Chapter Five: Arriving at FIS

Chapter 5 Arriving at FIS

Now, let’s get back to “I wonder why in the world she is calling me?” That was the first thought that started me on this wild ride that has taken me to the highest summit and the lowest trench. One evening I had returned home from being out with friends and had a message to return a phone call. I had known the caller since coming to work in Freedom County. My first experiences were when she was a special education consultant. Then in my third year at Spring Mill she became the assistant principal there. She remained a couple of years and then moved to another elementary school also as an assistant the principal. With the opening of the two new elementary schools scheduled for the fall, in April of 2002, she was named as the new replacement for the departing principal at FIS. I truly had no inclination as to why she might be calling me about two weeks before preplanning was to begin.

Of course I returned the message. She said had been speaking with my former principal at Spring Mill about her open positions. I realize administrators talk among themselves and apparently they were discussing possible candidates for different positions. She had an EIP opening. He just happened to mention to her that I had been very interested in an EIP position but did not get one at the new school. (The new the principal was relaying all of this to me on the phone). She said she had called the principal at the school where I was supposed to go to ask if she would object if she talked to me about the EIP job at FIS.

            Now, keep in mind, FIS is only third, fourth, and fifth grades. My first reaction was not positive. I had never taught above first grade. I had no experience with upper elementary students. The principal talked a bit about the wonderful teachers I would be working with but who were nearing retirement, how she really wanted to groom a strong leader, and she was sure I would enjoy the atmosphere, yada yada yada.  I basically said I just really did not think I was well prepared for the position, but she asked me to please not say no just yet. She reassured me there would be plenty of help available if needed and to think about it and let her know the next day. I agreed to think it over.

After thinking about it and discussing it with my husband and a couple of friends I was willing to make the change. The school was much closer to my home, I was getting into EIP and out of the regular classroom, which was one of my goals, and I was going into more of a complete unknown, albeit one where the principal really wanted me, as opposed to the wariness about the new school, where I had felt like the Spring Hill teachers were treated like the proverbial stepchildren. I called back and said yes, I’d take it. That is how I came to be at FIS.

One of the first orders of business was to get my stuff moved from where it had been stored to FIS. This was a major undertaking. All materials were packed in numbered boxes (I had 134 boxes) and stored in the loft of a building on the county fairgrounds. This meant steps. It also meant numerous trips in my husband’s pick up truck and my convertible. It also meant no air conditioning, and this was around the first of August. I also had to arrange for the teacher who had coordinated the storage location to be present to let us in. Boxes were sorted into what was going into storage and what was going to FIS. I had decided to rent a storage unit. I wasn’t ready to dispose of all my kindergarten materials, but I didn’t think I would need dress up clothes, play food, or alphabet games for third-fifth graders. Eventually, with the help of my husband and son, everything was stored or moved.

The next order of business was to meet my new colleagues. There was a county-wide meeting of EIP teachers that I was to attend. Now remember, I don’t know a soul (except for the principal) at FIS. I went to the meeting at the county office. When I got there, teachers were sitting in small groups chatting, laughing, and catching up after the summer. I asked around until I located someone from FIS and introduced myself. The principal had told me the ladies I would be working with were very friendly, helpful, and she just knew I would get along fine with them. On this point, she was absolutely correct!

The first of my new colleagues I met was Gail. Gail had been a Freedom County teacher for many years. She had been in EIP at FIS a couple of years. She was from Hapeville and we discovered we had much in common growing up in the Atlanta area. Gail’s husband was a former school board member, retired, and was battling cancer. I can honestly say that Gail is one of the absolute sweetest people on this earth, a true Southern Baptist Christian lady. She never had anything bad to say about anyone, and didn’t comment on controversial issues. She was embedded in education – husband a former school board member, daughter a teacher, sister-in-law an administrator, and grandchildren in the schools.

The next colleague I met was Willa. Now, Willa is a little like Marcie Creech (Remember the children’s minister?). She is a character. Willa was basically in charge of EIP. Since we are not officially a grade, we don’t have a grade chair. It is more like a department at the secondary level, and Willa was our department head. There were to be four full time EIP teachers and one half time, so we were a small department. Now, about Willa. To look at her you might think she was a very prim, direct, reserved person. She was my age, slim, with very short tailored black hair. She spoke with authority, was very conservative, a strong Assembly of God Christian, and with a deep south Georgia accent. I would come to find out that Willa was much more than that – she was quite a character, and one of the funniest ladies I would ever know.

