Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  Adequate Yearly Progress. He turned the phrase over in his mind, shuffling it like a deck of cards. That first word was where they got you, he decided. Yearly and progress were concrete terms. But adequate? That was the moving target. Adequate was the part that got decided in an office somewhere, at the last minute, based on what would look good in the newspaper, or get someone reelected, or highlight some new defect that called for TransformationalChange.

  What, in any case, was an adequate amount of progress to make in a year? If he’d learned anything, it was that there was no happily ever after in education, no riding off into the sunset. There was only one yearly fix after another. Then, in August, the whole cycle started again. It was exhausting.

  “I have a neighbor whose son is in first grade, and it’s just unbelievable, the…”

  He looked up at the woman. Her eyebrows were knitted together in disapproval. On the other side of him, the warm pressure of his wife’s hand closed in on top of his, and he looked at her gratefully. The rest of the family was there, too, looking back and forth between the door and a muted television.

  Dr. Barrios leaned his head against the cool wall behind him, thinking about his father. The man had worked through so many of the moments that collectively made up life. And here was Dr. Barrios, continuing the tradition. He’d been in a budget meeting during the birth of his first grandchild. He’d missed the second because of a fight that required police involvement and kept him at school past nightfall. Even now, he saw his two grandchildren so infrequently that they always seemed to be much older than the last time. Maybe, he thought, he should spend more time with them.

  Could he do it? He hadn’t saved as much for retirement as he would have liked to. Then again, his kids were grown. He and his wife didn’t travel much. They had moderate tastes and had paid off their house years ago. Maybe they could sell the house, move into an apartment, and just hope nothing expensive happened. He considered the strange twist of fate: after all the degrees he had earned, he could spend his final years the way he’d spent his childhood, on a tight budget in a small apartment.

  Was that adequate yearly progress?

  The voice of the woman elbowed its way in between his thoughts. “What I don’t understand is why more of the people who actually run the school system in this country haven’t figured this out yet. I mean, come on, y’all.” Then she stopped talking and stared at him, arms crossed indignantly, as if waiting for him to confirm that the best person to lead the country’s school system would be a woman with neither respect for nor knowledge of nor experience interacting with public education in any way.

  Dr. Barrios was trying to imagine a world where such a thing might happen when a doctor opened the door and beckoned to the whole family.

  Suddenly, everything else became irrelevant.

  Dr. Barrios rose from his seat and tossed his now-cold coffee in the trash. Then he turned to the woman. “Ma’am, sounds like you’d be just the person for the job.”

  She answered with a self-assured grunt.

  Dr. Barrios reached for his wife’s hand to help her from her chair. Then the two of them followed the rest of the family down the hall to meet their newest grandchild.

  PHYSICAL EDUCATION

  COACH RAY ALWAYS knew who was leaving at the end of the year. Teachers stopped by when they needed his players to help them move things to their cars. Anyone who needed more than a couple of extra hands wasn’t coming back.

  He’d heard the history teacher from the teaching corps had gotten into law school, so she’d be gone. No shocker there. The departure of Hernan Hernandez from the science department was a bigger surprise. According to Mrs. Reynolds-Washington, he’d gotten fired, and according to Mrs. Friedman-Katz, Daren Grant had something to do with it. Coach Ray had changed his mind about a lot of things over the past few weeks, but wanting to slam Daren Grant into a wall wasn’t one of them.

  The big news of the week, however, came when Maybelline Galang appeared at the door.

  “Need players to help you with something?” asked Coach Ray.

  He knew she would say no. Maybelline never asked for help with anything. It was only in the past few weeks that he had really noticed how tired she looked as she marched down the hallway with her binders and folders.

  Today, however, she carried nothing but a small yellow envelope. “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be at the school next year. I got a job with the OBEI department.”

  “No way.” Then again, he could see it. “They pay better?”

  Maybelline nodded. She shot a look down the empty hallway before continuing, “I needed it. I’m moving somewhere where I can put Allyson in the neighborhood school.”

  “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can…” He made a gesture that suggested generalized assistance. “You need some players to carry the heavy stuff?”

  “I’m fine.” Her businesslike tone had returned. “I just came to give you this.”

  She handed him the envelope. Inside was an invitation.

  “Allyson and her cousin are graduating fifth grade. We’re having a small party, and since this isn’t during football season…” The rest hung in the air between them. She was accustomed, by now, to his excuses for not showing up.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “That would be great,” said Maybelline, though her tone was flat, as if to suggest maybe great was too strong a word. Maybe she meant something more like okay or adequate. Then she turned and walked back into her classroom, the door shutting slowly behind her.

  Coach Ray folded the invitation in half and stuffed it into his back pocket. He took out his wallet to see if he had any cash on hand. How much did people give for a fifth-grade graduation, anyway?

  But then he put the wallet away without opening it and took out his phone instead.

  “Hey, it’s me,” he said to the surprised voice on the other end of the line. “I gotta ask you a favor.”

