At the Drive-In, page 18
He thought about the former superintendent and how he had hated to see her leave. Although she had had her critics within the community, Bradford had always liked her. She was tough, but at least she was honest, and you knew what she thought, because she wasn’t shy about saying it.
Marston wasted no time in remaking the district in her own image. Within the first two years, she had forced out the junior high and high school principals. The high school assistant principal had been promoted only to be fired a year later. Eventually both she and the junior high principal were replaced by administrators who had worked with Marston in her previous district. Bradford, at the Intermediate campus, and Mr. Preston, at the elementary hung on as best they could. A year later, Preston retired and Bradford knew his time was coming.
For five years, he had endured an endless round of new initiatives. Marston took great pride in her ability to push the district forward, always on the cutting edge of the newest most popular programs in the field of education. Bradford proudly admitted that he was old school. He believed firmly in the effectiveness of those old tried and true methods that had always worked, and he maintained a healthy skepticism about the new ideas which were often nothing more than attempts to reinvent the wheel in his opinion. Old school folks were fond of saying that most of the newer programs were just newly named versions of the same things they had been doing for most of their careers.
Her first big initiative was a program named for a district north of Dallas that had reached Exemplary status by following a set pattern of steps that were then packaged and sold as the newest method to achieve success. Most of the steps were things that Bradford had been doing for years already. At Dr. Marston’s urging, the Eastlake school board eagerly spent the money to officially adopt this new initiative. Bradford shook his head and kept his opinions to himself. No use telling the Emperor she had no clothes. So far, he was under the distinct impression that she was not the kind of person who took criticism well.
She followed that with a series of major initiatives, to use her words, which would begin her promised transformation. Bradford found her new ideas to be surprisingly unoriginal and highly expensive. Each year, he had seen his campus budget shrink as more and more funds were directed toward these new plans and programs. The school board, however, ate it up. They loved the feeling of being current and progressive and as the school’s ratings inched slowly upward, they patted themselves on the back for hiring such a great superintendent to manage the district.
Bradford often wondered why no one seemed to notice that every new initiative over the last several years was basically replacing some other previously new initiative. One particular computerized tutorial program had been changed every single year until they had cycled through all the available options and eventually returned to the original provider as this year’s new initiative. Again, he was simply old school enough to believe that there was nothing new under the sun. He and Preston had once said years ago that what they should do was write out some of the strategies they had employed over the years, slap on a fancy sounding new label, and sell the mess out of it. They called it their secret retirement plan. Unfortunately, they never found the time to put their words into action. Preston said it was because they were too busy doing the real work to put out the generic wonder cures that only sold to desperate school districts with superintendents looking for a quick fix.
After years of major initiatives that had resulted in only minute changes, Marston had decided to go back to her original strategy of replacing personnel. Bradford had tried to comply with her directives and support her plans, but he still felt that she did not understand the school district or the community. It sounded brilliant in theory to get rid of weak, ineffective teachers and replace them with great teachers. Of course that would work, if it were possible to achieve. In Eastlake, Bradford thought in all honesty, they were most often firing mediocre teachers and replacing them with slightly less mediocre teachers. With larger districts nearby paying much higher salaries, it was often difficult to recruit quality teachers to their smaller community. More than once, Bradford had offered teaching positions to candidates who declined, choosing instead to pursue other more lucrative offers.
He had gotten into a nasty discussion a year earlier with the assistant superintendent known behind her back as the “Bulldog.” Because Marston loved to present herself in public as “Mary Anne” her sweet country girl persona that everyone found so charming, she routinely dispatched her assistant to handle anything negative. The Bulldog relished her every opportunity to carry out the dirty work of the district and had no qualms about delivering bad news. She actually seemed to enjoy it. She had come to complain about a teacher Bradford had requested be hired for his fifth grade opening.
“She’s not gonna work. You’re gonna have to find someone else.”
“There’s not anyone else. We interviewed every teacher who applied and you know there weren’t that many.”
“Well, you’re just gonna have to keep looking, then.”
“What’s so wrong with her? Besides her inventory score, that is.”
“You wanna argue about the inventory again? I told you those scores are non-negotiable. You shouldn’t have even wasted time interviewing her.”
The inventory was another of Marston’s grand initiatives. She had paid an outrageous sum of money to contract with a company who had developed a long, detailed questionnaire that was supposed to predict a teacher’s potential for success. Everyone who applied to the district had to complete the inventory and if they scored below the superintendent’s arbitrary standard, they were not to be hired. Bradford had already lost the chance to hire two really solid candidates because of their inventory scores. Instead he hired the teacher with the highest score the district had seen on the questionnaire, and she had turned out to be a horrible teacher with no classroom discipline and some of the most boring lessons he had ever sat through. At the end of the year, he had let her go and now he was trying again to fill the same position.
