Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  But no—she caught herself. This wasn’t about Luis. This was about… This was about… Her thoughts stuck there, like a scratched CD, unable to get to the end of the sentence. She looked at her phone, itching to push its button and rest her eyes on its glowing screen. A loud buzz interrupted her thoughts. The phone? No—not the phone. Too loud… Then someone shouted, “Fire drill!” and gleeful chatter spread through the room. Students stuffed papers into backpacks and shoved chairs back from desks, cheerfully speculating whether they’d all be burned alive.

  Outside her door, other teachers were already ushering their classes toward the emergency exit. Lena and her students followed. She rarely ventured this far down the hallway—the main office and the teachers’ lounge were both in the other direction. But she knew Hernan’s door was the last one before the exit, and as she drew closer, she saw it was propped slightly open. Was he inside? She strained toward it, separating herself from the flood of students who poured through the exit, reaching for the door handle as if for a lifeboat.

  She slipped into the room, taking what felt like the day’s first complete lungful of oxygen. There was something fresh about the air. As she looked around, she saw why.

  There were plants everywhere.

  Vines climbed all the way to the ceiling, and leaves stretched out against the windows, shading the room in a cool green. On the opposite wall, a purple light cast its glow over a row of sprouts. It was like being in an indoor garden—an indoor forest.

  “Wow.” It came out as a whisper. She’d never seen a classroom that looked like this.

  Hernan was at his desk. He’d looked up from grading papers and was watching her take in the room.

  “This is amazing! I never knew you did all this.”

  “What can I say? I’m good at making things grow.”

  Lena wanted to say more. She wanted to ask if she could stay here forever, in this tiny oasis. But all she said was, “You’re not going out for the fire drill?”

  “During my planning period? Nah. There would have to be a real fire. Even then, it’s just a maybe.”

  Mrs. Rawlins’s voice came on the PA. “Thank you all for an interruption. Teachers and students, we have technicians here working on the fire alarms. This is not a fire drill. Please return to your classrooms.”

  Groans came from the hallway as the current of teenagers reversed its course.

  “Uh-oh,” said Hernan, “you better get back before you waste valuable learning time.”

  “No, no, no, no.” Lena felt despair pool in her veins. “Please…”

  “Wow. You really don’t feel like teaching.”

  “No, it’s not that.” And then, even though she hadn’t meant to say anything, the story tumbled out. There was supposed to be a guest speaker. And it was Nex Level. And he had not shown up. And she was so, so stupid. She sensed from the look on Hernan’s face that she did not need to explain further.

  On the other side of the door, students ambled slowly back into the school, prodded by teachers and security guards, in no hurry to return to the day.

  Hernan looked at her for a long moment.

  She looked back at him.

  The noise in the hallway was receding.

  Finally, he stood and walked toward her. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to class.”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder, and somehow this allowed her to move her feet in the direction of the door. Slowly. Reluctantly.

  By the time they stepped out of the room, most of the students had already reentered their classrooms. The hallway was almost empty again, except for a lone dreadlocked figure heading toward them from the direction of the main office.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Nex Level.

  SUSPENSIONS

  THE MYSTERY HISTORY TEACHER

  www.teachcorps.blogs.com/mystery-history-teacher

  Our New Historical Scholar Groups

  Today we’re discussing the origins of World War II and the Cold War. I’m planning to introduce the facts as quickly as possible so we can get into the process of historical inquiry and discuss how various forces led to the war. For this activity, I’ve also created new collaborative groups. Every student will work with classmates they haven’t worked with before. I want them to see that if they work together, they can overcome anything.

  COMMENTS

  Back2Basix Teach more facts! For too long, we’ve been teaching so-called thinking skills. Now our kids don’t have any foundational knowledge. No wonder we’re falling behind Finland on international tests.