  SOCIAL STUDIES

  THE END OF the school year at Brae Hill Valley was less of a grand finale than a slow tapering off of attendance. Even the room itself looked sparse, like the set of a TV show airing its final episodes. The shelves were empty, the walls stripped bare. The few remaining students were playing with their phones or sleeping.

  Kaytee sat at her desk wearing a pair of jeans she hadn’t fit into since October.

  Lena appeared at her door. “Congratulations! I heard you got into law school!”

  Kaytee snuck an uncomfortable look at her students. She hadn’t told any of them she’d applied.

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Lena. “You gotta do you, right? Teaching other people’s children can get old.”

  “It’s not that. I—” Kaytee caught herself before she summoned the explanation she’d used in her admissions essay. Saying it aloud in front of Lena was unthinkable.

  “Hey, it’s cool. I’ve been thinking I could use a change myself.”

  “You? No way. Don’t you think you would miss teaching?”

  Lena laughed. “Girl, I already miss teaching. We’ve been doing test stuff for months. By the way, it looks like those low-cal lunches are working. Either that, or getting into law school helps you lose weight.”

  There was some truth to this observation. Ever since Kaytee’s acceptance letter had arrived, her craving for vending-machine food had disappeared. So had her motivation to update her blog; it now sat untouched in cyberspace, collecting unread comments. The chance to escape from Brae Hill Valley had afforded her a new lightness that extended to every part of her life.

  So it had come as a surprise, even to her, when she’d realized she was going to stay. The thick envelope had arrived, and she’d opened it, waiting for excitement to kick in. She had even filled out the form that said she’d be attending. But she never sent it. The faceless racists of the Internet would not win this one.

  “I’m not going to law school.” She raised her voice to carry through the room. “I decided I’m not done t
eaching. So if you need to find me next year, I’ll be right here.”

  The students looked up at her. Not that there were many left: Michelle had stopped coming to school the previous week, much to Kaytee’s relief. Jonathan Rodriguez and Milagros Almaguer were also part of the trickle of students who’d confirmed that they had passing grades and then stopped showing up. This morning, even Brian Bingle had stopped by to ask if he could leave early. Kaytee had given him permission, though she couldn’t help feeling a bit let down.

  When the final bell rang and the last class left, only one student stayed behind.

  Kaytee tried to hide her surprise. “Hey, Diamonique.”

  “Hey, Ms. M.” Diamonique hesitated. Then she said, “I just wanted to say, I hope you know I didn’t mean to knock you over that one day.”

  Up close, it was clear that some of Diamonique’s braids clung to her scalp by only a few strands of hair. Kaytee had never noticed this before, and she wondered if the braids themselves might be to blame. Perhaps years of tightly wound styles meant to make Diamonique’s hair seem thicker and longer had caused just the opposite effect. This thought, that even hair could be borrowed from the future at too high an interest rate, filled Kaytee with an infinite sadness.

  “Thanks for saying that, Diamonique. It means a lot.”

  “No problem.” As she said this, Diamonique shyly pushed her hair away from her face. Her braids fell back over one shoulder, revealing a shiny patch behind her temple where there was no hair at all.

  Kaytee drew in a surprised breath, immediately ashamed at her reaction.

  Diamonique quickly pushed the braids forward again, concealing the bald spot. “It’s okay, miss. Stuff just be getting to me sometimes.”

  “What do you mean? What kind of stuff?” Kaytee made intense eye contact, hoping Diamonique would read the concern in her face and elaborate.

  She hoped it would be one of those moments.

  But Diamonique would say no more.

  SCIENCE

  “I’M NOT EXACTLY religious,” Maritza was saying. “I’m more, like… spiritual.”

  She was, as Lety had said, cute. And she did, as Lety had promised, like Hernan. Plus, Breyonna’s wedding was coming up. Hernan could not show up unemployed and alone.

  And so he said, “Spiritual? How so?”

  “Well, it’s like, I’m a Libra, right? But my rising sign is Taurus. So basically, I’ve always felt the best energy from signs that get along with Libras and Tauruses.”

  Hernan tried to keep a positive attitude. At least there were no uncomfortable silences. Just the opposite: Maritza seemed equipped with a motion sensor that made her start talking whenever they made eye contact, churning out a stream of benign statements like Today is a gift, and that’s why they call it the present. With so many other things on his mind, it was a relief not to have to work to keep the conversation going.

  Anyway, who was he to be picky? He’d spent the day sweeping a year’s worth of chip and candy wrappers from the forgotten corners of his classroom, boxing up equipment for the science teacher who would take his place—if the school hired another teacher. In their efforts to cut costs and compete with the new virtual charters, some schools were replacing science lab classes with semisupervised online courses.

  Hernan had always told students that “natural selection” wasn’t as elegant as it sounded. In reality, nature didn’t select anything. The climate changed, and certain traits that had once been important for survival stopped being helpful. That was what had happened: Hernan D. Hernandez had been selected out of the school system. And now, this kindhearted, attractive woman sat across from him, talking about how it was scientifically proven that death came in threes.

  The least he could do was be honest with her.

  “Maritza,” he said when they pulled up to her door at the end of the date, “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay.” She looked hopeful.

