Chapter Fifty-Eight: There Must be 50 Ways to Leave

Chapter 58: There Must be 50 Ways to Leave….

Then suddenly it is late May and the school year is ending. Many of the students bring cards and gifts for their teachers and there are hugs and tears on the last days of school. But as the last bus pulls away there is also a feeling of relief. I think we worried that the year would end with an unforeseen disaster. It didn’t and we all seem to utter “phew” in unison.

Two days before the end of school Neeley had told me he had accepted a job as a reporter for a local newspaper and he started in a week. I was relieved and pleased for both of us: Neeley is not a good teacher. But I am not so pleased when Neeley goes to lunch on the last day of school and never returns. He isn’t around to input or even hand us his students’ grades, let alone to clean and inventory his classroom or to say goodbye. I try, unsuccessfully, to contact Neeley to get his grade book. Rita Mae, Neeley’s teammate is livid. She suggests she and PE teacher Billie, extrapolate Neeley’s grades from the grades they have for those same students in the classes they teach: PE & Health (Billie), and Social Studies & Math (RitaMae). We all know this is not the way it is supposed to be but my repeated attempts to phone and email Neeley are for naught.

Midge is leaving too. She has fallen back in love with a high school sweetheart who, over 30 years ago, her father forbade her to date because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. Given her recent hospitalizations, I think teaching at-risk children has put Midge’s health at risk and her decision to leave this job for romance is wise.

Theo, the former military man who teaches math, applied for a position in Herald County public schools. A principal calls me for a reference check and tells me he plans to hire Theo.

On a rainy morning in June, Billie arrives late, again. Clearly with our students gone there is less pressure to arrive on-time, but we still have our 8:00 a.m. meetings to plan our summer work days and Billie is consistently late. I know she has a long drive but I am frustrated by her frequent lateness. When she arrives, interrupting the morning meeting and with great fanfare but no acknowledgement of her tardiness, I suggest we talk after the meeting. I open the discussion saying we need to discuss her on-time arrival problem. Billie starts with her usual litany of excuses, the weather, the dog, her unemployed husband, her college bound son, she concludes with a pronouncement that she is not really late and she “knows” I manipulate the clock to make her look late. Wearily I begin to respond when Billie leaps from her seat, announces she quits, throws her keys at Lynne and departs. I am speechless and dumbfounded. Lynne, who overheard the whole discussion over the make-believe walls in our portable, is as mystified as I am. But I learned my lesson many months ago with Ernie: never beg a quitter to reconsider.

Even with all these teachers departing, my budget cannot support all the staff on my payroll. The nature of Prospect is that since the school year starts with fewer children, one must employ fewer teachers in August and hire only when more children arrive. Ebencorp’s HR department advises me to layoff the last hired: that would be The Mime. I don’t like telling anyone they are losing their job, even The Mime. A couple days after I give her the news, she tells me she has a new job teaching in Herald County public schools. I am surprised but relieved the principal didn’t call for a reference check. I would have struggled to discuss the strengths of The Mime.

Another principal hires Buffy to teach third graders who are repeating third grade, and he doesn’t call for a reference check on her either. I am relieved both that she is gone and that I didn’t have to lie to help her land a new job.

But to balance the budget I have to layoff even more people. I eliminate the position of cafeteria worker and orientation leader. I decide we can make do with teachers serving students the food since the food is packaged into individual servings and Shasta, my transportation coordinator can help oversee the program. I don’t want to do this, but I have to prioritize classroom teachers. Similarly I need the person who runs orientation to be a certified teacher so when the enrollment in the orientation class is low, I can redeploy the orientation leader in a classroom. Stephanie did not go to college and thus isn’t comfortable with or qualified to teach academics. Both Stephanie and Ruth are very upset and the layoff conversations are stressful. Stephanie tells me now she will have to move back in with her abusive husband since she is unemployed.

Goodbye Neeley, Midge, Theo, Billie, Mime, Buffy, Ruth and Stephanie.

I am frustrated by the Ebencorp policy for balancing the budget for Prospect Schools: eviscerate a coherent staff every summer and then rehire new teachers in the fall, winter and spring as the student population grows. This system may make for a tidy spreadsheet, but it isn’t good for my teachers, students or for me.

With Stephanie gone, I make Stone my Orientation leader and decide to make Orientation a combination of Orientation and re-orientation. The idea is that some children may need to go through orientation a second time. It would be a stretch to say Stone is pleased, he is never pleased, but he seems not terribly unhappy.

I continue to work at Prospect over the summer, supervising staff, developing behavior plans, curricula and a faculty handbook. The handbook has been my dream project all year. I’ve been saving my meeting agendas, staff memos and random notes to compile a definitive guide on everything including consistent grading practices, guidelines for Activity Period, line protocol, rules on bus arrival and walkie-talkie use. I meet with my mentor, Rex, to solicit his input. As I complete each section, I share it with my staff for feedback. They are atypically enthusiastic and ask why I didn’t publish it sooner! Writing the handbook gives me a real sense of accomplishment and I am excited about using it in the fall. I imagine our morning meetings guided not by yet another hastily prepared agenda, but by “turn to page 17 and let’s review the procedure for fire drills.”

