CBC news correspondent Mark Kelley explores a variety of one-week careers in The National’s Seven series, and this time he tackles teaching at British Columbia’s lowest-ranked school. Prince Rupert’s Roosevelt Park Elementary School recently found itself at the bottom of the list in the Fraser Institute’s ranking of BC elementary schools. In response, principal Steve Riley invites Mark to take a closer look at his troubled school. Sixty out of 210 students at Roosevelt Park have severe learning disabilities and behaviour issues, and Mark gets first-hand experience of what this means to the school’s beleaguered teachers.

In his short tenure, Mark comes up against some tough questions. In a primarily First Nations community with severe unemployment and few prospects, is it possible Roosevelt Park is the worst school because its community has some of the worst problems? And what’s more important, is there a future for kids who have been labelled the worst? In the end, this would-be teacher gets a lesson in hard work and hope.