LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — More than 70 Lefler school district educators recently participated in a role-play event hosted by the Food Bank of Lincoln to experience the kind of poverty that 56 percent of their students live every day.

Lefler is the first school to go through the simulation. Organizers hope other schools will soon do the same.

Lefler Principal Jessie Carlson had his staff participate in the exercise as part of a five-year effort to reduce the gap in both achievement and discipline rates for students living in poverty.

Teachers said the exercise put them in the shoes of struggling children and teens, and gave them a new perspective on why parents aren’t involved at school, and why kids act out, or forget their pencils.