The other full time colleague was also new to the school. Her family had moved from Kentucky, where she had actually been the principal of a small elementary school. She was younger than Gail, Willa, and I, and had two boys in elementary school (not at FIS). Her husband was a minister, and she was also a sweet Christian lady. I thought she would be on the fast track to administration, and as it turned out, she definitely was. The final colleague was Larue. Larue was new to the school, had been a special education teacher and had known the principal through that route. She had semi-retired and would only be part time, half days. Larue was also very sweet and brought a lot to the EIP program from her special ed experience. That describes the make up of our department for that first year at FIS: Two teachers who had been in the school and knew the faculty who had remained there (after about half moved with the former the principal), and three new faces, myself, the former principal, and Larue. Before the year was out we would have still another new face.

All of us got along well and I can’t recall any problems among us. I shared a room with the former principal. We were able to work out the space amicably and schedule pullout groups around each other. We both mostly worked on a collaborative basis with teachers in their own classrooms, so sharing a room was not a big issue. At the beginning, I had been a little concerned about scheduling and teaching assignments, but after expressing my preferences to work with the younger students (third graders) in reading the schedule was arranged so that I could do that the majority of the time. I worked with both new and veteran teachers. We all ate lunch together, shared our personal lives, and shared our Christian backgrounds. We all had also been musically inclined at our respective churches. This made for a very pleasant working relationship. Mostly, we listened to Willa’s hilarious stories about things that had happened in South Georgia, students she had worked with, and other teachers. If you ever run into her, you must get her to tell you her goat story! She kept us rolling with laughter!

Coming into EIP was quite different than classroom teaching experiences. EIP was/is a state mandated program to provide extra instruction for students performing below grade level in elementary school reading and math. It can take various forms, but at FIS the principal preferred we work collaboratively with classroom teachers to provide the extra instruction in the regular classroom. There are specific guidelines for determining which students qualify for the program. Many classroom teachers felt that EIP was a “cushy” job. This was not entirely unwarranted. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to move into EIP was because of my less than satisfactory experience with the EIP teacher who came into my kindergarten and then first grade classroom. She really had done what appeared to be very little. She basically wanted me to plan for her, provide the materials, and let her just sit and carry out the plan with her small group. She was often late or not there at all. Substitutes were not arranged for EIP teachers at Spring Mill. I had no idea what the previous EIP teachers at FIS had been like, but the principal had said that she knew many classroom teachers had the impressions it was an easy job, but that at FIS the EIP teachers worked as hard as anyone else and were very dedicated to their students.

            There were many different aspects to EIP as opposed to the regular classroom. Some of what were seen as advantages by other teachers actually could be seen as disadvantages when looked at from another perspective. No, we did not have students at our door at 7:20 am, but we did have assigned duties during that time between student arrival and the tardy bell. Car duty, bus duty, breakfast duty, hall duty, attending meetings, covering classes for late teachers or substitutes, covering classes for teachers to attend meetings. We had no planning period during the day, we were scheduled back to back for the most part without transition time between classes. This morning period and after student dismissal were the only times we had to prepare resources, lesson plans, make parent contacts, or whatever else needed to be done, IF there were no meetings. There would occasionally be someone with an open period on their schedule, but this was always a temporary situation and they were expected to be testing students, assisting teachers, or otherwise making themselves useful. EIP teachers also were not usually responsible for report card grades, although we did collaborate with teachers on assignments and tests. If the group ended up being pulled out as opposed to collaborative, we would provide the teacher with feedback for them to incorporate into final report card grades. 

Another situation that could be seen as an advantage was that we did not begin going into classrooms to teach until about the third week of school.  There is a great deal of evaluation and testing involved for qualifying students for EIP, and any new students who may be at risk must be evaluated. We spent the entire first two weeks of school determining who the EIP students were and arranging for them to be in classrooms that had EIP collaborative teachers. This sometimes affected the proposed schedule, which usually had to be adjusted. Obtaining records and test scores on new students and completing all of their paperwork was very time consuming. For students that came with no records and for whom we could not locat any information, we had to do our own assessments for where they should be placed. We may not be working our usual schedule, but we were certainly working!

