Math teacher makes a house call

Two weeks into doing her middle school lessons at home, 12-year-old Rylee Anderson of Madison, South Dakota, came up against a math problem she could not understand. So she emailed her teacher, Chris Waba. Could he help? "You bet," he said. Beside teaching sixth-grade math at Madison Middle School, he also happens to live directly across the street from Rylee.

Rylee was waiting for him to email her some tips, when the doorbell rang. Mr. Waba was standing on her front porch holding a marker and a large whiteboard! For the next 10 minutes, he sat at a socially safe distance and talked Rylee through the graphing problem, as she listened through the screen door. Her Mother snapped this photo. Mr. Waba does not make a habit of going door-to-door with algebra and geometry tips, but says he could sense that Rylee was frustrated and about to give up.