DENVER — What kids learn in school is more important than what they wear.
But for fourth grader Morgan Pohl, taking care of her clothes keeps her in class.
"It is a condition in the brain," Morgan said through her iPad. "Some people have seizures."
Morgan has a condition called polymicrogyria. She cannot talk or control the front of her mouth.
"If I drool on you, please be nice," Morgan said.
Drooling is a constant issue. As the school day goes on, her shirt gets more and more dirty.
Special Education teacher Lynn Malie said it became a problem they needed to solve.
"Instead of having people say something to her, people not wanting to touch her, hug her because her shirt is wet, we were like, 'Well, five times a day we need to have you in a dry shirt," Malie said.
That's when the assistant principal at Doull Elementary School in Denver found a grant from the appliance company Whirlpool, which gave an industrial washer and dryer to the school permanently and provided detergent for a year.
"We don't have to do the back and forth," Malie said. "We don't have to send (shirts) home in a bag. We don't have to, you know, rely on the family to do an extra load every day."
Not only does it allow Morgan to have clean shirts all the time, she's taken ownership of the job. Morgan does the laundry herself, cleaning her own clothes and washing the sheets for the younger students.
"I like to wash sheets for the preschool classes," Morgan said. "My friend and Ms. Lynn go with me when I do the laundry."
Marianne Law is Morgan's grandmother and loves that she's learning independence at a young age.
"I just thought it was so great. I just couldn't believe it. That was so awesome," Law said. "We don't know her future. We don't know if she'll always be at home, or if she'll be able to be out on her own at all."
Clean clothes can have an even greater impact, according to School Psychologist Clara Graeber.
"A program like this can definitely have an impact on attendance," Graeber said.
The Doull community is more than 90% low income.
"A large majority of our students live in a set of apartment buildings that's not too far from here, [and] they don't come with a washer and dryer in the unit," Graeber said.
She said many families can't even afford to go to the laundromat.
"We've also had plenty of kids over the years miss school, miss entire days of school because they don't have clothes," Graeber said.
Now, Graeber and Malie said they believe something as simple as doing laundry can keep kids in class.
"It's amazing, like I never would've ever thought about it," Malie said. "But it's something that's definitely needed."
The school now has a closet full of clean clothes for students in need while Graeber and Malie devise a way to give parents access to the machines.
"I wash my shirts when they're dirty," Morgan said.
The program with Whirlpool is designed to help kids like Morgan remain in school by taking care of what they wear.
"We are smart and hard working," Morgan said. "Thank you."
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