Chapter 59: The Beginning of the End

Section VI: Autumn 2003 – the last academic quarter
Chapter 59: The Beginning of the End

The First Day of School: the phrase is pregnant with possibilities. It speaks of second chances and fresh starts, anxiety about the new and joy at reuniting with the familiar. At Prospect, the first day of school in August 2003 starts inauspiciously. In fact things that day foreshadow what’s to come in this academic quarter.

On the first day of school, thirty minutes before the first bus arrives, I receive a phone call from Agnes, the secretary at Haven High, telling us to go into lockdown mode. While I go to find out what “lockdown mode” entails, a police helicopter repeatedly circles overhead, the rhythmic, thumping blades forcing all conversations to be SHOUTED to no avail. All our words, stolen by the chopper’s roar. Teachers begin to arrive reporting they saw police cars on every corner. RitaMae says she saw deputies with bloodhounds on 36th Avenue. Our very own Deputy (OVOD) arrives, (this year we no longer have the ever changing Deputy on Duty, but one Deputy assigned exclusively to our campus! I have Henry to thank him for this “gift.”). OVOD tells us the police were searching for an escaped prisoner from Hillsborough County described as 5’9”, 150 pounds wearing a black shirt and black underpants. I figure the weight, height and shirt color are pretty irrelevant if the guy is running around in his underwear.

While the minutes tick by counting down to the 9:00 arrival of our students, we are treated to a play-by-play of the police chase as we gather around OVOD and hear the transmissions from his walkie-talkie. Suspect in black boxers spotted running behind a church. Officers in pursuit. Running through backyards in Red Creek subdivision. One officer loses him, another has him in sight. Transmissions of breathless panting, then silence – we hold our breath. The radio crackles: the suspect has been apprehended! Cheers and relief. The lockdown is lifted and we don’t have to start our school year by detaining all the busses and bus drivers on campus and herding all the students into darkened classrooms in the cinderblock building.

The busses arrive and with them 75 students - well 74, since Boyd has head lice and must go home as soon as we can awaken his nocturnal mother. As the girls line up in front of their brand new all-girl classroom, one girl says she wants to go home complaining that her throat is sore. I somewhat sarcastically tell her to be brave and try not to swallow. The girls in line go crazy at this comment and I am bombarded with remarks such as: “Ms. Smee, how can you say that in front of our virgin ears.” And “I don’t swallow I spit.” Delightful girls.

Before the day is over, two violent, truant bothers (Iggy and Pedro) transfer back to public school against my better judgment mostly because I can’t effectively communicate with their non-english speaking parents. A bus driver reports to me that a child (Perry) was masturbating on the bus this morning and kissing himself at the same time. Before I can question Perry I learn he has run off-campus and is able to cover many miles before OVOD in his squad car can locate him. Another child (Ethan) has a wild tantrum and although OVOD handcuffs him, I’m relieved when he does not make an arrest. A new boy (Fenton) arrives with his mother who tearfully tells me her baby doesn’t belong with all these bad, black kids - he is here because he brought a gun to school but wait, she can explain. A new girl (Alexa) and her aunt want to talk to me, the aunt is Alexa’s guardian and they tell me Alexa was raped this year and is relieved we have an all-girl classroom since she is scared of boys. Alexa tells me “I can’t sleep now unless I have my feet touching someone safe and I think I might be gay now.” I have two irate parents in my office recycling last year’s complaints regarding their daughter (TobyBeth). A boy (Tyrell) who was told to stand by the tree, starts to “hump” the tree and is sent to class where he interrupts the placement testing by announcing he has an erection. In Orientation, one boy who is not new but was absent so often we put him in Orientation (Tiombe) , throws another boy who is new (Buster) over a desk, across the room and into a computer where the new boy gashes his head. Also in Orientation, a new elementary boy (Forrest) who was kicked out of a local charter school, defecates in his pants and his mother and grandmother come to yell at me and to blame Stone, who now runs Orientation, for not letting him use the bathroom. In the course of the discussion, they lecture me on different types of bowel movements and the relative immediacy of each. One counselor (Rusty) has to leave right away with a toothache but knows no dentist, I refer him to mine and the other counselor (Rosie) has to leave early too because of an issue at her daughter’s school. It is a long first day of school.

During the first quarter of my second year at Prospect here is what works very well: the Book Mobile, the employee handbooks I wrote and had printed over the summer and, joy of joys, the all-girls classroom. In fact all of these changes are so successful I kick myself for not implementing them sooner although I know the delay was not due to procrastination on my part.

The Book Mobile is just great. Once every other week this oversized mobile home pulls into our driveway filled with shelves of books. We insisted all our students apply for a library card before school started. Each class has 15-20 minutes to browse and check out books. As the students spill out of the Book Mobile they are eager to show me their selections. The friendly but firm librarian is willing to order books for teachers on upcoming subjects. I struggle to get the teachers to take advantage of this service.

