When Adequate Yearly Progress popped up in my queue as school districts were debating with teachers and other public officials about how to reopen - this month in the South and next month in most other places - I wasn't really sure if this was the time to read a book set in a school in the pre-covid days. Finally decided to just go ahead and read it, even knowing that all the while I'd be thinking about the safety of in-person learning right now.
Covid aside, it was a light, easy read about the challenges faced by several of the teachers and the back-clawing of administrators in a high school in an under-served community of Texas. I think under-served was the term that one of the teachers finally decides to use.
The teachers in the novel are a mix of experienced and novice teachers. Lena, the English teacher, is a poet, really trying to get to her students. Hernan is a confident biology teacher who struggles outside of school. Maybelline is the data driven math teacher. Kaytee is the new teacher, part of a "Teach for America" type program, blogging about her classroom experiences but biding time until she can go on to law school. Then there's Coach Ray because what would a story about a high school in Texas be without a football coach. And then there is a new principal, assistant principal and superintendent, all in various stages of wanting to shake things up.
As a retired teacher, it brought me back. Much of what the teachers dealt with was so realistically portrayed. Meetings, pep rallies, interactions with students, the meeting of standards, dealing with administration. Keeping data! These teachers had to balance their personal and professional lives. It was a true portrayal of what can, at times, be a thankless career.
I'm not sure if I'd recommend this novel for everyone. I wouldn't recommend it to my teacher friends now who are dealing with the struggles of the pandemic. But it is a book that a teacher, maybe not right in the thick of things, should really enjoy.
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