Plaza Towers Elementary School

Plaza Towers Elementary School

[Rhonda Crosswhite], a sixth-grade teacher at the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla. — a building that took a powerful hit from the storm — covered six students with her body, lying on top of them in one of the school's bathroom stalls when the building, a she put it, "just started coming down."

The walls started falling in on them, so she jumped on top of them, shielding them with her body. After the storm had passed, Evans pulled children from the destroyed building. But she still doesn't know how many of them survived.

"We had to pull a car off a teacher and she had three little kids underneath her," one first responder, in tears, told KFOR. "Good job, teach."

As students emerged from hiding, many were stunned by what they saw. Teachers carried the children away from the worst of the wreckage, comforting them until thankful parents took over.

Too many times, our teachers are called upon to be heroes. And every time, they deliver Becky Jo Evans is a first grade teacher at Plaza Towers If America's political leaders could spend a little less time trying to break their unions, cut their pay, and demean their very profession, perhaps they would see how integral to the fabric of the country our public teachers really are.

For more discussion, see catilinus' diary.