“And we still need to talk about which other teachers you plan to let go.”
Bradford sighed. “I’ve told you guys already, I like who I have and I don’t really have anyone I want to get rid of.”
“I thought Dr. Marston made herself very clear on that subject. Have you worked on those growth plans yet?”
“I’ll have them on your desk by the end of the week, just like you asked.”
“And then we’ll at least have those two gone.”
“If they don’t fulfill the requirements of the growth plan.”
“And they won’t, right?”
He sighed again. They had had this discussion before. Both teachers were more than capable in his eyes. They had room for improvement, certainly, but he truly believed that both deserved to keep their jobs. They were good teachers and they were willing to work at getting better, but they were victims of another initiative. The dreaded walkthroughs.
Bradford knew who his best teachers were. He knew who his weakest teachers were as well. He was in and out of their classrooms daily, seeing their best and their worst days. He had paired up the newer teachers with experienced mentors and he had strong department heads who monitored their peers and provided guidance as needed. But Dr. Marston and her team of assistants from the central office had decided that they should conduct walkthroughs, five to ten minute observations once or twice a semester, to help evaluate teachers and identify weak links.
Sadly, the walkthroughs were by all accounts a huge joke. Even though they were supposed to be unannounced, spontaneous observations, teachers were generally aware within minutes when the administrative team landed on a particular campus. Texts and emails went out immediately and everyone went on high alert. The worst teachers in the district were the most likely to put on the best “dog and pony show” and therefore receive glowing marks from Mary Anne and her team who loved to decorate their specially designed forms with personal notes and smiley faces. Veteran teachers who were actually some of the strongest teachers with whom Bradford had ever worked, had been known to receive awful walkthrough grades simply because they refused to play the game and had ignored the uninvited intruders and simply just continued with their planned activities and lessons. One of Bradford’s best teachers had gotten a horrible evaluation after doing nothing more than walking around the room monitoring while her students completed the test they were taking.
The Bulldog had apparently been offended that the teacher had not stopped what she was doing to perform on cue. Even when she later learned that the teacher had twice been named Teacher of the Year in Eastlake, she refused to amend the walkthrough or change her opinion that the woman was a terrible teacher and should definitely be replaced. Bradford hated the walkthroughs based on common sense. That Dr. Marston truly believed her brief classroom visits made her more qualified than he to evaluate his teachers was ridiculous in his opinion. Her insistence on the importance of her administrative walkthroughs, made him feel as if his daily observations throughout the year counted for nothing.
Based on her evaluations, Marston had sent him a list of teachers she believed should be replaced. He was shocked to see two of his team leaders on the list. He had already met with her twice to plead his case and eventually she had dispatched the Bulldog to give him her final recommendations. Three of the teachers were on probationary contracts and could be let go with no recourse. The fact that Bradford had given all three positive yearly evaluations made no difference to Marston or the Bulldog. Because of their contracts, the other two teachers could not be so easily dismissed. He would actually have to show cause and in his mind, there was none.
The Bulldog had the answer. “Put them on a growth plan, then when they fail to follow through, you have grounds to dismiss.”
“What if they do everything we ask them to do? These ladies want to be here. They love their jobs and they will not be happy about getting put on a growth plan, but they’ll do whatever they have to do to stay on.”
“Then find something they won’t do.”
He was shocked. Not that she thought it, but that she would say it out loud. And he was offended. And honestly, angry. “So, I thought the purpose of a growth plan was to help a teacher improve.”
She looked at him like he was a total idiot. “Oh, grow up! They’re not gonna improve. They’re just gonna hang around and pull down our scores forever unless we do something about ‘em.”
“So, what do you suggest I put in there that they won’t do? ‘Cause I’m serious, they’ll do whatever they have to do to stay.”
“Just figure it out. It’s not that hard. Make ‘em meet with you two or three times a week at seven in the morning before school. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of it or wake up late or something and as soon as they’ve missed a meeting, you got ‘em.”
He was shocked again. “And you would fire somebody for being late to a meeting?”
“Not late. Straight up seven, leave. Go somewhere for breakfast or something. Then you document that they didn’t show up for the scheduled meeting.”
“And again, you would fire someone for that?”
“Look, it’s not that big a deal. You document that they failed to fulfill the requirements of the growth plan and that’s all you need to say to file for nonrenewal.”
“Sounds to me like we’re just setting them up to fail.”
“Call it what you will. Just get it done.”
But he didn’t. He couldn’t do it. He wrote the plans and met with them separately to discuss everything involved. He told them how important it was that they fully comply with every single condition, and they did. They attended workshops, they read professional journals and wrote summaries, they observed other teachers, they met with him weekly and with their mentors daily. They jumped through every hoop imaginable and Bradford reported to the Bulldog that they had completed their plans flawlessly. She was not happy.
