Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  “Nice touch with the graphics,” said Lena. “Really adds to the story.”

  “Well, they definitely got the science part right. That’s exactly how a starfish would dance if it could stand on its side.”

  Lena laughed aloud. The treads of Hernan’s confidence regained their grip.

  Click. Smile. “The man couldn’t believe this young boy thought he could make a difference by throwing just one starfish at a time back into the water. There were far too many starfish stranded on that beach to save them all !”

  Hernan tried to think of something noteworthy enough to spark conversation. Lena wasn’t really his friend so much as a colleague who often ended up at the same happy hour. He’d first noticed her when she’d started working at the school two years earlier, strutting the hallway with braids held back by a colorful cloth headband. Her real intrigue, however, had started the morning she showed up completely bald. It wasn’t only the haircut, but rather the confidence with which she wore it. There had been competing explanations from Mrs. Friedman-Katz, who believed Lena was a cancer patient (“ Poor thing”), and from Mrs. Reynolds-Washington, who believed she was a lesbian (“I always knew that girl was a little strange”). Hernan had hoped neither rumor was true. In any case, over the following year, Lena’s hair grew into a halo of wild curls.

  Click. “The man approached the little boy who was picking up the starfish. ‘You must be crazy,’ said the man. ‘There are so many miles of beach covered with starfish. You can’t possibly make a difference by saving just one starfish at a time!’ ”

  Hernan surveyed the landscape of seated teachers. The science and math departments were in their usual seats up front, within the sight line of the presenter. The coaches lined the back of the room, where they could slip out to check the action on the field. Any teachers who could get away with it were working discreetly on other things. Occasionally, they looked up with exaggerated intensity, as if absorbed by the suspense of the starfish story.

  “Let’s have one of you read the next line from your packet!” The presenter’s mouth was still smiling, but her eyes had noted the audience’s drifting attention.

  From the back of the room, a voice called, “What packet? I never got a packet.”

  Another voice chimed in. “I don’t have a packet, either!”

  “Oh… well… they should be circulating from the front to the back. Has anyone seen the packets?” A few teachers near the front raised their hands. Among them was Maybelline Galang, who strained toward administrative praise like a flower toward the sun. She was taking notes as if she’d never heard the starfish story in her life.

  “I got the last one,” said a voice a few rows behind Maybelline.

  “Okay.” The presenter’s voice was losing its zest. “It looks like we don’t have quite enough copies, so if you don’t have a packet, please share with someone next to you, and maybe some of y’all in the back can move up to share with someone in the front?”

  A few latecomers took the opportunity to hurry up the aisles and sit with their departments. Hernan was glad to see Lena wasn’t one of them.

  “My packet is missing pages one and two,” said another voice.

  “Oh… right,” said the presenter. “I meant to tell y’all—the page numbers are a little off. So, the packet starts on page three, and it’s stapled on the right instead of the left, but if you just flip over page three, you’ll see page two… You see it? Page one is behind that. Okay, great! We’re on page four.”

  Click. The reddish glow of another ocean sunrise cascaded over the teachers, some of whom were now fumbling with the misstapled packets. Others bent over their laps, still trying to complete paperwork by the low light of the new slide.

  “So, just to review: The man didn’t think the boy could ever make a difference, right? Since there were so many starfish washed up on the beach? And the boy can only save one at a time, right? Right, everyone?” She waited until a few teachers nodded before advancing the slide.

  “The little boy picked up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. Then he turned to the man and said, ‘It sure made a difference to that one!’ ”

  She paused, gazing at the teachers in front of her as if watching butter sink into a warm muffin. Then she continued. “I think that story really speaks to the difference a great teacher can make, which leads me to what I’m so excited to discuss with you all today! I’ll give you a hint.”

  Click. The beach scene disappeared, replaced by a bright blue sky. Across the sky, written in cloud letters, stretched a single word: believe. “I want you all to help me finish this sentence: If you believe, your students will…”

  The teachers sat silently, bracing for the unpleasant news that always dropped at the end of the starfish story.

  “It rhymes with believe.”

  “Deceive?” called a voice from the back of the room.

  Hernan knew Mr. Weber, the school’s union representative, was just stalling. “Believers make achievers” was the most often quoted line from Nick Wallabee’s book, the cover of which featured a photo of Wallabee, eyes gazing defiantly into the camera on behalf of children, foot planted on an empty student desk in a sparse classroom that Mr. Weber insisted had been rented for the photo shoot. The news that Wallabee was now their superintendent had elevated Mr. Weber’s predictable drizzle of sarcasm and conspiracy theories to a raging thunderstorm.

  “You’re close!” said the presenter. “But maybe something a little more positive?”

  “New Year’s Eve?” offered another voice.

  “Good guess… Getting closer!”

  “Sleeve!”

  “Um…” She was running out of ways to gently correct wrong answers.

  “Achieve.” It was Maybelline Galang.

  “She would be the one to mess that up,” whispered Lena.