Once I got into my regular schedule it was interesting and different. I learned a tremendous amount about teaching with mid-elementary students. Classroom management was not that different, but the curriculum was very different. It was interesting to observe the different teaching styles of the teachers with whom I collaborated. This led to some very noteworthy insights. I collaborated with one brand new out-of-college teacher. She was a sweet girl, as competent as a new teacher could be, but she had a very challenging class behaviorally. I had to check myself not to just go in and take over. Years later, while conducting my doctoral research I learned to my dismay that a parent had actually said to her something to the effect of “You’re such an incompetent new teacher they had to put a more experienced teacher in with you!” How’s that for a confidence builder? This just happened to be one of the parents of one of the students with severe problems.

Let me insert a note here about some of this type student. I am not casting blame on the students, the parents, the teachers, or the administrators. However, I do hold “the system” culpable. I mean the system of public education in general, not the local county systems. Most children with either behavioral or academic difficulties enter our public schools in kindergarten or first grade. My years of experience in those grades enlightened me on what happens to them there. The teacher and parents must follow the rules of  “the system.” 

Let’s take a scenario that was an actual occurrence. In one of my kindergarten classes there was a student who was absolutely incorrigible. He simply refused to cooperate. I tried all the tricks I had up my sleeve to build a relationship and connect with this student. Not only was he outright defiant, he was aggressive toward other students. The usual consequences and parent contacts had no effect. This was all occurring during the first six to eight weeks of the school year. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, allowing for adjustment, yada yada yada. The next step after this in the system is to hold what is called a student support team meeting. This is an official meeting with the teachers, parents, an administrator, and usually the counselor and a representative from the special education department. There are very specific state and system policies that guide this process. Due to scheduling, the meeting is set up for mid October. Minutes are recorded that become part of a student’s permanent record. All parties make suggestions for remedying the problem.

This meeting results in some type of recommendation, normally strategies for parents to implement at home and teachers to implement in the classroom. Unless there are some extremely unusual circumstances, the first recommendation is commonly for the student to remain in this teacher’s class and for the teacher to implement the suggestions/recommendations of the team. The team also sets a date for a follow up meeting, normally after a minimum of one month. Since one month is close to the time of the Thanksgiving holiday, the meeting is scheduled for early December.

Keep in mind that  the principal knows I am a competent and experienced kindergarten teacher. There are only three times in my kindergarten-first grade teaching experience where I have initiated the student support team process on students for reasons related to behavior. You can already see part of the problem here. Already, this student has disrupted my class for two months. Now we (myself, the other students, and their parents) must endure at least another month of his behavior with only very minor changes in how his behavior had been handled. Now, previous to the meeting, I have said to my administrator this kid is way out of the domain of the ordinary challenging kid. I strongly and sincerely feel he needs some type of psychological evaluation. I had said this in private before the meeting because it is not politically correct to come out with such a strong statement in the student support team meeting without advance notice. 

The next student support team meeting is held. Remember, it is now early December. It is basically a repeat of the first meeting, with a few minor adjustments in the recommendations. There is a very veiled hint that eventually this student may need “further evaluation” if the situation does not improve. I know better than to challenge my superiors in front of parents and other educators. I say little, sign the forms, and brace myself for several more weeks (at the least). Again, keep in mind this is not just to make things easier for me. The other students are also dealing with this disruptive, aggressive child, which means their parents are vocal to me about it. Also, the really sad part is the child himself.  He has got to be miserable! He has no friends. Other students avoid him. He is also missing out on learning. With his behavior and relationships in the class in such turmoil he cannot give learning the focus it needs. Although he is very bright, he is beginning to fall behind academically. The next meeting is scheduled for mid January.

By mid January, the school year is half way completed. The meeting is scheduled, the time is set, but no parent shows up. This requires phone calls and rescheduling of the meeting.

About three weeks later the rescheduled meeting takes place. It is now February. There has been no change in his behavior at school. Mom makes a very telling statement. She says she has done everything she knows to do at home as far as consequences or punishment. She says everything she tried to do was undone by the grandmother who lives in the home and babysits the little boy. The parents are divorced and the father sees the child occasionally. Mother says she is at her wits end and is just going to turn the child over to his father and wash her hands of him. This gives us more insight into this child’s behavior. She asks us to contact the father and schedule a meeting with him because she doesn’t know what else to do. No mention is made of testing.

