Every so often, Margot Chaffee asks her first-grade students a question.
"Who has the most wonderful class?" she asks.
And every time, the students respond in unison. "You do."
But Chaffee knows that her students at Laurel Elementary can't do their best work if they don't have the correct supplies. Around this time of year, their pencils have been sharpened down to stubs, their glue sticks are empty, their crayons are broken and their notebooks have no blank pages left.
Just when the situation becomes serious, a new batch of paper, pencils and other materials arrives, donated by students at Centennial High School. Each February for the past four years, members of the high school's Future Educators of America club have collected supplies and delivered them to Chaffee's classroom.
"The kids get so excited about this," Chaffee said.
This year, each student in Chaffee's class received a plastic shopping bag filled with items including a composition book, glue sticks, pencils, erasers, markers, stickers, scissors and some pieces of Valentine candy. Boxes of markers and other items were donated to the class as a whole.
The partnership, which has been beneficial to both schools, began with two Centennial high students -- Chaffee's daughter, Caroline, and her friend, Jenny Michael, both seniors now.
The two girls play lacrosse together and are friends. When Chaffee began teaching at Laurel Elementary, located just over the Howard County line in Prince George's County, she described the conditions there to Caroline and Jenny, telling how the students struggled to keep their pencil boxes adequately stocked as the year went on.
"Ms. Chaffee told us they got really low on supplies," said Michael.
She and her father, Warren Michael, who teaches business and computers at Centennial, started the Future Educators club at Centennial the same year, and began an annual supply drive to benefit the students in Chaffee's class.
"My dad and I started the club four years ago," said Jenny Michael, who helped deliver the supplies on Friday and plans to become a middle school or high school teacher. "I wanted to learn more about being an educator."
She explained that students in Centennial donated materials, and then club members filled in where items were missing.
For the first time, club members decided to use some of their money for Dr. Seuss books instead of for a teacher appreciation breakfast, said Jenny Michael. Each student received a new Dr. Seuss book and a corresponding stuffed Dr. Seuss character. The books were signed by the Centennial students, and contained postcards so that the Laurel Elementary students could write back.
"It's all because of Ms. Chaffee," said Melinda Lee, the Laurel principal. "She's definitely an advocate for the students."
Before the Centennial students arrived last week, Chaffee's class rehearsed a presentation one last time. One by one, each student stood and read a few lines from a poem. "Can a worm take a taxi?" one student read. "Can dinosaurs eat pancakes?" asked another. In the world of books, anything can happen, they agreed.
Several parents came in to the see the production, and watch their children interact with the Centennial students. Eileen Collins said her son, Caleb, had been talking about the reading, so she decided to come to the classroom to see it. "He loves to come to school," she said.
The Centennial students sat on the floor for the presentation, then answered questions from the first-graders. Several Laurel Elementary students wanted to know what the uniforms were like at Centennial, and were surprised to hear that Centennial High School, unlike Laurel Elementary, does not require school uniforms.
"What is it like to be in high school?" asked Yaseen Salley.
Mickey Albornoz, 17, a Centennial senior, said high school is a time for exploring interests. "Everyone can do their own thing and be more independent," he said.
Like other members of the Future Educators of America, Albornoz plans to be a teacher, he said. He hopes to teach Spanish at the high school level, he said, but also enjoys visiting the first-graders at Laurel Elementary.
"It's nice to see people really happy and enthusiastic about learning," he said.