Liars' Games (Project Chameleon Book 1)

by Susan Finlay

  She read an article from a major newspaper describing how to target and respond to troubled students. An article entitled ‘How to Get Principals to Think Like Managers’ caught her attention, but when she clicked on she found a message that the page no longer existed. She read several more articles and then tried a different approach, typing in ‘improving school safety’ in the search box. Numerous other results popped up, and she clicked on one. This was a large site with useful information, safety checklists, and links to other resources. Wow! This is what I need.

  She opened up a safety check list. Must be twenty to thirty items here. Good. She began reading:

  The school building and its entrances, parking lots, and grounds are monitored and/or supervised at all times.

  We’ve definitely failed this one.

  The school’s policies and procedures strive to inhibit weapons from being brought into the building, and outline consequences of any violations.

  Obviously not.

  Gang-related identifiers and activity are prohibited on the school campus, and the staff is periodically given in-service training to keep them abreast of what to watch for.

  Oh, my God. Are we doing anything right?

  Strategies for ensuring structured passing periods are in effect. These strategies include maximizing staff visibility, monitoring hallways, teaching students what the school’s hallway expectations are, and outlining consequences for inappropriate hallway behavior.

  Not even that.

  The school’s policies and procedures include an Anti-Bullying program.

  Nope.

  The school has a positive discipline model for all teachers to follow, and teachers receive appropriate training, allowing for 80 to 90% of disciplinary actions to be handled in the classroom.

  We definitely have that one backwards.

  Claire continued reading through the remainder of the safety check list, printed it out and appended notes and questions to checklist items.

  Over the remainder of the weekend, she read more articles, making additional notes and printing out much of the material. She found more safety checklist items on other websites and compiled them and made modifications to tailor them for Midland High School. Her next step was to put together a team to oversee and manage her plan. If they were going to have a chance to fix the school’s problems, they would need to get everyone involved.

  Late Sunday afternoon, Claire called Frank, Ron, Nancy, and the school’s counselor, Bill Wilson, at their homes and told them she wanted to meet with them on Monday at three o’clock. She wanted to give them some advance notice. After she finished the last call, she stood with her back to her living room window with a cup of coffee in her hand, debating whether to also call Steve. Frank had suggested it, but she knew Steve’s schedule was crazy.

  A car horn tooted and Claire swung around. Although the car was gone, a man wearing a baseball cap stood on the sidewalk, staring at her building. She grabbed her mobile phone and went to call Brad. Then she remembered their last conversation. She looked outside again and the man was walking away. Maybe he wasn’t the man Kate had seen. Better send a text message to Brad, anyway.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CLAIRE RUSHED INTO the school building, carrying her whiteboard, presentation easel, flip chart, and the plastic tote filled with papers, markers, and her meeting outline. Dumping it all off in her office, she brewed a pot of coffee, took a steaming cup into her office, and closed the door. As usual, the light on her phone was blinking, indicating she had messages. As she listened to her messages, she sipped her coffee, took a few notes, and read through the emails from Thursday afternoon and Friday. Many of those were the usual requests for meetings with parents or teachers.

  Better talk to Ron and Kim before scheduling any of those meetings in case they’ve already taken care of some of them. She hoped they had, because she needed as much time as possible to practice for her afternoon meeting so she could make her presentation perfect. Selling her plan to Frank, Ron, and the others was her prime focus today.

  While reading over her meeting outline for the second time, people began arriving, talking and laughing. Doors opened and closed, and desk drawers rattled. A glance at her watch confirmed that it was indeed time for employees to begin preparing for their day. That meant Kim was probably at work. Claire went out into the outer office and found Kim standing next to the coffee stand. Kim looked directly at Claire but said nothing.

  “Good morning, Kim.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “How was your weekend?”

  “Fine.”

  “Were there any big problems here Friday?” Claire asked.

  “Why do you care?”

  Taken aback, Claire responded with, “Excuse me, but why wouldn’t I?”

  “You walked out. We figured you quit.”

  “Didn’t Ron tell you I called Friday and said I would be back?”

  “Yeah.” Kim poured herself a cup of coffee and walked away.

  “Kim,” Claire said, following her. “I know I was snippy with you last week, and I was withdrawn. I’m sorry. I was going through a rough emotional time. But I’m back now and feeling much better. Things will be better now. I promise.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Kim was looking at her computer when she said it. A cartoon with dancing dogs filled the screen.

  Claire hesitated, then entered Ron’s office, closing the door behind her. Ron looked up.

  “You’re here,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Did something happen here on Friday?”

  “The usual. Why?”

  “Kim’s clearly angry with me. I wondered what’s going on. “

  “Well, sorry to say this, but to be honest, a lot of people thought you’d abandoned us. Even before you walked out you weren’t really here.”

  “Agreed, but you know what I was going through. You didn’t expect me to bounce back instantly, did you?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. I knew you were having trouble, but you wouldn’t talk to me or to anyone here. We understood. We were worried and concerned for you. You withdrew from everything and then you just left.”