  OpenUREyes101 @Back2Basix WRONG!!! Our students are overloaded with facts! In Finland, students learn thinking skills. In the United States, it’s all about facts, all the time. That’s why our kids don’t know how to think, and it looks like you don’t, either. #stupid

  Soon2BDrJ @OpenUREyes101 @Back2Basix As a doctoral candidate who has researched cocreative processes, it is clear to me that both of your conjectures re: facts vs. thinking skills are based on limited pedagogical knowledge, as well as the assumption of a false dichotomy between evidentiary information and evaluation proficiency. #Stupid.

  YouWongIRight Everyone just get ready to learn Mandarin Chinese, because that’s what your grandkids are going to have to learn in order to get jobs.

  125 more comments on this post

  “Please read your info cards aloud. If anyone knows what any of these factors had to do with World War Two or the Cold War, please raise your hand. Who wants to start?”

  A long moment passed. Then Michelle Thomas let out a hiss of air and lowered her head to the desk.

  Welcome to seventh period, thought Kaytee. Her last class of the day wasn’t rowdy like first period, but the students emitted rays of toxic negativity that crisscrossed the room like lasers. The strongest of these emanated from Michelle Thomas, who directed most of her mean-girl energy toward Diamonique, whose name suggested sparkling confidence but who was in fact a thick-limbed, sullen girl whom Michelle and several of her friends enjoyed needling with low-volume insults. No one in seventh period ever spoke loudly. When they did participate, after much sighing and eye-rolling, they did so in barely audible voices, not so much derailing lessons as waterlogging them with hostile disinterest.

  The dread of seventh period settled upon Kaytee during lunch each day, undermining her efforts to grade papers and compelling her toward the teachers’-lounge vending machine.

  “Michelle, why don’t you start? The card is on your desk.”

  Michelle sucked her teeth and mumble-read a fact about Dwight Eisenhower. Other students followed, murmuring their facts about Japanese Americans, the Holocaust, the invasion of Normandy, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb.

  Kaytee pushed on. “Okay! Now we’re going to get into our new historic scholar groups, so please listen for your name. First group: Edgar, Evelyn, Michelle, and Diamonique.”

  “I don’t want to work with that bald-headed bitch,” said Michelle, barely loud enough to be heard.

  “Yo mama a bald-headed bitch,” said Diamonique, in an equally quiet voice.

  “No side conversation about your historic scholar groups, please.”

  Kaytee ignored the low-volume commentary that followed. She’d planned to get the kids into their groups first. Then she would give them the pep talk she’d prepared, about how modern workplaces required people to work together even if they didn’t think they liked one another. “Next group: Iliana, Krystal, Djedouschla, and Lamont.”

  “Roach,” said Iliana, looking at the floor.

  “No commentary, please, just get together with your historic scholar groups.”

  “No, a roach,” repeated Krystal, following Iliana’s gaze.

  “Roach,” affirmed another voice.

  “Roach!”

  It took Kaytee a moment to realize her students were not insulting one another but referencing an actual cockroach, a muscular, Texas-sized beast of an insect larger than a man’s big toe. The creature ambled from the cent
er of the room toward the door. It had a lopsided swagger that made it seem confident but was most likely caused by a human hair wrapped around one of its legs, behind which dragged a fluffy tumbleweed of dust and other debris, including a bright orange (BAKED!) Reetos crumb, which rested at the top of the dust clump as if riding in a carriage.

  There was a chorus of scraping sounds as students dragged their desks away from the roach, leaving a crater of empty space in the center of the room. The roach continued to strain toward the door. Its slow, deliberate progress distorted the sense of time, which made it difficult to assess the speed of the events that followed.

  The first of these events was that Kaytee turned to grab a can of Raid, which was wedged next to her data binder on the shelves behind her desk.

  Concurrently, Michelle Thomas muttered, “Look what crawled out of Diamonique’s backpack.”

  “It crawled out of your mom’s pussy, bitch,” Diamonique muttered back.

