Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

McKinney’s roots run deep. Like Dasani’s grandmother Joanie, who attended McKinney in the 1960s, most of the middle school students are Black, live in the projects, and are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced price meals. They eat in shifts in the school’s basement cafeteria, watched over by the avuncular Frank Heyward, who blasts oldies from a boom box, telling students, “I got shoes older than you.” For all of McKinney’s pluck, its burdens are great. In the last six years, the city has cut the school’s budget by a quarter as student enrollment continues to drop. After-school resources have shrunk, but not the needs of the students, for whom gun violence, domestic abuse, and murder are common enough that teachers have pushed for an on-site grief counselor.