  Claire plopped down in a chair and looked at Ron. “I needed time to pull myself back together. Things will be different from now on. I promise.”

  He remained silent.

  “I’ve made mistakes and I understand what my walking out must have looked like to all of you. I admit it. But I feel much better now, ready to re-engage. Something happened while I was out that set things straight for me again. Call it an epiphany. I have a real plan for what I, we, need to do to fix this school. That’s why I scheduled an afterschool meeting.”

  Ron shrugged. “You may be fighting an impossible battle, but you should do what you think you need to do. I’ll help if I can.”

  “Thank you, Ron. And thank you for everything you did for me after . . . well, you know.”

  He nodded and smiled.

  Back in the outer office, Claire approached Kim and waited for her to look up.

  “I’m forming a new committee,” Claire said “and we’re holding our first meeting today at three o’clock in Nancy Palmer’s classroom. I’d like for you to be on the committee.”

  “Me? I’ve never been on a committee before.”

  “You’ve been working here longer than anyone else. I looked at your personnel file. You have firsthand knowledge of this school’s history.”

  She pursed her lips a moment, obviously intrigued at being included for once, then said, “What’s the committee for?”

  “It’s a surprise. I’ll explain everything in the meeting.” Claire turned and walked to her own office, leaving the door open this time. Next, she sent emails to three more faculty members and asked them to join the committee.

  At a quarter past four Claire carried meeting supplies upstairs to Nancy’s empty classroom and set up the easel and whiteboard. When everything was ready, she sat down and waited, resisting the urge to go ove
r her speech again, having done that all day, every chance she’d had. Instead, she tried to relax and randomly gazed around the room. Posters of famous books adorned the walls. Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, Of Mice and Men, The Vampire Diaries, and Twilight. Claire smiled at the last two and shook her head. Dracula, she understood, but the Vampire Diaries? She supposed some catering to student popularity was to blame.

  Low two-shelf bookcases sat against the walls all the way around the room chaotically half filled with assorted paperback and hardcover novels, some on their side, upside down or backwards. Above the bookcases on one wall were four large windows so dirty and smudged that little light actually came through.

  “I’m not late, am I?”

  Claire turned her head. Frank was standing in the doorway.

  “No. You’re actually the first one here. Come on in.”

  A few minutes later, the rest of the group gradually filed in and were busy milling and chatting. Deciding everyone was present, Claire motioned for people to take a seat. Frank sat in the front, off to one side. Ron and Kim sat next to him with two empty chairs between them and him. The counselor, Bill Wilson, and teachers Nancy Palmer, Bob Lewis, Louisa Rodriguez, and Jorge Perez sat in a row behind them.

  “Thank you for coming. I asked you here because I have generated a plan of action for resolving some of the problems at Midland that I want to share with you. I would like to form a committee to review, expand, and modify this plan, and turn it into action. You’ve all been tentatively selected for this committee because I believe each of you is capable and has positive skills to offer.”

  Ron sat with his arms crossed. Kim, Bill, and the teachers were all frowning. Frank, dear Frank, smiled and nodded. She could always count on him.

  “After resolving not to let my prior incident with the school board, of which you are all well aware, deter me from performing my responsibilities to you, to our student body and to the school board. I spent the weekend researching what other school districts and urban school officials are doing to improve performance and safety. I pooled these notes and ideas, and added them to what I already knew about Game Theory.”

  The people in the back row were glancing at each other and shrugging their shoulders.

  “As you may or may not know, Game Theory is largely about desired and preferred outcomes. In regard to schools, we must consider the desired outcomes for our students. It’s also about identifying crucial decision points.”

  Ron said, “You’re talking about a wish list. That’s not realistic.”

  “I believe it can be. Realistic, I mean. Closely related to Game Theory is Systemics. That’s essentially the idea of seeing things holistically, as systems. You can’t change academic achievement simply by looking at students, say, deciding to provide better textbooks; all sorts of factors become relevant. In mediation and restorative justice concepts, it is the community you are seeking to restore and the involvement of parents that becomes crucial. If they become involved, they help set standards of behavior and commitment.”

  Frank said, “I think I understand where you’re going with this. If we can involve parents, the community, and faculty, we’ll have a stronger support system.”

  “Precisely. Here, I’ve printed out some pages I’d like you to read through. Some are research, some are charts and checklists I’ve created. I’d like your feedback and ideas. What I’ve come up is meant only as a starting point.”

  She handed out the papers and then sat down and waited to give the attendees time to thumb through them.

  Nancy was the first to look up. She glanced at Claire and then looked at the others.

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s obvious you’ve done a lot of work, and some of this looks good. The checklists you generated already tell me we have some serious problems that I never thought of, but I don’t see how we can do all of this. We barely have time to do our work as it is.”

  “I agree,” Bob said.

  Ron shook his head. “Some of this is good, but it doesn’t go far enough.”