  Kaytee, in the brief interval during which her hand curled around the can of Raid and her forefinger craned toward the nozzle, rethought her decision to put the girls in the same historic scholar group. The scraping of desks continued behind her, widening the empty circle toward which Kaytee now turned, can of Raid in hand, ready to aim a stream of poisonous liquid toward the roach but already sensing a more serious commotion in the center of the room, which, as she continued to turn, registered as Michelle and Diamonique locked in what looked like a slowly swaying wrestlers’ hold. Diamonique clutched the top of Michelle’s shirt, punching the girl’s face with her free hand. Michelle’s acrylic fingernails looped through Diamonique’s braids, loosening them from the scalp while the nails of the other hand clawed at Diamonique’s eyes.

  The rest of the class formed a circle just wide enough to accommodate the fight, jostling one another for the best view.

  Kaytee, already in midturn, pointed the can of Raid toward the center of the action, ready to spray. But then her central nervous system kicked in, freezing her finger before she pressed the nozzle and instead activating her feet, which propelled her toward Michelle and Diamonique as she shrieked, “Oh my God! Stop!”

  She had already pushed her way to the inside of the circle when she realized she was still gripping the can of Raid.

  “Stop it!” she screamed again, and dropped the can, which rolled toward the feet of the onlookers.

  Droplets of blood dotted the floor. A detached braid had fallen into one of them, painting a red streak across the linoleum.

  “Oh my God, stop it!” Kaytee leaned in from behind Diamonique, trying to dislodge Michelle’s hand from the larger girl’s hair, but it was locked in tight. Diamonique was still punching Michelle in the nose with short, noiseless jabs that spattered more blood onto the floor. Kaytee gave up on Michelle’s hand and leaned in farther, trying to grab Diamonique’s wrist. At the same instant, Diamonique drew her arm back for another noiseless nose punch, her elbow connecting with the area under Kaytee’s eye so forcefully that Kaytee stumbled backward, stunned by pain.

  “Ow! Oh my God!” Kaytee clutched her eye as she fell to the floor.

  The girls stopped fighting in surprise.

  “Oh, shit,” said Michelle. In spite of her bloody nose, she seemed somewhat inspired by this new twist in the story.

  Diamonique seemed physically unhurt beyond a few scratches and the missing braid, but angry tears filled her eyes as she turned and ran into the hallway.

  Kaytee grabbed the edge of a desk and pulled herself up just in time to see Ms. Grady appear in the doorway, glaring at Michelle.

  “Michelle Thomas.” She did not sound as if she was raising her voice, yet the words, accompanied by the look in her eyes and the scar down her cheek, held a force that seemed impossible to disobey. “Get some toilet tissue from the bathroom right now. Then sit your behind in my classroom and do not move.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Michelle quietly. She hurried from the room, one hand under her nose.

  “Everyone else, put these desks back and sit in your seats. You, young man”—Ms. Grady pointed at a bystander—“go find security. And you, call a custodian and tell him we have blood on the floor.”

  The students she’d addressed scuttled into the hallway. The others stared at the floor.

  “Are you okay, Ms. Mahoney?”

  Kaytee nodded, trying to look like she was okay.

  Ms. Grady turned back to the students. “You all know better than to act like this in school. I will be back, and I want to see everything in this classroom looking exactly the way it did when you walked in here. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  With that, Ms. Grady disappeared. Kaytee surveyed the room with fresh shame as she imagined how it must have looked to her neighbor. Desks were shoved to the walls, pointing in every direction. Droplets of blood decorated the empty space in the center of the room. The can of Raid had rolled through the blood and then been kicked by students, leaving a crosshatch of red arcs across the floor. Kaytee watched in a daze as a custodian arrived to mop up the blood and her students moved the desks back into rows, their faces solemn.

  As they worked, the roach strolled into the hallway unharmed, dragging the hair, dust, and (BAKED!) Reetos crumb behind it.

  * * *

  An hour later, when the last bell had finally rung, Kaytee made her way to Mrs. Rawlins’s office. Michelle Thomas’s mother was already there.

  “This is Ms. Maloney,” said Mrs. Rawlins, “Michelle’s teacher.”

  “Ms. Mahoney,” Kaytee said by way of both introduction and correction. She held out her hand, not knowing exactly how this was supposed to go.

