by Sean Boling
Chapter Five: Dale
In his promotional speeches, he often vowed to spend very little time in his office, and that vow proved easy to uphold. Dale liked to visit the classrooms and walk the grounds, but most of all he loved to mingle with the parents as they picked up their kids after school. It reminded him of the pitch meetings he had grown so accustomed to. He had come to know many of the parents quite well leading up to the opening, and appreciated the chance to maintain the relationships. They were trying some unique strategies, some that might inspire griping amongst the kids, so he figured cultivating the parents’ goodwill would buy him some leverage in letting the experiments proceed. The more parents taking his side at the dinner table when the kids complained, the better.
Most of the parents picked up their kids, or were part of a carpool, out of concern over how fast the traffic moved on the frontage road. The small parking lot in front of the building would fill quickly, and the overflow would park parallel for a quarter mile in each direction on the road that was separated from the freeway by a chain link fence.
There were soldiers who came from the base in uniform, one of them a woman, another who walked with a cane; there were parents who were barely old enough to vote, who could be confused for an older brother or sister of the child they were picking up; there were some who looked quite a bit older than they really were, who had been students in Dale’s classes when he taught Independent Studies at the continuation high school, before he had taken over the Special Education program; there were women who spoke no English, pushing strollers along the frontage road for what must have been great distances, as there were no homes in the immediate area; there were men in mesh baseball caps and cowboy hats who had been baked in the sun so long it looked as though a knife or needle could not penetrate their skin, women in yoga pants and shiny sweat jackets with their hair pulled back tight enough to give them a makeshift facelift, heavy grandparents who seemed dazed to have to do this again; there were dusty passenger vans with windows smudged by fingerprints and dog noses, luxury cars, and the ubiquitous dirty white pickup trucks with tool boxes and tool racks; there was a father who rode a homemade motorized scooter with a wooden platform big enough for both him and his son. Dale would joke with him that his balancing act reminded him of his own.
Each adult required a tone all their own, and navigating through them was a series of adjustments. As it was with the kids, too, he believed. The motto of the school was “Each Child, Every Day”. But working the lot at pick-up time meant seconds, maybe minutes, with each adult. Each child meant hours a day. For all of his spinning about learning styles and tailored lesson plans, Dale was beginning to think it may just come down to the teacher. The classrooms he enjoyed visiting were the ones managed by teachers who seemed like they could start a cult if they were so inclined. And having been in session for a matter of months, it appeared as though he really only had two such teachers, maybe a third on her good days.
He would stop by Shirley Ojeda’s Kindergarten class first thing after announcements for a dose of inspiration, then head up to his office to take care of some business before resuming his daily morning teacher tour. He liked to conclude with a dose of Isaiah Benton’s sixth grade class.
If there was a rainbow over the storms that blew through his visitations of the other classes, it was the proof they offered of how helpful programs could be in a curriculum. How else would these people be able to teach anything absent talent? They had interviewed so well.
He had the power to fire them at will thanks to the lack of a union in the charter. But where would he find another Shirley and Isiah? He had stumbled into them. They almost didn’t hire Shirley. It was down to her and someone else, and the board deliberated for so long that he started to steer them in her direction simply because he wanted to get home in time for dinner. The runner-up was immediately hired by another school. He had looked her up as soon as he realized some of the Live Oak hires weren’t working out as hoped, so the pool was already a little more shallow.
So as he watched Alicia Unser try to pander her way into the approval of her seventh graders, or Delilah Pico slowly go insane in the jungle being cultivated by her first graders, he started to dream of devising a fool-proof method. He realized that even a pristine program needed a competent delivery system, but if he could just get close to something resembling a useful set of hoops for students to jump through that his faculty merely had to hold up, his opinions would be in demand and his consultation fees would reflect it.
He was convinced the answer was tied to technology, but in a way that didn’t give people the impression they were members of an endangered species. He imagined poor Delilah being able to check on her students rather than hide from them in plain sight inside her catatonic shell, Alicia tailoring her jokey flattery to each student at their work station as she visited them to see if they had any questions. And those who had the charisma to hold the room could still do so, could use a student’s question to call everyone’s attention up front and moderate a discussion.
Wiring the classrooms would cost more money than they could procure from the state with even the most eloquent grant proposal. There weren’t enough fund-raising miles that the kids could run, enough proof-of-purchase seals that the families could save, nor votes in the valley to win one of those online contests that rewarded schools for rallying the clicks necessary to be photographed receiving a check from the sponsor.
Dale had traveled with Rod to a couple of conferences already, since they had plenty to say about the opening of a charter. Not that Dale had participated in much of the early work, but those who had been part of the initial push either weren’t as comfortable presenting their product to a crowd, or had grown tired of doing so. Dale still had the energy for it, and had become the face of school besides. Even if there were moments when he couldn’t quite bring himself to unfurl his mock Declaration of Independence, or other times he had to strain a little to lift up the same old aphorisms about ‘building for the future’, he ultimately found it refreshing. Being on stage reminded him of how much fun it was to build the school and to promote it, how much more fun it was to campaign for the school than to actually run it.
The first conference had been driving distance. For the two hours each way in Rod’s car, Dale never spoke of the school, and mainly asked Rod about himself, which had the effect Dale hoped it would. For when they started to plan for the next conference, Rod suggested they take his company plane.
Attendees referred to themselves as being part of a movement, usually with the word ‘choice’ attached to the name. Academics seemed to regard ‘Choice’ and ‘Movement’ as euphemisms for ‘Freedom’ and ‘Revolution’.
“That’s a fair assessment,” said a man made of dandruff with whom Dale felt comfortable enough to share his hypothesis. “Those words have been commandeered by right-wing media and interest groups. We want school choice to sound rational, not unhinged.”