The Boss informs me we must run a summer school program. Without money for busses I am pessimistic about enrollment. The Boss is not interested in my assessment. We advertise summer school. On the first day, three children come. We call it individual tutoring and teachers take turns working one-on-one with the students. These children only come a couple days a week for a couple weeks. Meanwhile the teachers work on lesson plans and complain about having to work all summer for a lower salary than their public school counterparts.

Corinna, the Title One woman, arrives bearing strange but very good news. We still have over a thousand dollars to spend and we must spend it fast. Can I spend it at Books-a-million and at Barnes & Noble? Absolutely, but time is running out, so hurry! The staff divides into two teams and we buy hundreds of books for all our classrooms.

The best part about the summer: Rita Mae’s enthusiasm as she prepares to teach an all-girl class in the fall. She reads books on the subject, paints the walls lavender, buys pillows and beanbag chairs for her classroom, decorates the walls with posters and makes up a bulletin board with photos and mementos of her life with plenty of room for her students to add theirs. I find her working late at night, sometimes with her adolescent daughter, sometimes with her Mother who is visiting from out of town. She takes the books aimed at girls who are reluctant readers, recently purchased with the Title One windfall, and arranges them in fabric lined baskets and displays them on top of cabinets. Her classroom is transformed into a cozy nook for “her girls.” Rita Mae’s energy and positive attitude are infectious. Soon we have a steady parade of teachers, staff and visitors checking out her room.

The most unnerving part of the summer: Billie’s Revenge. Apparently the day Billie resigned in anger, she expected me to chase after her and beg her to stay. When I didn’t she began a disturbing campaign. The first salvos were by email. Guessing I wouldn’t open email addressed from her, she went to on-line greeting card sites and sent me hate mail using RitaMae’s and Hannah’s return addresses. In some of the email cards she called me names, in others she threatened to get a gun and shoot me. Rita Mae and Hannah reported receiving similar emails. I forwarded a selection to The Boss and asked for help, support and advice from Ebencorp. When The Boss did nothing, Billie began the second phase of her revenge. She began calling people and describing me as unethical, evil and incompetent. She called the woman who administers one of our grants, she called school board members, she called Henry, my public school liaison, she called The Boss and his boss, Clyde. The School Board was due to vote on renewing our contract and now they were receiving these strange phone calls. The Boss finally took action. He launched an investigation – into my behavior to see if Billie’s claims were true. When I went to the School Board meeting the night of the vote, sitting across the aisle from me I found Billie and former Prospect counselor, Ernie. Blasts from the past. The Boss intended to attend but arrived late, after the meeting adjourned. Billie hissed that she was going to make a public statement about my incompetence, but she didn’t. In the meantime I felt rather like vomiting. The School Board renewed the contract. The Ebencorp investigation lasted all summer and despite my phone calls asking for results, I never heard their findings. The Boss and I never had a follow-up discussion after the worm tree talk. I try to ignore it all and move forward. It is easy enough to be fully engaged with my summer projects such as writing the faculty handbook, but like a case of poison oak, it’s hard to ignore the itching.

During the summer Dana, my wonderful Title One Reading teacher, phoned to say that with four children under age 12, she felt she couldn’t work full-time in the fall. She said if I started a night school to let her know. I wished her luck and offered Hannah, I’m-even-mean-to-my-cat, the Title One Reading position. She had expressed an interest and, with her degree in English, it looked like a good fit. Her enthusiasm about becoming the Reading teacher nearly matched that of all-girl teacher Rita Mae!

Then, the day before school was to open, Hannah quits. Months earlier Hannah told me a public school principal (the same one who hired Buffy) was trying to hire her, but after she was chosen to be the Title One Reading teacher for the fall, she was so excited she didn’t want to leave Prospect. The day before school opens Hannah tells me something different. She says that same principal phoned her and offered her more money and she couldn’t say no. Sorry, thanks, bye. Déjà vu all over again, my memories of teachers quitting right before opening day 2002 come rushing back.

I am starting this school year with only four teachers: one teacher for the girls – RitaMae, one teacher for the boys – Jana (who gave birth to her baby boy over the summer), two elementary teachers: Jordan and Sam (formerly middle school teachers, but up for this challenge) along with one permanent substitute – Marci. I am desperately looking for a Title One Reading teacher to replace Hannah and at least one more middle school teacher. I have been working on getting Valerie, last year’s Title One math teacher, to return as a middle school teacher.

I know it is futile, but I whine to Henry about his public school principals stealing my teachers at the last minute. He expresses empathy. And the summer ends as it began, with staff departures.