  “I’m not a teacher anymore. I got fired.”

  For the first time all night, Maritza fell silent. Then she said, “Sorry. That sucks.”

  Hernan nodded.

  “You know what you need to do, though? Seriously? Ask the universe for help.”

  He walked her to her door. They hugged goodbye. She was an excellent hugger.

  “I mean it, though,” she said. “Just put it all out there to the universe. I’ve tried it a bunch of times, and it’s always worked. It’s literally a proven theory.”

  Under other circumstances, Hernan might have felt an urge to explain that there was no such thing as a proven theory. Scientists could never prove theories. They could only fail to disprove them. They could only collect evidence that they were getting closer to the truth.

  But Maritza didn’t have to be a scientist, did she? And what did it matter if she had a Hello Kitty phone case and was now opening her door with a key on a Hello Kitty key chain? These were just details.

  He got back into his car and headed toward the sky maze of highways silhouetted against the setting sun. The entrance and exit ramps loomed larger as he approached them, as if urging him to hurry up and figure out where the hell he was going.

  Ask the universe, Maritza had said. Whatever that meant.

  Then again, what could it hurt?

  Hernan pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and sat there, facing the tangled ribbons of concrete, opening himself to any sign the universe might see fit to send him. Then he took a deep breath and summarized the events of the year out loud: how he’d ignored Mr. Weber’s invitation to join the union, how he’d managed to become a target for Mr. Scamphers, how Angel had shown up at his door and later spat into his plants on the exact day that the consultant had come to observe the class.

  Then there was the plant fungus that threatened to wipe out his father’s business. Every bluebonnet in the greenhouse had now wilted and died except for the one pot Hernan had transplanted from his classroom. His flowers had survived so long it almost seemed as if they were resistant to the fungus, although that didn’t make much sense. They’d spent their entire life on a classroom windowsill. That was an unlikely place to develop a resistance to anything.

  The clouds didn’t part. Lightning didn’t strike. But somehow, saying it all out loud was comforting. Maybe a comforting presence was what he needed after all. Hernan pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway. He was just about to turn onto the ramp that would take him home when he thought of something that made him whirl the steering wheel in the other direction. He pulled onto the feeder road and made a U-turn. Then he drove to the greenhouse as fast as traffic would allow.

  MATH

  EXCEPT FOR THOSE unlucky souls who had to teach summer school, teachers didn’t have much work to do on the Friday after school let out. They turned in their grade printouts, brought their keys to the office, and floated to their cars, giddy at the thought of turning off their five a.m. alarms.

  This was usually the time Maybelline prepared for the first weeks of the next school year. But today, she only added a few last papers to the binder she’d been working on, then slipped it into her purse before walking to her car. She did not stop at the office.

  When she arrived at the house, Rosemary was arranging wings on a plate.

  The twins eyed each other until Maybelline broke the silence. “I came to help set up for the party.”

  “Good thing,” said Rosemary. “I’m a little behind schedule here.”

  Rosemary had not directly apologized for the incident with the cheerleading uniform. It was not her style to be either apologetic or direct. But she’d offered to host a joint graduation party for the cousins. And now, as she motioned toward a bag of chips that needed to be poured into a bowl, she said nothing about how unusual it was for Maybelline to show up and help. By Rosemary’s standards, that was apology enough.

  “So,” Rosemary said finally, “you’re ready for the new job?”

  “I think so,” said Maybelline. Sh
e was careful not to say Of course I am, or make her new position in the OBEI department sound too important. “It will give me a chance to spend more time with Allyson, so that’s good.”

  “Yeah.” Rosemary, too, seemed to hold herself back from saying more.

  The peace between them was as intricate and fragile as a spiderweb. Any movement could dislodge it. Maybelline knew, therefore, that she could not tell Rosemary how well her interview had really gone. It turned out the only thing that excited OBEI officers more than a well-organized data binder was a binder full of typed conversations and printed e-mails that could get somebody in big trouble. And Maybelline had smiled and thought, Have I got something for you.

  Allyson popped into the room, a long plastic CONGRADULATIONS banner crinkling on the floor behind her. “Do you have tape?”

  Maybelline was happy to see her daughter in an outfit that was appropriate for an eleven-year-old girl. She’d been less happy about having to buy the outfit at mall prices, but it was for graduation day. Plus, both mother and daughter agreed that as a soon-to-be sixth grader, starting at a middle school by their new apartment, it was time for Allyson to stop wearing Gabriella’s hand-me-downs. They would work out the details later.

  Rosemary spent a long time crumpling the package into the garbage. “I was thinking about looking for a part-time job. Now that Gabriella’s getting older.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You think it would be hard to get a job as a school nurse?”

  The doorbell rang, which saved Maybelline from having to break the news that most school nurse positions had been cut years ago. She almost felt bad for her sister, trying to get a job at a time like this with no work experience. Almost.

  “Hi,” said Coach Ray when Maybelline opened the door.

  He’d said he would come, but she was still surprised to see him there, sweating in the sun in his red windbreaker. In his hand was the most inexpertly wrapped present she had ever seen.