One Day At Michelle Pfeiffer High School

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It was a windy, whimsy Wednesday morning

 I walked into 
the main office
of Pfeiffer High.


May I speak with 
your Principal?


...I was invited into
the Principal's 
office...



She was Ms.Brown,
the Co-Principal*
of Pfeiffer High.

She was easy on the eyes
and her excitement
after we sat down...
was immeasurable.


I'd hire you right now!

I had said next to nothing.


All I did was hand her a 4" x 8" piece of paper
containing one column of names and
five columns of numbers.

Let us call it a "Before and After" printout
from the State Department of Education.

The names were my students and the numbers
compared their Stanford 9 Scores with
the previous year, before they
were Oliverio'ed.

The tests, given to every California student 
in grades equal to or less than twelve,
changed their names at least 
three times since I retired
in 2004.

The Thomas Jefferson High School students
were academically "rock bottom" kids:
sociologically, the lowest of the low.

Academically, they were lower than that.

But the AFTER scores were significantly less
rockbottom and percentage-wise improvements
were of the five-star variety.

Ms. Brown demanded that I return to her with 
official resume and all necessary documents.

As soon as possible.

I had all of those things at home 
and it was my sincere intention to return 
to Michelle Pfeiffer High School within a week.

It had not been my intention to job-hunt that day.
I just needed to step in out of the wind
after bicycling to the Starbuck's
across the street from the school.

I always carried the print-out in my wallet
for the same reason, many wallets contain
pictures of someone the wallet owner admires 
and I, indeed, admired my ability to make 
dumb students less dumb.

I never did return to Pfeiffer because 
the following Saturday, Ms. Brown 
died in a car accident.

I read about her car crash in the Short Beach
Press Telegram on the following Monday
while eating Madelines and sipping 
Starbuck's coffee.

There was no wind on that Monday
but I did help a Pfeiffer sophomore unravel the mystery 
of the Quadratic Formula and she was able to complete
her homework before her 6th Period Algebra class.

She was very grateful and bought me two packages
of Madelines which I took home and ate after dinner.

The school was named for the actress 
who had starred in a feature film 

about a teacher who was also 
capable of making 
dumb students 
less dumb.


* The "Co-Principal" position
   hadn't been filled then
   nor now.
   
   Ms. Brown was replaced
   by Orson Jablonski,
   a community college
   professor from 
   Orange County. 

   My ex-wife's maiden name was Jablonski
   and I could never sit in the same room
   with anyone wearing that surname.

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