The Great Expectations School Read Online Free PDF Page B

little kiddies.
    I admired raven-haired Elizabeth, who cursed and laughed and had made me feel legitimized in my summer exhaustion, confusion, and fear. She had gone from welfare lines to first class, raised two kids with her wonderfully nutty extended family in the Kearny, New Jersey, home where she grew up, and could sing both “London Calling” and “You Make Me Feel Brand New” at the top of her lungs. She was a natural-born leader.
    Mrs. Boyd introduced Marnie Beck, the new fourth-grade special ed teacher. Marnie was a hard-nosed, forearm-tattooed Long Islander whom I had seen around at Mercy, usually puffing a Kool below her dark sunglasses. At first, I thought hiring gruff Marnie as the grade's sole special ed teacher was proof positive that New York City public schools were truly in the drink. I quickly learned that the woman had more love and expertise with tough kids than anyone else I would meet at P.S. 85. Marnie was a soldier, and she became one of my heroes.
    I sat in a wooden auditorium seat amidst a clutch of young rookies, nervously eyeing the backs of incoming first-grade teacher Trisha Pierson and nebbishy computer guru David de la O. Next to me sat pretty, hipsterish Cat Samuels, the only new teacher who hadnot been at P.S. 85 for summer school. She would be a fourth- and fifth-grade literacy prep teacher, with my class slotted for Tuesday mornings. I asked what was playing in the headphones she was putting away. “Mission of Burma,” she said. “I'm in a big Matador Records phase.”
    â€œAwesome. Pavement is one of my favorite bands,” I offered, dropping the name of a Matador Records act with an accompanying thrill of credibility. I had an indie-rock ally!
    After the schoolwide faculty meeting, Mr. Bob Randazzo held his own opening powwow for fourth- and fifth-grade teachers. A mustachioed, mousey man with an affable demeanor and singsong cadence in his speech, Mr. R. was the upper-grade assistant principal and my direct supervisor. Randazzo had been at P.S. 85 for over thirty years, most of them as an administrator. After calling the room to order, he said, “Welcome back everybody. First order of business: Marianne Renfro… is gone.”
    â€œYES!” A rousing sweep of applause broke out. I was stunned. Summer school had been an administrator love-in, with special ed coordinator Ms. Renfro at the center. “Thank God!”
    Randazzo waved his hand to reclaim the floor. “And it's looking about ninety-five percent that I'll be retiring at the end of this year.”
    â€œAwwwww, Bobby…” The room now sounded like a sitcom audience track for a stray-puppy scene. “But I just want to remind everyone right off the bat that here in fourth and fifth grade, we take care of our own. If anyone at any point has any concerns, questions, tiffs, grievances, problems, successes, stock market tips (har har), you know you can always come to me. We don't have to go over each other's heads, because in fourth and fifth grade
we do our own laundry.
”
    â€œThat's right!” It was like a political rally. “Absolutely, Bob!”
    My class was 4-217, pronounced “four-two-seventeen.” The numbers felt like an awkward juxtaposition at first, but I got used to them quickly. The pale lime room looked giant and bare. It had airconditioning,though, a blessing. I sat for a few silent minutes at my teacher's desk in the back, holding my classroom key. Ms. Vuong and Ms. Smith, two paraprofessionals assigned to help me organize my room, arrived. Ms. Vuong was in her third trimester and Ms. Smith had to be in her late sixties. They opened the coat closet's bulky sliding doors to reveal mountains of dusty textbooks resting on unsteady shelves.
    â€œWhat do you want us to do?” Ms. Smith asked me.
    I had no idea what anyone was supposed to do. In the opening meeting, Mrs. Boyd had announced her credo for teachers—“Your