He Likes Us, He Really Likes Us

Thursday, April 20, 1995

I arrive by bike on campus at around seven o’clock. As I walk the bike up to the library (where I park it in the Professional Room), I notice its lights being turned on, so I know Mary’s there. The door opens easily. She smiles good morning and welcomes me in. I ask her how it’s going and she tells me that Aimee stopped by yesterday after the Kurtzmann/Leadership Team meeting to tell her that the audience with the Pope went very well, thanks to all who prayed. Supposedly he likes the proposal so much that he was willing to take it and "go to bat for us" with the Board.

Only Mary doesn’t sound all that positive. She hadn’t been the proposal’s most vocal proponent when Aimee and I mentioned it to her in term three’s waning moments before spring break. And her reservations have not been canceled. Especially as she goes further into her relaying of Kurtzmann’s response. He stated that this proposal actually has something to offer students (what beyond what we’ve already offered them, I’m not really sure... but I digress), and this could prove to the Board and the d.o. that Chumash’s teachers really do care about student needs (as opposed, I suppose, our own selfish desires for fourth period prep and an early exit from campus every day). Of course, if the faculty doesn’t agree with this plan, we look like shit. Either way, the d.o. wins. We accept the plan, and they get us to have more student contacts in more classes (with possibly even more preps). If we don’t, the d.o. is vindicated in its attempt to show us for the lazy-ass slugs we really are. I see Mary’s lack of enthusiasm.

And suddenly my stomach feels like a thirty-pound peach pit that no matter how hard I strain I will never pass. I do not want to be here. It’s the same kind of dreadful feeling I had in the mornings of the school days my first year here (the evenings of which were filled with teary-eyed proclamations that maybe I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life as a teacher after all). It was a horrible emotion in recollection, but it is worse in the actual physical sensation of it, as I now feel it building inside of me. Again.

In the lounge, Lori Teller comes in with a report from last night’s Parent Meeting. She says that Grey stated that the meeting got ugly and vocal, and that many parents walked out. Lori’s take is that maybe we have underestimated parental support for the schedule; my unspoken take is that we now have a bunch of angry parents who may do more damage than good.

More than I even know: during the Spanish-speaking half of the meeting (concurrently run during Grey’s English-speaking walkout), some parents organized a march where parents and students will meet in the C.H.S. parking lot next Wednesday night, from where they will march on the Board meeting. But without being on the agenda (which is fixed two weeks in advance; even the new proposed schedule can’t be placed on the agenda), the march seems a prescription for trouble.

In my box, I find a letter from the Leadership Team. It outlines the meeting with Kurtzmann, his "very favorable" response, the questions raised, and a request that we review the attached schedule and send any input to the Leadership Team. It also announced a formal presentation of the schedule to the staff next Tuesday. I glance over the schedule: a tentative alternating "staggered" schedule: eight periods, broken up four-a-day, alternating every other day, with classes meeting from September to June. First period begins at eight, with two 90-minute classes before lunch, and two following, eliminating the "lunch and gone" concern of the district. A list of eight advantages (including C.H.S. on a semester schedule to align us with other PVUHSD schools, and maintained continuity for Math/Science and Languages [including, I guess, English]), and only three disadvantages (teachers have one extra class per semester [as compared with the six-period day], fewer homework days for students [though I’m not sure I get that one], and more student contacts per semester).

When I arrive at my class, I begin to jot down some "ideas, concerns, and thoughts for an input letter to Aimee. But before I can accomplish much, period one begins.

The first activity on the agenda is for students to continue to finish copying four items for tomorrow’s Materials Check (How to Re-Submit Returned Work, Written Work Manuscript Format, Writer’s Workshop: The Process, and Writer’s Workshop: Conference Questions). Then I introduce the concept of Cultural Literacy to them and launch into the first note-taking exercise of the term. After that, I have the students self-edit their vocabulary sentences from Tuesday. THEN we review the Writer’s Workshop process and I present a sample conference. During the first part of class, I ask Enrique to assist me in the conference; he accepts. So we sit down across from each other, in front of the class, and we do the conference. I read a hastily thrown-together short, short story. He tells it back to me, then asks journalistic questions to clear up ideas that were muddy in the piece. Then I use my Conference Questions to acquire even more ideas for my next draft. The class watches as we do this. When it’s over, I send the class into conferences on their own first drafts. It is a blast... not only was the conference in front of the class fun, but the student conferences are better than I have ever seen an English Nine class do before. A real success. So that by period’s end, I love my job again.

