Fat School Confidential (2 page)

   
Mr. Stevens, on the other hand, was my mentor. He counseled me on everything related to teaching. While he was friendly, he wasn’t one to hang out with unless it was at the end of the day and he had a cold one in front of him. He was old school. Where I was lenient and easy going, he was tough and shrewd. Where I overlooked things and let students off the hook, he scrutinized and didn’t let troublemakers get away with anything.

    “
With the students who want to learn, you teach them. With the trouble makers, you give them busy work.”

   
Busy work was code for boring work. Worksheets, puzzles, word searches—anything to keep idle hands and minds occupied. Mr. Stevens had an almost endless supply of busy work for his problem students. And mine. A true friend, Stevens got my back on more than one occasion.

   
The rest of the faculty seemed divided into two camps: veteran teachers—those who incessantly seemed to boast about their tenure, and fresh-out-of-college newbies. The veterans, coddled and protected by the union, were—other than Mr. Stevens—teachers I avoided. The newbies, on the other hand, relished hanging out with their hip contemporaries and thus, avoided me.

   
The gauntlet that was administration was no friend to teachers. Luckily for me, I had the ear of not one, but two assistant principals. By the way, it took five assistant principals to run a high school—well, in L.A. at least. The rest of the administrators provided muscle for the principal, Ms. Hash. More than the mere grounds of Franklin—the whole of Highland Park was her kingdom.

   
And what a kingdom it was. Comprised of craftsman homes and below-poverty-line incomes, Highland Park sat wedged between the city proper and South Pasadena. Blighted by crime, drugs, and indifference, the families—the majority of them Latino—were at the mercy of their own children.

   
Despite the crime and the poverty and the handful of rude students and the students making threats and some snobby teachers and a few indifferent administrators, life was good at Franklin. If I stayed, it would only be a matter of time before my pay would increase substantially. That is, if I completed my credential.

   
Yeah. Like that was ever going to happen. I was sick and tired of the District Intern Program. Administered by L.A. Unified, the D.I. program was set up as an alternative to college credentialing programs. And it was free.

   
The problem was that, unlike a college—where degreed professors administered the curricula, schoolteachers themselves taught the classes. And therein lay the problem. Here, you had elementary-level educators treating us as if we were ten years old. They were condescending, rude, and acted as if teaching was the end-all, be-all career of choice. Not to mention we had to raise our hands to use the bathroom.

   
For a not-so-recent art school graduate, the D.I. program was the only choice. Looking back, it was here that I began my slow, self-sabotage from teaching. During one particular six-week session of “Teacher Training” classes, I found myself bored and distracted. Of course, the distraction came in the form of a blonde—and quite married—teacher. Twelve years my junior, she provided a welcome respite from the slog of school and home life. I didn’t sleep with her, but our awkward, teeth slamming make-out sessions were enough to send her—and me—into such a guilt-ridden funk, we ended our get-togethers as soon as the six weeks were up.

   
It wasn’t just the fact I was married that guilt-tripped me from going further than I did. My wife was pregnant with my son.

   
And that was when I dropped out of the program the first time.

   
Many months later, after the birth of our son, Bobby, I tried to get back into the D.I. program. Carol Price, a former teacher and principal, became my advocate and pushed for my return.  She helped run the D.I. program, and after observing me doing practice runs as teacher in a middle school classroom, thought I had the makings of a model instructor. Me, a not-so-model-student, a model teacher! She wasn’t alone in that opinion. My friends at Franklin thought so, too. For someone who’d spent a lifetime doing everything from structural drafting to no-budget movie making, teaching came naturally. Even qualifying to teach was a breeze. While many teachers took an average of three attempts to pass the dreaded MSAT exam (a test to evaluate a teacher’s ability to teach multiple subjects), I passed it on the first try. And I didn’t bother to study.

   
I stuck it out with the D.I. for another year, before I grew tired of it. It didn’t matter if anyone else thought I was a great teacher. I simply didn’t want to teach—not by L.A. Unified’s standards anyway.

   
But it was more than just the program and the problems associated with teaching—and the problems with other teachers. I was miserable. Miserable that even with my teacher’s salary and benefits I didn’t make enough money to support my family. Miserable that I didn’t have enough time to pursue what I really wanted to do. After all, I wanted to work as a writer—a screenwriter to be specific. Before getting my gig with L.A. Unified, I freelanced as a ghostwriter for other hacks, and moonlighted as a reader for an agent so disreputable, a character in Natural Born Killers was named after him. At one

point, I critiqued scripts for a popular screenwriting contest—at a whopping ten bucks a script. I made a little here and there, but the pay was never enough to support my family.

   
Hence, the teaching.

   
But teaching was supposed to be a fallback job, right?

   
My own education meant little to the superiors at L.A. Unified, except as a minimal prerequisite. Since I had a beloved art degree, the choice was simple: Teach art to forty to fifty secondary students who didn’t want to learn art; or teach

Special Ed to a handful of students who needed to learn the basics.  

   
I chose the latter.

   
After five years of the latter, I gave notice. I packed my stuff, hugged and shook hands with coworkers, and passed along the requisite words of wisdom to my students. On a final, solitary walk through the campus grounds, I heard a familiar voice.

    “
Hey, Mr. Rourke!”