“But we’re talking about schools,” Dale gestured with his aluminum bottle of Bud Light. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but his presentation had gone over well, and there was a big plastic punch bowl of ice filled with them. “We’re not talking about guns or taxes.”
“Yes, and next thing you know, we’re attracting those types and being lumped together with them.”
“We already are,” Dale chuckled. “At least where I come from.”
The man laughed and seemed to think about his laughter at the same time. “Well, I guess if you built a school out of a tractor shop, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Dale grinned and took a swig from the aluminum bottle. He looked around the banquet room at the other conversations taking place. A portion of the people were clearly talking about him. He pretended not to notice, which he had done before out of modesty, but this time his nonchalance was charged with panic. Maybe their project was becoming a running joke, and people were approaching him on a dare from friends.
The man had asked Dal
e a question, but Dale was too busy scanning the room for Rod.
“I’m sorry,” Dale said. “What was that?”
“I said have you had any problems with them?”
“Problems with whom?”
“The fringe,” said the pillar of dry skin. “Any protests about what’s being taught? Evolution? The more sordid bits of our history?”
“No,” Dale spotted Rod in a circle of men who looked more like sales reps than academics. “But it’s still early, I suppose.”
He patted the man on the arm and excused himself.
On his way over to Rod’s group, an assortment of people leaned his way and congratulated him on the presentation, which started to revive his confidence. They wouldn’t seek him out just to be condescending, after all. They would ignore him. So the spasm of worry dissolved and his breathing filled him with ease.
He prepared to do some networking as he drew closer to the shiny gathering that surrounded Rod. Just before he made it there, however, Rod caught his eye and halted him with a quick head shake.
Dale altered his course but didn’t know what to do once he had taken steps in a new direction. He jiggled his beer and acted like he needed another, and by the time he reached the long folding table with the bowl of aluminum bottles on ice, he really did feel like a fresh one.
He opened it and turned to face the room. Rod’s group was hidden from his field of vision for the most part. Only one of its members was visible through the mingling. Dale took a sip to help settle down, but instead the cold bubbles filled him with static, as though he was between stations on a radio dial, and the next clear moment would involve him doing something stupid. He took one more sip just to confirm how anxious it made him feel, and left the room to duck into the first breakout session he could find so as to avoid any more conversation.
The room he crashed was hosting a presentation that was winding down. The woman up front was asking the measly crowd to fill out their feedback cards. Dale skulked to an empty chair in the back row and nodded at people along the way, mumbling that he was arriving early for the next session.
They were all gone within ten minutes and Dale had the room to himself. The doors remained open, so he could hear the cacophony from the corridors and the main banquet room. He sat there chiding himself for being so naïve.
A woman with a very small head came in and asked if the “Choosing School Choice” session was scheduled in the room, and Dale said he thought so. She appeared to doubt his answer and left to double check. After another minute of silent self-admonishment, Dale sensed someone coming back in the room, and assumed it was the cautious woman.
It was Rod.
“Here you are,” he said.
“Just waiting for the ‘Choosing School Choice’ session,” Dale tried to rally. “I hear they really bring it.”
“Sorry about that back there.”
“That’s okay,” Dale said without conviction.
“No, it’s not…”
“I should know my role by now.”
“But those guys,” Rod continued. “They get a little uneasy around the academic types. They’re business folk, and they feel like the teachers don’t like them. Like they make fun of them behind their backs.”
“And do they like the teachers very much?”
Rod paused. “They appreciate them. And they don’t feel like it goes both ways.”
“Who are they, anyway? These business folk?”
“Tech industry.”
Dale shifted in his chair. Rod proceeded into a more detailed account.
“Our company uses their products. Mostly software. They throw in some hardware to run it on, some cheap knock-off crap from a supplier they hold hostage. But their work is great. I only recognized one of the guys, from this seminar we had at the headquarters last year when we contracted with them, and he introduced me to the rest.”
“What are they doing here?”
“What do you think they’re doing here?” Rod smiled.
Dale leaned back and smiled too, but once again was seized by doubt.
“I don’t imagine we’re a big enough fish.”
He slumped a little and wondered why this pesky inability to ward off reality had suddenly become such an issue.
“Don’t think of us as a fish,” Rod came to his rescue. “Think of us as bait.”
Dale stared in Rod’s direction without really looking at him. He was already formulating a pitch, but wanted to keep Rod in sight for when he expanded on the plan.
“They have an extra room at their hotel,” Rod obliged. “The Biltmore. I’m going to stay there tonight and play some golf with them in the morning. I’m terrible at golf, so they’ll kick my ass and feel really good about themselves. By mid-afternoon I should have them ready for you.”
Dale stood up and felt like giving Rod a hug, but contained himself by extending his hand.
“I’ll be ready.”
“Remember,” Rod pulled Dale a bit closer to him. “Don’t act too much like a teacher.”
They shared a laugh, bid goodbyes until the next day, and as Rod left him in the empty room, Dale thought more about the half-serious reminder to refrain from acting like a teacher.
“Not a problem,” he half-joked aloud.
He prowled through the conference for the remainder of the day and the following morning on the hunt for specifics to apply to his ideas for the fool-proof classroom. He sat in on any session with a title that blended the words Classroom, Technology, and Future into some sort of smoothie. He jotted down jargon that caught his ear, copied floor plans that presenters had hastily drawn on white boards as they realized their powers of verbal description weren’t as good as they imagined they would be once they found themselves in front of a crowd, and lurked after meetings to ask pointed questions about elusive points.
Dale was energized both by his impending meeting with the investors, and by how rapidly people seemed to be forgetting his presentation from the opening morning. Their charter had definitely achieved something unique in the construction of the school, but it wasn’t a process that could be emulated. It amounted to a fun story, and his colleagues in the movement needed something they could use.