  “Very good!” said the presenter. “And that’s what we want all our students to do: Achieve! Accomplish great things!” It seemed she’d added this last part for those who might not know what the word achieve meant and thus might not catch the cleverness of the rhyme. “And we know they can do that as long as their teachers believe in them. There’s real research and statistics about this. That’s why when I was a teacher I used to tell my students: Reach for the moon! Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars! ”

  Hernan noted some scientific discrepancies in the moon-and-stars metaphor. For one thing, the moon was much closer to Earth than the stars were. Also, stars were huge, burning balls of gas millions of light-years away from one another, so you could in no way “land among” them, nor would you want to. These were just the most glaring errors he could have pointed out, possibly drawing another laugh from Lena. But then he worried the whole thing might sound too science geek–ish, like his earlier urge to point out that “starfish” were not actually fish. The correct term for them was sea stars. In the end, the comment-making window closed before he said anything at all. He sat, trapped in silence, gazing into the blue PowerPoint sky.

  The presenter’s jargon cut mercifully into his awkwardness. “So this year, with the help of our new superintendent, our district is going to help teachers really take ownership of student achievement!” She stared into the corner farthest from Mr. Weber, who was waving his hand to get her attention. “It’s going to be such an exciting year!”

  Mr. Weber dropped his hand and bellowed, too loud to be ignored, “This is another way of saying our jobs will depend on students’ TCUP scores, right?”

  “Actually, the Texas Calculation of Upward Progress scores will be just one of the factors in this year’s evaluation! We’re developing the rest of the formula right now with our new superintendent.” Her speed increased, as if she’d just remembered this part of the presentation was to be delivered quickly, using big words and long sentences. “It’s going to be a really collaborative effort to get our students where they need to be. So exciting!”

  “Now, wait,” Mr. Weber inte
rjected. “Just so I’m clear: This means our jobs will depend on test scores and some formula that hasn’t even been developed yet?”

  “I’m so glad y’all are asking so many great questions, and I’m excited to announce that we’re adding a new category this year called the Believer Score. It’s going to help you all do even better on your evaluations by showing your administrators you believe all students can learn. It’s going to be a real paradigm shift!”

  The auditorium buzzed. This, it seemed, was the bad news presaged by the starfish story.

  “And how will they be calculating this ‘Believer Score,’ exactly?” Mr. Weber was standing now.

  “I’m so glad you’re asking!” The presenter’s smile hung on like a bull rider at a rodeo. “For now, just be ready to show that you fully embrace any new initiatives.”

  The collective grumbling intensified.

  “In other words,” translated Lena, just barely lowering her voice now, “we have to act excited about anything they tell us to do?”

  The presenter strained to maintain her cheerful tone as she increased her volume. “I know change is hard, everyone, but remember: we’ve been changing since we were born! And let’s not forget that this is really about the students!”

  Hernan willed himself to think of something clever to say about the Believer Score, but nothing came to mind. His awkwardness returned and coagulated around him as the noise in the room grew.

  It was Lena who finally spoke again. “Have you heard anything about this Believer Score stuff?”

  “A little,” said Hernan. “But I wouldn’t worry about it. Dr. Barrios is good at keeping the heat off the school.”

  “You sure? Weber doesn’t seem to be the only one worried this time around.”

  She was looking to him for reassurance, he realized. And why not? This was only Lena’s third year at a school where he’d worked for seven.

  His awkwardness lifted. He didn’t need some clever line—he had experience. “Yeah, Dr. Barrios is like the superintendent whisperer.”

  Lena laughed. Again.

  “In fact, that’s probably why he’s not here right now. He’s probably becoming Nick Wallabee’s new best friend as we speak.”

  Even as Hernan said it, he realized he had no idea if this was actually the case. But it was possible. For as long as he could remember, the principal had never missed a back-to-school meeting.

  On a related note, the teachers in the auditorium had never been so noisy.

  “The superintendent whisperer, huh?” said Lena. “Yeah, I guess I could see that.”

  She looked relaxed again, and Hernan had a burst of inspiration. “How about this? If they’re still bothering us about any type of initiative by this year’s first happy hour, I’ll buy you a drink.” Now, he thought, they’d have a reason to go to the same happy hour.

  “Sure. Wait—do we have each other’s numbers?” She spoke loudly this time. Everyone in the auditorium was talking by now.

  The presenter had already counted to three and was now saying, “Clap twice if you can hear me!” But only Maybelline Galang and a few other teachers were clapping.

  As he offered Lena his number, Hernan felt a great swell of hope for the year ahead. His optimism rose like the sun in the presentation slides, melting away any worries he might have had about the Believer Score or anything else the new superintendent might dream up.

  Lena tapped his contact information into her phone. Her other hand traveled absentmindedly to the back of her neck, twisting a tiny curl that started just below her ear.

  Hernan wondered what it might be like to touch that spot.

  ADMINISTRATION

  DR. MIGUEL BARRIOS, EdD, often joked that he wasn’t fat: he was Texas-sized, and everything was bigger in Texas. Except, apparently, the press-conference area in the lobby of district headquarters.

  There, behind a lectern, facing a congregation of his supporters, stood Nick Wallabee: The man with the answers. The man who needed no introduction.