Our morning meetings now begin with everyone opening their spanking bright red binders and reading or rereading various pages in our new handbook. Sometimes there is an issue or information not contained in the handbook we need to discuss, but mostly we focus on the same old stuff: use of walkie-talkies, walking in line protocol, teachers leaving before students etc.

As for the all-girls classroom, the girls love it, the boys hate it. One boy, Darnell, asks Rosie what would happen if a gay boy came to Prospect – would we assign him to the girl’s class? Rosie tells him no. Darnell is disappointed. He planned to tell Rosie he was gay so he could get reassigned!

Here is what does not work well: the elementary classroom and hiring my future daughter-in-law. Over the summer two of my best teachers, Jordan and Sam, asked to teach the elementary students. They both volunteered in the Public School’s elementary summer reading program and thus received extensive training in teaching reading to struggling readers. Sam’s wife is an elementary school teacher and she helped him set up his classroom. Our opening enrollment for the elementary students is low so Sam and Jordan decide to team-teach their class of six boys. My initial concern is that my middle school teachers will complain that it isn’t fair for them to have fifteen students while Jordan and Sam share half a dozen. No middle school teachers complain. Jordan and Sam complain, especially Sam. Their six boys are very difficult.

Eight-year-old Anfernee says he misses his mother in Virginia and he can’t phone her because it costs too much money but his grandfather says if he keeps misbehaving he’ll send him back to live with his mother so Anfernee asks Jordan and Sam to tell his grandfather how bad he is. Kareem interrupts to say that Anfernee is so poor his grandfather has to work at Winn Dixie to get the free food they throw out, which causes Anfernee to jump on Kareem and, in a flash, all six boys are fighting, throwing, running and screaming. This scene repeats, with slightly varying dialogue, every few minutes. The two to six teacher-student ratio is not enough. I arrange to have a behavior specialist from the public schools observe the class and give feedback. He writes two pages of recommendations but the bottom line is that Sam and Jordan are doing everything right, it is the kids who are wrong. Sam demands I transfer him to a middle school classroom. I do. Jordan redesigns the point cards for the elementary boys so they get a happy or sad face every fifteen minutes. It is a tough procedure to administer but when he can stay on top of it he has fewer riots. Even so, we never make it through a morning without two or more elementary boys removed from class.

When Hannah resigned the day before school opened, not only did I lose a valuable teacher, I lost my Title One teacher which meant my students would lose their extra reading classes and my teachers would lose their planning periods (I scheduled the Title One reading teacher work with every class twice a week, thus insuring some breaks for classroom teachers). In addition, my gifted readers are losing their daily gifted reading class, my lowest readers are losing their small group extra reading instruction and I am wasting my Title One funding by not having a teacher in place as per my approved grant plan. I feel frantic and desperate. I make phone calls to potential teachers but no luck. I think about who I know who can teach reading, who loves literature, who can cope with Prospect students. Then I think of my future daughter-in-law, Sarah.

In August 2003 Sarah, who like my son had recently graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English, was living at home in Maryland preparing for her October wedding. I knew she was very familiar with and loved children’s literature. And while at Columbia she tutored at-risk youths. I also knew, but tried not to think about the fact, that Sarah was a sweet, innocent, 21 year-old with no teaching experience and thus no classroom management skills. After I lost Hannah, I offered Sarah the job. She accepted and I made a decision that in retrospect, was one of my worst and would break my heart ten times over.

Sarah enjoys and is good at working with one or two children at a time, but when she works with half a dozen gifted or remedial kids or whole classrooms for enrichment reading, it doesn’t go well. The classes are loud, no one listens and there are fights. The counselors and OVOD are called to Sarah’s classroom nearly every time she has a class. We meet frequently to talk about strategies but after a month she gives me her two week notice and tells me she will not return after the wedding. I feel terrible, my choice was bad for the school, the staff, the students and for Sarah. But wait, it gets worse.

The day after Sarah gives me her notice, she is teaching Jana’s class when it is clear a fight is about to erupt. Sarah approaches the potential combatants but before she can get to them, two students grab Sarah to hold her back and thus permit the fight to take place. The two boys are brothers, new to Prospect this year but whose father is well-known: he is on trial for the murder of Selma’s brother. Sarah is unable to reach for her walkie-talkie as these brothers restrain her.

The brothers are arrested and charged with a felony attack on a teacher. My future daughter-in-law is in my office crying. In addition to my other errors in judgment, I have failed to protect my own family. I am wildly angry at the brothers and want to perform some bodily harm. They stare their apathetic, blank stares as they are stuffed into the back seat of the squad car. Mostly I am angry at myself. Really angry