Opportunity High School

At “special” high school where all the disruptive kids finally end up, the students came in unsmiling and bedraggled, as if they had stayed up too late the night before. Some still had wet hair and put their heads down on the tables, hiding under their parka hoods.

At “Opportunity School” the students are encouraged to develop job-seeking skills. There was a pile of magazines on a table by the podium. The students read them, listened to music and talked among themselves. I stood at the podium and took roll.

After giving them the assignment, I heard stories about why they didn’t have to do it, or had already done it. One girl asked me if I had any problems I would like to share because her specialty was problem solving. I said yes, that I needed more work. I wasn’t getting enough sub calls to manage financially. She just turned to her friends and began talking again. I guess she was just joking or trying to be the class clown and didn’t seriously think that I would answer her.

Sorting through the notes on the teacher’s desk and by asking other students I learned that their regular teacher was also a sub. They felt they had driven away the teacher and the previous sub. This is quite a spectacular fete for students – to drive away a sub. What limited power they have can be exercised in this way. Among the notes I found one of caring concern cautioning the teacher to look up Matthew 9:36-38.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

I figured the passage must be one about compassion for others. So I circulated among them, trying to find out what their future plans were. One girl had done some retail work for a while, but she quit. You can get school credit for working. You have the employer sign off on a note, which then is brought in to class after work. The girl didn’t like the work because people talked about her. I imagined she had low self-esteem, as she was overweight and shy.

Some boys were sharing pictures of their girlfriends. One boy bragged that he had a kid. When I asked him how he would care for this child he said he was a laborer and planned on going to junior college at night. I gave him kudos for this. There was such little interest in school; I asked them why they didn’t just get jobs. Some said they were too young, only sixteen.

I wondered how their grades were and if they were “socially promoted.” For years eighth-graders in the city could flunk their classes and still become high school freshmen. But in 1996 when a new majority was elected to the Board of Education, the school leaders called for minimum entrance requirements and an end to the practice of “social promotion.”

Now flunking eighth-graders find it more difficult to advance to high school as the Board of Education approves tougher rules for holding back struggling students. This school district held back 21 eighth-graders who had failed both their English and Math classes. What will happen to the failing students? Will there no longer be “Opportunity High School?”

Big Boys

December 2002

My next subbing assignment was two hours work at a high school with big, disturbed boys. I thought myself lucky to get paid half a day and only have to work two hours. But later, the pay seemed worth it, because two hours seemed like an entire day. This was yet another special class where they put the kids who didn’t make it in regular classes. I didn’t have a teacher’s aide this time. One kid was a product of military parents and his goal was to be a member of S.W.A.T. because you can carry bazookas and bash in people’s houses.

I was sure that underneath the bravado lurked a gentler soul. He covered it up by making brash statements, designed to shock. He bragged that he was brought to the school office under suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon. He was 6’4”.

He wore gunmetal pants, front-creased to perfection, and belted slightly below his waistline with a brass buckle. His high-topped combat books were shined to a high gleam. No baggy look for this kid.

He wore a huge, water-resistant Swiss Army watch with automatic calendar, and three blue subdials. He was extremely proud of it because his dad gave it to him and he used up valuable class time wandering around and showing it to his classmates. They said they had seen it many times before and that he should sit down and shut up.

The ensemble was matched by crew cut hair and square shoulders.

I said I would take a look at it if he would come back to his seat. It had colorful white and black dials with luminous hands and silver colored Arabic numerals. The subdials held 1/10th of a second, small-seconds and 30-minute registers.

He had the annoying habit of using his deep, booming voice to caution others in the class to follow the rules. In this class, called Special Day Class in World History, students played a jeopardy quiz game structured around their lessons in feudalism.

S.W.A.T. boy had trouble sitting still; he paced the room in a long, rigid stride. He lectured others while standing in the center of the group. As he pushed his way to the center he pontificated his concern for proper ethics. The future S.W.A.T. boy kept interrupting, saying, “Rules are meant to be followed,” etc. and you could almost see him transform into his police-like role. It was pretty scary because he knew how to act properly while visions of maiming and torture danced in his head.

The other kids didn’t like being ordered around. One student kept responding and the two seemed about to come to blows. I told the bossy S.W.A.T boy to go outside and cool off, after he said he was about to explode. Instead, he took refuge in his drawings. He was getting himself upset. The control freak part of him wanted to establish order.

The drawing was a lacy butterfly, rising gracefully up into the air, its wingtip-like fingers touching the ground, so delicate I could not take my eyes off it. It formed an arch with a tender middle, the shy center of hope. This drawing came out of a gentle soul.