  “I want to start by thanking our teachers for all they do. Please, everyone, give our teachers a hand.” It was a strange choice for an opening line, given Wallabee’s reputation, but maybe thanking teachers for all they did was so mandatory even someone like Nick Wallabee had to do it.

  Dr. Barrios joined in the polite applause as he wedged his bulk farther into the group. He’d expected a bigger crowd, one in which he could have concealed himself while he waited for the right moment, but this would have to do. He inched toward a spot where he hoped the superintendent could see him and the cameras couldn’t. For a principal, unexpected media attention never brought anything good.

  Wallabee pounded the lectern. “We are lucky to have some outstanding teachers in this city who believe that all of our children can learn!”

  The cameras panned the area to capture the growing applause. Dr. Barrios turned away from them, examining the faces behind him. There were no actual teachers at the event. They were at work today, setting up for the year ahead. He, too, would have liked to be at work. He’d missed his own back-to-school meeting for this, leaving a district presenter in charge. This might have seemed negligent to some, but Dr. Barrios knew that repairs, supplies, and other favors came more easily when a principal could get the right person on the phone. Beginning today, that person was Nick Wallabee.

  And so Dr. Barrios was here, wearing one of his newer shirts, crammed in among the cluster of admirers who’d come to see the new superintendent announce the Believers Make Achievers Zone. This was to be a group of schools with poor students and poor test scores that the superintendent would handpick for special attention. It was unclear, at this point, what believing meant, but Wallabee had famously promised to assign a numeric value to it and show its link to achieving, which meant test scores. Mr. Weber and the union contingent had grumbled mightily about this. Apparently Global Schoolhouse Press, which had published Nick Wallabee’s book, also produced Texas’s standardized tests.

  But Dr. Barrios was not here to dig up snakes. He was here to make sure his new boss understood what his previous bosses had understood: the principal of Brae Hill Valley High School was the kind of likeable guy whose school didn’t need special attention. All he needed were some basics, like flexibility in the budget to renew the copy-machine warrantee and hire a couple of extra security guards, plus some breathing room so he and his teachers could work in peace. In return, he was happy to make his boss look good. He hoped his smile from the middle of the throng conveyed all of this to Nick Wallabee.

  It was unclear what Wallabee noticed, however. The superintendent’s voice was building to a righteous rumble as he courted the cameras and crowd. “I’ve always said we should pay our top educators the way we pay our top professional athletes!”

  The crowd bubbled with approval. Dr. Barrios nodded along, though he sensed Wallabee was pulling back the slingshot.

  “We should hold parades for our best teachers! We should fill stadiums with fans of our best teachers!”

  Dr. Barrios had to admit it: the guy was a master of the applause line.

  “Unfortunately”—Wallabee’s voice dropped, his face suddenly serious—“we also have schools in which teachers do not believe in children the way they should, and the test scores at these schools reflect that.”

  Dr. Barrios rearranged his face to express the appropriate level of concern. Part of him hated this willingness he’d developed to express outrage on demand, to shake hands and smile and laugh at unfunny jokes. Yet a larger part was proud. Miguel Barrios, son of a father who’d worked too hard for too little and a mother who’d spent most of his teenage years dying, hadn’t just gotten his degrees, though he’d done that, too. He’d decoded the unwritten instructions not covered in any doctor-of-education courses and—mostly—used this knowledge to benefit his school.

  Certainly, no one would call him a visionary or publish a book with his face on the cover. But he took pride in being a principal who remembered the vie
w from the front of the classroom. He’d worked hard to make Brae Hill Valley a place where teachers could focus on their jobs and block out the clanking machinery that kept the whole system chugging forward.

  The occasional photo op was a small sacrifice toward this end.

  “I know there are some adults”—Wallabee’s tone had changed so completely that he nearly spat the word adults—“who take issue with being held accountable for our kids. But my priority here is children! I remember something my mama used to tell me. She would say, ‘Son, sometimes you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet.’ And you know I didn’t argue with my mama.” He paused for a few audience laughs before continuing. “And when that omelet is our children, and when those eggs are cheating our children of the education they deserve, then I declare those eggs public enemy number one!” With that, the superintendent abruptly stepped from behind the lectern, exchanging handshakes and shoulder clasps with supporters as he glided toward the exit.

  The moment had come. Positioning himself near the door, Dr. Barrios reached out for a camera-friendly handshake. “Great speech. I’m Dr. Miguel Barrios, principal over at—”

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Barrios.” Wallabee did not extend his hand.

  Someone pushed open the door, and Wallabee stepped into the sunlight. The camera crews followed, brushing past Dr. Barrios as if to underscore how quickly his chance had come and gone.

  Except it couldn’t end like this. Whatever his ambitions for the future, Wallabee was new in town. He’d soon learn it helped to have a friendly principal around. When he figured it out, the first name that sprung to mind had to be Miguel Barrios, EdD.

  Dr. Barrios pushed through the doors, scrambling through Texas’s late-summer humidity to catch up with the superintendent. “I just want to be one of the first folks to welcome you to our district and say we’d love to have you visit Brae Hill Valley High School.” This was a lie. Principals didn’t want a visit from the superintendent any more than teachers wanted a visit from the principal. But it was a friendly lie.