In the end, the teachers were not happy either. They blamed Bradford for the torturous process and he accepted the responsibility, even when they went to the central office to meet with Marston and the Bulldog to complain about the way in which their principal had singled them out for growth plans despite the good evaluations he had given them every year including this one. Marston then had the audacity to secretly confide in several board members that Bradford’s own teachers were so unhappy with him that they had made a special trip to the central office to meet with her.
No wonder he was tired. No wonder he was seriously considering retirement for the first time.
***
The reward trip was coming up on Friday. It was a simple outing across the street to Sully’s, but Bradford was looking forward to it. Finally, something positive he could focus on and forget about the central office for a bit. He had gotten the list of students with perfect attendance from his secretary Linda and all the permission slips had come back already, so he was not anticipating any problems or issues. He had made the arrangements himself with Miss Ellie and everything was set.
There were eighteen names and Linda had double checked all their records. There were of course, at least four who shouldn’t have qualified, but despite his personal opinions, they had perfect attendance according to the rules stated in the student handbook. Bradford had a problem with parents who were so obsessed with their child receiving some cheap paper certificate, or a trip to Sully’s, that they would send them to school deathly ill if necessary. He had seen these students sitting in the nurse’s office with fevers in the hundreds while the parents purposely dawdled so that the child would not be checked out before ten o’clock. According to the handbook, if they were on campus at that time, they received attendance credit for the day and remained eligible for perfect attendance rewards. In the meantime, they had probably infected dozens of their classmates. Bradford had tried unsuccessfully to change the policy believing that perfect had a very clear definition and kids who left early multiple times clearly did not have perfect attendance.
Nevertheless, he was still looking forward to having burgers and ice cream cones with the kids on Friday. Linda stepped into the doorway to tell him he had a phone call. A parent. He tried his best to always take such calls. It was the mother of one of the students on the list he was holding. “Mrs. Ramsey, what can I do for you today?”
She quickly explained that her son’s teacher had sent home a note saying that he could not go on the reward trip on Friday because of his behavior in class. He was very upset. He had really been excited about the trip and now he was crushed. Could Bradford do anything to help, she had asked. He told her that he would look into the situation and get back to her by the end of the day. The Ramsey family was one of the community’s poorest. He thought the boy had probably never eaten at Sully’s and he was determined to do whatever he could to ensure the boy got his hard-earned reward.
“Linda, tell Mrs. Gray I need to see her right away.”
He sat back and sighed deeply. Of course, it would be Gray. He loved her most days, but other days he would gladly have strangled her himself. She was a good teacher, one of his best, but she was very opinionated and often she had found ploys to get around his rules and get her own way. She lived by the motto that it was “easier to get forgiveness, than permission.” He had banged heads with her on several occasions, most recently over a field trip just last month, and the Ramsey boy had been at the center of that conflict as well.
Her students were at PE and she was in his office within minutes.
“Yes, sir?”
“Sit down, Mrs. Gray. Tell me what’s going on with Will Ramsey.”
She took her seat tentatively, perched on the edge as if she intended to be gone soon and had no need to get comfortable. “Same as always. You know he stays in trouble.”
“His mom says you sent a note home saying he couldn’t go on the trip to Sully’s on Friday.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs. Gray, we’ve had this discussion before.”
“Yes, sir, and we didn’t agree that time either.”
The month before, she had left Will Ramsey at school with several other students while the entire fourth grade had gone on their big yearly field trip. Mrs. Gray had purposely, or so he thought, waited until the morning of the trip to inform him that she would be leaving three students behind. Another fourth grade teacher had already talked to him about two students who had not returned permission slips. In each case, she had called the parents and made every effort to solve the problem, before reluctantly being forced to make other arrangements. Gray had not done the same.
Because the boys in question were behavior problems, she had decided that they did not deserve to go and had sent notes home to inform their parents that they would not be allowed to attend the field trip. Bradford was furious that she had waited until the last minute to let him know, but Gray insisted that she had simply forgotten and that she had no idea that Bradford would have a problem with her excluding those students.
“They would have just caused problems anyway.”
“That’s not the point. Every fourth grader is supposed to make this trip to the museum. It’s an educational opportunity and you know that. We’ve talked about this.”
Bradford knew and understood that a kid like Will Ramsey would never get the chance to go to the museum on his own. Many of the fourth graders, whose parents could easily afford it, had been to the museum numerous times. To Bradford, the field trips were essential for the poorer kids on his campus, and despite their behavior issues, he felt they should never be excluded. The other students had simply stayed home that day, but Will had been there and spent the entire day sitting in the library. He was already thinking about the perfect attendance award and trip. Now, Mrs. Gray was again trying to deprive the boy of yet another opportunity he might otherwise never get.
