“Okay, faculty, listen up,” Principal Dorsett said, attempting to quiet the room. “Teachers, listen up!” But they kept on talking. “Teachers, show some manners. Teachers?”
Boone, irritated that they continued to ignore their principal, took matters into his own hands. He had to get back to the station. He didn’t have all day. “Shut the hell up!” he yelled at the noisy teachers.
And that one request worked. They all shut up.
“Thank you, Chief Ryan,” Dorsett said to Boone, and then turned his attention back to the faculty. “Before we get started with our meeting, and since this is our first official meeting since I returned from vacation, I want you to please join me in welcoming Miss Charlene Johnson, our brand new dean of students. Miss Johnson, please stand up and take a bow.”
Charly smiled as she stood up. There was a very light splattering of applause as she stood, with the vast majority of staff not applauding at all, and Boone could see the disappointment in Charly’s eyes. But she continued to smile, God love her, he thought, despite their rudeness. And then she was about to sit back down.
But Dorsett stopped her. “Before you take your seat, Dean Johnson,” he said, “why don’t you share with the faculty what you shared with me on yesterday. I think it was a very good idea. Dean Johnson,” Dorsett said to the other staff members, “believes that we should streamline referrals out of her office. Tell them about it, Charly,” he said.
Boone saw the apprehension in Charly’s big, beautiful eyes, as she knew like he knew that those teachers didn’t want to hear a damn thing she had to say. But she remained standing and spoke up.
“I was telling Principal Dorsett that we are ill-serving our students when we write multiple referrals on them for what actually was one offense with multiple violations. Students are being written up on a main office referral if their violation involves structural damage. They are being written up on a Guidance office referral if their violation involves mental abusiveness. They get a referral to the athletic director if their violation was physical in nature. Sometimes one office doesn’t even know that the other office has a referral on the kid. What I suggested to Dr. Dorsett is that all referrals are written to the Dean of Students office, to my office, with a list of the various violations on that one referral if it all happened at the same time. That way, the student only has the one referral on his or her record, which is only fair, rather than two or three for the same offense.”
“And I think it’s a very good idea,” Dorsett said. “Any questions on that?” he asked the staff, and some hands actually did go up.
Charly was surprised. But Boone was suspicious. He knew that group too well. “Yes?” Dorsett said to one of the teachers whose hand was up.
“We want to know how she got that job,” he said.
Charly looked at the teacher. She shouldn’t have been surprised by such a question, but she was. It seemed to be none of his business, if you asked her. Boone was watching Charly.
Fritz expected outrage when they hired Charly. He was getting it now. “She applied for the job,” he answered. Dorsett, the principal, let him answer it.
“I applied too,” said another teacher, “and I have twenty-eight years of experience.”
And then it was a free-for-all:
“I applied too. I’ve got nearly twenty years’ experience myself.”
“I applied with my thirty years of experience.”
“What’s her experience? What are her qualifications? Are you telling me she has more experience than all of us?”
Boone looked at Fritz. He should have told them that she was selected, she’s the new dean of students, end of story. But no! He turned to the dean herself. “Miss Johnson,” Fritz said, “would you care to respond to your colleagues?”
Boone wanted to kick his ass. He or Dorsett should have handled that, not leave it to her! Why weren’t they protecting her?
But Charly, Boone realized, could handle herself. And she didn’t stutter. “I previously worked as a dean of girls at a large high school in California,” she said.
“For how long?” asked one.
“Well, I started out as a teacher,” she said.
“A gym teacher,” said one of her colleagues in a dismissive tone.
“I was a physical education teacher, that’s right,” said Charly. “But I was promoted to Dean,” she added.
“And how long did you work as dean?” asked yet another teacher.
“I was an assistant dean for four years.”
“How long were you a full-fledged dean,” asked one teacher. “Not an assistant.”
“I was dean for a little over two years,” Charly said, and the room went ballistic.
“Two years? That’s all?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“How could somebody with just two years of experience get a prestigious job like dean of students at Saint Chris? How is that possible?”
If it had been Boone, he would have told every one of them what they could do with their outrage, and walked out. But Charly’s toughness, he realized as he watched her, was nothing like his. Her toughness was in her ability to sustain. To take a licking and keep on ticking.
And she responded to her critics while she was at it. “You are correct,” she said in answer to one of the teachers. “My experience as a dean isn’t vast at all. But at least I was a dean,” she added. “An assistant dean is still a dean. I have over six years of experience as a dean.”
The teachers stared at her, wondering if she would dare insult them. Boone stared too, hoping she could pull it off.
“You all quoted your experience,” she said. “And it’s impressive. But all of you, if I’m not mistaken, have years and years of experience as teachers. I have experience as a dean. There’s a difference.”
Boone smiled. She pulled it off, by gum!
But the teachers took a different road. “I have an Ivy League education,” said one teacher.
“So do I,” said another.
“I don’t,” said Charly. “But I have an excellent education.”
“From a black school.”
“From a historically black university, yes,” said Charly. “A university created because people like me were ordered to pay taxes that paid for state universities, but we were not allowed to attend those universities.”
“It’s not that way anymore.”
“No, it’s not,” said Charly. “But they didn’t want to tear down the state schools and send everybody to the historically black colleges. And the historically black colleges didn’t want to get torn down either.”
Boone smiled. She was pulling it all, doggonit!
“We don’t believe in quotas and set-asides,” said yet another teacher.
“Neither do I,” said Charly. “I think it’s unfair that people like you get ninety-percent set aside, while people of color, who are nearly, if not in fact, the majority in this country, have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for the meager ten percent that’s left.”
Boone’s smile became even more obvious, especially as the teachers looked at each other as if they were trying to figure out if she’d just insulted them. Then he couldn’t help it. He laughed. He laughed long and hard. The teachers, and Fritz too, failed to see the humor.