   
Across a field, was a short young man in jeans and a hoodie, accompanied by a taller, similarly dressed man. They approached me.

    “
Remember me?”

   
It was Danny Ramirez. Looking a little older and a lot tougher, Danny quickened his pace. Not knowing what to expect, I stood there. After hanging out in my classroom for a few months, Danny dropped out of school to pursue his tagging career full time. After getting caught and serving time with the California Youth Authority, he came back to Franklin for a visit.

   
Danny greeted me with a hug.

    “
Carlos, this is that teacher I was telling you about.” I shook hands with Carlos.

    “
You were the best teacher.”

    “
Thanks, Danny.”

   
Danny ribbed Carlos.

    “
We used to do all kinds of fun projects.”

    ”
Oh yeah?”

   
I didn’t recognize Carlos.

    “
You used to go to school here?”

    “
Fuck no. I went to Eagle Rock.”

   
I laughed. “Well, excuse me!”

    “
I told you Mr. Rourke was the best!”

   
With a couple exchanges of the homie handshake, we parted ways.

   
I did what I could with Danny—as with any of my students, knowing full well he would never go the distance with his education. I tried to keep things fresh and interesting in the classroom, hoping upon hope my kids would stick around. But at a certain point, I had to let go.

   
And in the end, I just gave up.

   
After one last combo plate at the local Mexican eatery, I left Highland Park for good.

   
I skipped the graduation ceremony. There were maybe three students of mine who were slated to get diplomas. The rest either dropped out, or they had too many outstanding credits to make up in time. Vowing to continue their education, the graduating seniors made me proud. With two strikes against them, they knew that a college degree could only improve their situation. Of course, I came from the philosophy of ‘do as I

say,’ not ‘do as I do.’ I didn’t want to tell them that a degree in art would be worth little more than the piece of paper it was printed on. At least it seemed that way for me.

   
Maybe I was a bitter artist. Maybe I gave up too quickly and settled for teaching.

   
Either way, I was leaving education—for what? I had to do something. Something that would pay more than the jobs I had before working for L.A. Unified. Preferably something that would pay as much or more. Undaunted, I posted my resume on a popular Internet job board, applied at various employment agencies, and waited.

   
And waited.

   
Teaching was already beginning to look good.

Chapter 2

The Call

    
The summer went by with no job in sight. My wife worried. Though this wasn’t the first time Ellie had seen me quit a job without lining another one up, this was the first time since having a kid. Bobby was not quite two, and completely dependent upon Papa to pull things through. The money from my last paycheck ran dry. I cashed out my retirement account that was supposed to remain untapped. Well, until my retirement anyway.

   
I looked for work—in anything but teaching. I had to get a job. Any job. For someone with my all-over-the-map skills and employment history, something that would pay as much or more than teaching proved impossible. The only work I found was temporary—gigs that anyone with a smile and a pulse could manage.

   
With the pension money we caught up with rent, utilities, and car payments. But new debts continued to mount by the day. We knew no matter what job was out there for me, we were in big trouble financially. Biting the bullet, we spent our last chunk of change on a bankruptcy attorney.

   
Bankruptcy.

   
I let Ellie down.

   
I’d known Ellie since she was still in high school (I was a few years older than her). Aside from her own battle with eating disorders during her teen years, she’d seen me lose and gain weight with the change of the seasons. We were truly a study in contrasts. Tall and thin, with a wonderful head of auburn hair, she was a looker. Men would often flirt with her. But she was with me—a short, smart fatso. Our personalities couldn’t have been more different. While she was kind and patient, I was sarcastic and impulsive. Though she was a bit naïve and honest to a fault, I took pride in my relative worldliness and abilities as a raconteur. 

   
Okay, so I wasn’t exactly the most devoted husband in the world. Dry humping a fellow teacher confirmed that. But despite my infidelity, I really did love her. She was my soulmate. Together nearly a decade, we shared so much in common. We loved the same kind of music; we saw a middle ground with our politics. We even shared a similar spirituality. Oh, there were times we fought like crazy, but we always managed to make up.

   
Why I broke my vows was beyond me.

   
Or was it?

   
Broken vows aside, my decision to leave a secure job was putting my family at risk of losing our home.

   
After searching high and low for work, it became an obsessive routine to check my emails. I had three accounts. My Gmail account was reserved for my current job search. My other accounts were set up for writing gigs, friends and family, and spam—in that order. I set up the Gmail account to look for work and only to look for work. I sent resumes from that account. I sent query letters from that account. Unfortunately, the replies were few and far between. Mostly they were inquiries to my queries. Such as, “We know you can teach, but would you be interested in sales?” Or, “Given your impressive

resume and work experience, would you like to earn up to four hundred dollars a week stuffing envelopes?”

   
One morning in late August, I checked my Gmail account. There was an odd message from a Daniel Abrams. Apparently, Mr. Abrams, Executive Director of Academy of the Sierras, checked out my online resume. He left a number for me to call. It was a 559 area code. Half thinking it was a prank, or yet another dead-end job lead, I dialed the number. After a screener forwarded my call, Mr. Abrams himself greeted me. We exchanged polite intros, leading him to go for the hard sell.

    “
Academy of the Sierras has been in operation for about a year. Up until now, we’ve had a small student body. We’re expanding now and could use a few qualified teachers.”