  “I don’t claim to have all the answers. That’s precisely why we need a committee,” Claire said. “Make copies of the plan as a starting point and mark it up with your ideas. Tell me what you think we need to do. Everyone’s opinions count here.”

  Kim said, “Why am I here? I’m not a teacher or administrator?”

  “But you see a different side of the problems. You see the referrals, the parents coming in, the students getting detention, the police calls, and the like. You are on the front line, Kim. Your input is important.”

  Kim raised her eyebrows, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess I’ve seen it all. I know the drugs and gang problems are getting worse.”

  Claire looked around the room again. “I see that, too. We might not be able to rid the school of them entirely, but we can clean up much of it. That alone will go a long way toward improving our school.”

  Jorge said, “What do you know? You’ve been here like five minutes compared to the rest of us. You’re a newbie and you’re clueless.”

  “You are correct, Jorge, I am new here. But the problems have not been solved so far, have they? You have become inured to the problems, believing this is the way it has to be. Perhaps a new perspective is what we need. I know THIS,” she said, pointing at her research and the board, filled with math equations.

  “I don’t have any clue what math has to do with solving behavioral problems,” Kim said.

  “I’ll explain it all to you at our next meeting. There’s a whole science behind it. Think about Maslow’s theory, too. It ties in with what we’re trying to do.”

  “I don’t know what that is, either,” Kim said.

  “American psychologist Abraham Maslow devised a six-level theory of human behavior known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Motives. He ranks human needs as 1), physiological; 2) security and safety; 3) love and feelings of belonging; 4) competence, prestige, and esteem; 5) self-fulfillment; and 6) curiosity and the need to understand. Correct me if I’m wrong. Don’t gangs use some of those needs to recruit new members?”

  Frank jumped in. “Good point, Claire. I think this is worth pursuing. The next step, I think, should be a faculty meeting. See if we can get the rest of the faculty onboard.”

  Ron said, “Okay, I agree with that. It couldn’t hurt to try, right Claire?”

  What did he mean by that? Was that a jab?

  “Look,” Claire said, “I know we’re going to severely ruffle specific feathers. The problems might actually increase for a time until we change behaviors. My personal experience is a stark reminder that the gangs can be dangerous. We’ll have to be very careful, support each other and anticipate retaliation. If we do our job right, and perhaps we can get some help, then we can obviate negative outcomes. Frank, do you know anyone who we might get involved?”

  “I’ll look into it. Maybe contact the police department and the university. I know someone in the Education Department over there and I believe they have a Violence Prevention Program.”

  Ron’s face lit up. “You’ve given me an idea, Frank. I know someone who might help. Few people know this, but I used to be in a gang, back when I was in eighth-grade. Where I lived, you joined a gang, or you might not make it to ninth grade. I learned all the lingo: Popping, C’s up cuzz, what dat red be like. That was back in Chicago. When my best friend refused to join, they shot him in the head in front of his house two doors from ours. That’s when my parents packed up the family and moved us to Colorado.”

  “Oh, my God,” Claire said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  He shrugged. “This guy I know is the first friend I made after our move. He works as a mediator.”

  Frank said, “Why don’t you talk to him, Ron? And Claire, you should talk to Steve. Let him know what we’re doing.”

  Claire nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  “So, when do we want to meet again?” Frank asked.

  “Wait a minute,” Nancy said. “Don�
�t the rest of us have a say?”

  “Sorry, Nancy. Of course you do,” Claire said.

  “You think it’s this easy?” Nancy was leaning forward and waving her hands.

  Claire frowned. “Oh no, I don’t think it’s easy at all. This will put a strain on all of us. But we live here and good students live here. Is this the way we want our lives and the lives of these kids to be? Our only other choices are to live with the status quo or quit and get jobs elsewhere. But our students have no other choice. Their lives are on the line here, too. No, this will not be easy. Our task will be easier, though, if we follow this, a kind of map. You’re the ones out there, you know the landscape. What we need to do now is get the rest of the faculty involved.”

  Nancy was shaking her head, clearly not sold.

  “Look,” Claire said, “First we need to understand and acknowledge the desired outcomes for the students, staff, parents, community, and school board. Those outcomes need to be analyzed and not regarded as simple. To take an obvious example, the school board wants academic success, sporting success, certain behavioral standards, budgetary outcomes, and absence of detrimental news items.”

  “Okay,” Nancy said.

  “To accomplish these outcomes, we need systems that work. It’s no good cracking down on gangs if there is nothing to replace them; there is a reason kids are in gangs, one of which is safety. It is no good punishing gang members if there we cannot provide safety. Safety is necessary to create a culture of openness. Students aren’t simply items, they have family and community context needs; school is a factor in their community and vice-versa. In schools where these factors are in proper supply there is no problem. But here, these factors are in short supply. If you want students to learn, you must give them a reason to, and you must make it possible for them. There’s no point teaching Shakespeare without focusing on basic literacy skills, and no point doing either without a sense of the cultural and social contexts of the students and how they relate to the cultural and social contexts of the staff.”