectangular table. Ms. B clipped the guinea pig's nails. Imar removed construction-paper "robust nouns" from the wall. One by one, children went to the dry-erase board to select a picture from a montage of images: Ms. B's class at the National Zoo, at a fifth-grade picnic and splashing about in the water on Field Day, earlier that week.