On a Tuesday morning in February, Soheila Ahmad's first-grade class at Imagine Southeast Public Charter School has just finished language arts. The 12 children -- all boys, all African American -- are tidying up their desks.
There are no windows in this basement room, but one wall, the backdrop for posters, is painted sky blue.
"I need the cleanup crew here," shouts Ahmad, a 23-year-old first-time teacher, sweeping her arm around the central area of the class, where a few books lie scattered on the blue rug, and six blue beanbag chairs are arranged in a reading circle. Three boys hop to it, hoisting and heaving the beanbags into a pile against the far wall. A fourth boy collects the books and reshelves them. It is 10:30 a.m. and time for math.
"Let's practice counting by 10s to 100," Ahmad says.
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