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It’s a typical Wednesday afternoon for Veronica Lias’ fifth graders at Joyner Elementary School in City Heights. She’s reviewing everything the students have learned about the respiratory system before the test they’ll take the next day.
“You breathe air in through your . . .” she prompts.
“Nose,” the students say in unison.
But when the bell rings, instead of a new batch of students for science, Lais’ classroom fills with a mix of Kindergarten through fifth graders who run the school’s peacekeepers agency. They get down to business quickly.
Julio Romo is a fifth grader and the peacekeepers manager. He takes a role and announces the employee of the month.
Three afternoons a week during the last hour of the day Joyner is not just an elementary school. It’s also a tiny city that the kids call Micro. That city is based on a framework developed by a nonprofit called MicroSociety.
“We patrol outside to keep all the citizens safe” says Fifth Grader Cesar Benitez. “If someone’s like jumping off the stairs or running we give them one ticket and it has all the things that you can’t do in school — like fighting . . all the like crimes.”
Kids who get tickets have to pay a fine or go to the peacekeepers headquarters to attend peace school.
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