At Mueller Charter School we take pictures. We capture the moment. Our students are so photogenic that you just point the camera and shoot and their extraordinary natural beauty will do the rest. When you walk on our campus the photos are everywhere. They are who we are. As if by magic, they bring the spirit of this place to life. At all hours. At 3:00 when our students are going home. At 10:00pm when skateboarders are diving off of our lunch tables and trampling the corners of the flower beds. At 2:00am when teenagers drink their 40 ouncers on the play structures and you wonder where their parents are. In the summer months when schools sit quietly and breathe the silent air. Their photos remain. Ubiquitous. Maybe haunting. Punctuated by the gentle wind which you would not notice if it were not for the steady rhythm of a tetherball chain banging against the pole.
You can learn a lot about a school even when the children are gone and it seems like years since you’ve last seen them. Some 7,000 photos later we are all reminded that you can not separate them from our mission. They are, after all, El Milagro…“the miracle”.
"El Milagro Weblog" 
This picture was taken at Mueller Charter School. The child in the foreground felt compelled to raise her hand rather than to blurt out the answer. Two kids back and they are singing like ducks. “No need to raise your hand”…said Olivia, “at this charter school we our words are like magic.”