Obama makes surprise trip to read to children
As a sense of crisis engulfed his White House Tuesday with the withdrawal of former senator Tom Daschle as HHS Secretary-nominee, President Obama made an unannounced trip to a school to read to kids.
His motorcade was seen heading north on 15th Street, and local sources soon reported he was at The Capital City Public Charter School. There was no mention of a trip on the schedule sent out to reporters the previous day. At the school, the president and Michelle Obama read to a group of second-graders in the school library from a picture book entitled The Moon over Star, an account of the first moon landing in July of 1969. An Associated Press report from the scene said that Obama told the students, "We were just tired of being in the White House."
Principal Janine Gomez said that she learned yesterday from the White House that the president would be coming to visit the school at 15th and Irving Streets NW. "I thought about all of the struggles that my ancestors have gone through before we had equal rights," she said of his visit. "I saw two worlds coming together."
Obama was greeted at the front door of Capital City by 11-year-old Sam Sherman and 10-year-old Karen Tchemi of Northeast Washington. Said Sherman of the visit, "Words can't explain." Tchemi, perhaps influenced by a recent fifth-grade lesson about voting rights in the District, said she used her conversation with the president to push the case for D.C. statehood. "I made the case to him for D.C. voting rights," she said.
"This is a moment that they will remember for the rest of their lives," said fifth-grade teacher Wanda Gregory, who had been teaching Tchemi about the District's plight.
Leensa Fufa, 27, a second-grade teacher at the school whose students were among the 25 who got a chance to listen to Obama read, said, "It was a great honor for the president and the first lady to take time out of their busy schedule to recognize the work that we do here."
In addition to reading to the second-graders, Obama walked through parts of the school that opened in 2000, according Karen Dresden, the head of the Capital City Public Charter School.
Michael D. Shear and Hamil Harris
3 February 2009