             The school year is nearly three quarters of the way over. At one point when I have taken the child to the office because of the severity of the classroom disruption, the principal is speaking to him. Not too harshly either, I might add. The principal looks aside at me and says, “How can you stand to discipline him when he is so c-u-t-e?” I simply rolled my eyes, because I did not want to get into this in the child’s presence. He does keep him in the office the rest of the day and we have a peaceful classroom for a few hours.  Eventually a meeting is scheduled with the father. This takes place in early March. Dad says he is going to get this situation under control and please allow times for his strategies to have some effect. No testing is mentioned.

A follow up meeting is scheduled for about six weeks later, after spring break.

            Nothing changed in the child’s behavior at school. If anything, it was worse. At the next meeting, dad says he sees some improvement at home and perhaps it is just taking longer to have an effect at school. Dad seems to imply we are just picking on the student. He asked about coming by to observe and we say of course, by all means. In the meantime, we have spring break and there are only about eight weeks of school left. It is decided that this student will NOT remain with his classmates in the looping sequence and he will be moved to another teacher’s classroom for first grade.  Nothing is mentioned about further evaluation. Dad does stop by a few times before the end of the year. He sees the child’s behavior. He can’t deny it is out of control.

On one occasion in late May this was during recess. The child had hit another student and refused to line up when it was time to come in until his father threatened to pick him up and carry him inside. As we were headed back inside for rest time he asked me if there was somewhere he could take the child to spank him. Of course I could not endorse this or make such a suggestion. I could see the father was very upset, so much so that I was concerned for the safety of the child.  His fists were actually clenching and unclenching. He was fuming. He was saying things like, “Why can’t my child just behave like other kids? Why can’t my son be normal? I see you all are correct that his behavior is disruptive and aggressive to other students. I don’t understand why or what to do!” I had to remain with my class because my parapro was on lunch duty. I was talking with him at the door of the classroom, away from the students. I said I could see he was very concerned and suggested he might want to talk this over the principal, that I couldn’t leave the students. I asked him if he would wait in the office lobby while I arranged for that. He went off down the hall. I summoned the parapro from across the hall and asked if she would go get the principal in the cafeteria, explain that it was an emergency, and ask him to come by my  room before going to the office so I could give him a heads up. She did, and he did. I explained the situation and he went to talk with the parent. I do not know all that took place in that conference.

The student was placed in another class for first grade. If there is a student support team ongoing for a student they usually reconvene after the first six weeks of the school year. This happened in this case, and there was similar sequence of events. The student was still very disruptive. Let’s give the new classroom time to have an effect, they said. He’s a little older now, let’s see if maturity doesn’t help. He’s going back to live with mom, let’s see if that makes a difference. Yada Yada Yada! Close to the end of the school year it is decided that the student has made little to no progress in controlling his behavior, and the subject of further evaluation is broached. The parents want to wait until the beginning of the next school year (second grade) before anything else is done. So another teacher, another classroom of students, another set of parents, and again, sadly, this child, have gone through another year of aggressive and disruptive behavior.

At the beginning of second grade, except not actually the beginning, because the first SSTs are delayed until at least six weeks into the new school year, the process is begun again. This time, things are taken a little more seriously. It is agreed that what is called a “Brief evaluation” should take place. This is exactly what it is. It usually consists of two tests, an intelligence quotient test, and an achievement test. There are sometimes additional behavioral tests involved. This process of scheduling the tests with the special education department, conducting the tests, analyzing the results, and getting the written report can take up to two months. Then a meeting has to be scheduled to discuss the results. So it is near the end of October when the next meeting is held and results are discussed. Results are mixed. The IQ and achievement are fine. The behavioral evaluation does indicate some need for further evaluation.

Of course, it is now almost Thanksgiving break. The child will also be turning eight years old soon after the first of the year. This is a key point because the parameters of what is considered the normal range for most psychological testing change once a child is eight years old. It is “easier” to qualify a child for special services based on scores under the later age parameters. This is one reason so little testing is done in the primary grades. Of course the laws and regulations contribute to this too, because once a child has a complete evaluation it cannot be repeated until two years pass.

