Mr. Trump's sneaker lottery caused no small measure of havoc yesterday at P.S. 70, in Tremont in the Bronx. After he picked 20 students from the fifth-grade assembly, one girl who didn't make the cut told Ms. Simon that she was upset.
Natalie Blackwell, a fifth-grade teacher, was consoling her entire class of nonwinners -- ''I don't want them to think that everything in life is going to go their way,'' she said -- when Mr. Trump got wind of the disappointment and decided that that class could get sneakers, too. Later, he extended the offer to 30 special education students.
The whole thing was a bit awkward for Ms. Simon, a popular principal who tends to concentrate on problems like the crowding of 1,700 students into classrooms built for 1,400 and how to get more than 40 percent of her third graders to read on grade level. Instead, she found herself telling fifth graders to be pleased that Mr. Trump has ''brought enough beautiful, psychedelic Trump Tower hats for every child.''
Later, she said: ''I have a reading test next Tuesday. That's more important than this.''