Bladder run, during which I pick up a new memo from my box. I stand over the stall’s toilet, pissing and thinking. It never fails. You think things are at their worst, and then something wonderful comes along and funks with your pessimism. Then I scan the memo. It’s the handout from last night’s Parent Meeting. It’s the Stage Three district line. No mention is made of alternate schedules. No mention is made of possible avenues for parental concern and protest. It is a Capitulation. No wonder it got ugly last night. I zip up and it’s off to period two.

Which surprisingly, goes pretty damn well. The vocal period is even more into participating in the mock conference. I can only hope their enthusiasm creates better conferences for themselves. Of course, I couldn’t bare witness to this since not many of them had their first drafts finished, and their extra involvement caused the conference to run long, eliminating student conference time later in the period.

At the beginning of third period, while the students read their novels, I finish up my list of ideas, concerns, and thoughts for Aimee. Here it follows (with Aimee’s responses):

Aimee,

some ideas, concerns, thoughts... (more bullets, less brains:)

• What does Kurtzmann mean by "latitude for our schedule"?

• My concerns are mostly on the increased number of "daily" contacts. Would we still be concerned with DAILY contacts or more with total contacts? TOTAL

• Prep periods—would they be consistently timed (i.e. mornings on both schedules)? not necessarily it will be attempted as best they can

• There are NOT fewer homework days for students (if you look overall year-wise). Mike Long and some other people’s concern

• Advisement takes on an even greater importance now (if advisement teachers are to be the "home response" liaisons) ... because of doubled contacts. good point—please raise it at mtg. on Tues.

plus... (on the subject of the memo/handout from last night)

• was this toeing the district line or what?

• was no mention made of the alternative sched.? --because the staff has not had time to approve or question—couldn’t reference it last night.

• was no Leadership Team member in attendance (not that I don’t trust JG or anything)? don’t know I was here until 6:10 + then left

• was it a rough draft of this memo that Davis saw? I’ll find out. good point

BW

During third period proper, we discuss various topics, since no one, myself included, feels much like diving into Pygmalion today. We talk about the alternate schedule, two students’ field trip yesterday to see an autopsy, the Oklahoma City bombing and the O.J. Simpson trial. A fun day, and not a bad break considering yesterday’s intensive bummer, delving VERY deeply into war poetry, particularly Wilfred Owen’s stuff.

At lunch is a department meeting. Casual, not much happening, though a few members voice not-exactly positive remarks concerning the proposed new schedule (unless, of course, "cockamamie" has become a compliment lately).

After lunch, I go to talk GumpDumb (not the newly Doctor-ated BubbaDumber, who just successfully defended his thesis... against what I do not know) about my Professional Growth hours. I need to perform 150 hours of Professional Growth exercises every five years to keep my teaching credential current. It’s been four years since I last renewed my credential. GumpDumb is in charge of advising all "young" teachers like yours truly in the completion of the paperwork. I had wanted to talk to him today (yesterday I had told him that I would be by either yesterday or today; this I told him when I took Eric from period two down to the office for having a beeper/pager on campus [though—-what do you know—-he was back in class today]). But it seems GumpDumb has bigger fish to fry, he has a line of miscreants and campus supervisors coming out of his office. I pass on having to wait. Again.

Instead, I go to the Professional Room and work on creating Pygmalion laserdisc bar-codes by acts. But the end of the period, Mary and Aimee are there (later joined by Liz and June Tsuko) and we are all going over the events of the last day. Aimee can’t get over how "unbelievably positive" the Kurtzmann meeting was. June keeps saying, "He likes us, he really likes us," a la Sally Field. Of course, both are worried that the staff will be less enthusiastic about the plan than Kurtzmann is; Mary’s lack of enthusiasm must be scaring them, since she is seen as "one of us," i.e. not one of the OF’s (Old Farts). Lightening the tone, they are glad to hear Daphne is not running for re-election as Union Rep. She had told me earlier in the day that I had been nominated; when I asked who else had been nominated, she told me Bob and Jason Hope, and that she was ready for a rest from the job (is that a euphemism for having seen the writing on the wall?). I don’t tell the ladies that I’m not running (only that I’m thinking about it), though Aimee must know that I’m going to definitely hand the nominated reigns over to Bob. I just don’t want any commitments for next year. I don’t want to feel obligated.

It’s been a good day. But not THAT good.