  The woman uncrossed her arms for a limp handshake.

  “Ms. Mahoney,” repeated Mrs. Rawlins. “I must have gotten you confused with one of the other first-year teachers.”

  “This is my second year.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, you look very young. Doesn’t she look young?”

  “Yes,” said Michelle’s mother, eyeing Kaytee. “She sure does.”

  Diamonique’s mother arrived next, holding a baby in one arm and pressing a phone to her ear with the other as she approached the office door. “Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. That’s right. And I told her if I have to go up to that school one more time, it’s gonna be some…” She looked up and saw the other three women watching. “Anyway, I gotta go.”

  “You must be Diamonique’s mother,” said Mrs. Rawlins.

  “Yes.” The woman tucked the phone into her bra and surveyed the scene warily.

  “Baaaaa,” said the baby, reaching for the phone in his mother’s tattooed cleavage.

  “And you!” Mrs. Rawlins plucked the baby from his mother’s arms. “You look just like my grandbaby!”

  Diamonique’s mother’s wariness seemed to soften as Mrs. Rawlins performed the regulation toe squeezes and baby noises. It occurred to Kaytee that it was hard for an administrator to seem tough while rocking a baby in her arms.

  Mrs. Rawlins looked up from jiggling the baby as the girls walked in, accompanied by a security guard. “Well, if it isn’t two of my little troublemakers!”

  Little troublemakers ? wondered Kaytee. Diamonique towered over both Kaytee and Mrs. Rawlins. Michelle was smaller but was by no means little.

  “Hello, Mrs. Rawlins,” said Michelle, whose nose was no longer bleeding.

  Mrs. Rawlins wiggled the baby’s pinkie toe between her thumb and forefinger. “Now, what’s this I hear about you two fighting?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Rawlins,” said Michelle, blinking at the assistant principal with waiflike innocence. “We were playing around.”

  Playing around? thought Kaytee.

  But it was Michelle’s mother who spoke next, mostly addressing Mrs. Rawlins. “Like I was saying, I think the teacher might be overreacting here.”

  Mrs. Rawlins, still stroking the baby’s foot, turned to Kaytee to explain. “Ms. Thomas was concerned that—since you’re so new to this commu
nity—you might not be familiar with some of the communication styles of the children here.”

  Kaytee’s eye throbbed. The area between her cheekbone and eyebrow had been puffy and red when she’d examined it. Now it felt like it was darkening to a bruise.

  “I don’t think this was an issue of communication styles. There was blood all over my floor.”

  “I have to say that just doesn’t sound like my daughter,” said Michelle’s mother.

  She sounded so convincing that Kaytee wondered if the universe might contain a completely alternate version of Michelle Thomas, one who never sucked her teeth or rolled her eyes or called anyone a bald-headed bitch.

  The baby was attempting to stick Mrs. Rawlins’s finger in his mouth.

  “Yes!” said Mrs. Rawlins. “You are a cutie!”

  “He really likes you!” said Diamonique’s mother. She smiled, revealing a missing tooth that made her look more tired than tough, yet still just as eager as Michelle’s mother to change the tone of the conversation.

  “I was there,” said Kaytee. “I got hit in the eye.”

  “But that was an accident, is my understanding of this situation,” said Michelle’s mother. She emphasized the articulation of each word in a way that seemed reserved for talking to white people, or possibly for talking to white people in the presence of other black people who would recognize it as a voice for talking to white people. Kaytee experienced a flicker of concern over whether the previous thought might be a form of pathologizing underserved families as other—that thought, plus her suspicion that Diamonique’s mother might have a repertoire of weary looks for speaking to authority figures and was maybe employing some of those here.

  But a much bigger concern soon eclipsed both of these.

  Mrs. Rawlins, now offering her index finger to the baby’s itty-bitty hand, did not look like someone who was about to lay down the law. “Well, this does seem to have been more of a misunderstanding than a real fight.”

  “This was not a misunderstanding!” Kaytee’s voice sounded younger and more shrill than she meant it to.