            The team does decide to pursue what is called a “complete evaluation.” However, it is decided it would be best to wait until after the holidays AND after the student’s birthday.  The parents do give permission and sign all paperwork to proceed at that time. The complete evaluation is slated to begin in February. The student has completed kindergarten, first grade, and is not past the halfway point in second grade. The testing process began about the second week of February. There is a week’s winter break. The complete evaluation testing is more involved than the brief, and consequently takes longer to complete, analyze, and report. It is the first of April before the report is finalized. There is a week of spring break, and the meeting is scheduled for mid April after the break. In the meeting, the parents are told that the evaluations show the students does qualify for special education services as the tests indicate he does have an emotional behavioral disorder. It is recommended that he be placed in a regular classroom for third grade and have resource classes with a special education teacher for an hour each day. All parties agree to this. Naturally, the classroom teacher is thinking to herself, “What about the remaining five hours of the day?”

            The next school year begins. The student is now in third grade and receives his resource time. He continues to have problems in regular class.  An entirely different set of discipline policies now have to be observed because he is officially a special education student. To make a long story short, his resource time is increased over the year with little effectiveness on his behavior in regular class. By the end of the third grade year, it is recommended the student be placed in a self- contained emotionally behaviorally disorder class for fourth grade. There have now been four school years: kindergarten, first, second, and third, where a teacher, students, parents, and again most importantly this child, have had to endure his problems. Sadly, this is not an outlier. The process generally proceeds this way whether it is behavioral or academic concerns a teacher has about a student. This is just one of several examples I could share with you. I have personally taught three different kindergarten students who followed this same route. It was fourth grade before they were placed in educational environments where they could be successful. I could have told you the first day of kindergarten the student had major problems  and so could any other experienced kindergarten teacher worth her salt!

Whew! Back to my first year at FIS. Besides collaborating with the brand new teacher (with three of this type student in her third grade class) I worked with a veteran teacher. I did not know for some time that this teacher had requested to be moved into an EIP position but was denied that request. This could have made for a less than collegial working relationship but it did not. I credit Kafi’s professional for that. I had no idea about her request until several months into the school year. I would not have known then if I had not been told by another faculty member. Although she had she had been teaching fifth for several years she had not ever taught lower than fourth, so third was a very new experience for her. Kafi was a mature lady that I enjoyed getting to know. She had the most wonderful laugh – a right-out-there-no-holds-barred laugh that you just loved hearing. Kafi was a very confident teacher. She was open to suggestions but in general used very traditional teaching strategies. We talked about the need to get things down to a very basic level for these younger students, break the concepts into chunks, and give them concrete manipulatives to work with. This was much easier for math than for reading. Reading was pretty much teaching the story from the reading book with traditional vocabulary word definitions and tests from the publisher. There was no differentiation for various reading levels. This was frustrating to me. I basically walked around the classroom, prodding kids to keep their heads up and follow along, as she read aloud and “discussed” from a podium at the front of the room. Occasionally I would do the reading aloud, which eliminated some of the boredom for me. We did eventually try some group work, which was partially successful. It was still not the intense leveled guided reading that I felt the students needed. But who was I to try and tell this experienced, self-confident teacher what to do?

 The group work was okay, but it was also difficult. This class also had one of those incorrigible students described beforehand. Only this student was getting no resource. He had not even begun the evaluation process. We went through all kinds of strategies. At one point, when I had leaned down to this student to ask him to please be quiet (he continually vocalized and made noise just to distract other students) he looked directly at my eyes with a cold stare and said “Get out of my face!” There were absolutely no consequences. We had already learned by that point that there would be no consequences from an office referral and no consequences from the parent. He was already separated from the other students. He would not do extra work. About our only recourse was to deny him recess. That did not seem effective either and so we gave up on it, hoping some exercise would at least get a little of his frustration and energy out. As it turned out, the student was transferred to another class at the midpoint of the school year. We learned that the exact same sequence of events had happened in his second grade year at another school.

I also collaborated with a veteran fourth grade teacher. I had one of her reading periods while Ellie, the former principal EIP teacher with whom I shared my room, had her other period. This teacher had about 30 years experience, all at this same school. She had been moved around to various grade levels over the years. This should have been a sign! Maizie was a person that was hard to like, socially. She was unmarried. She was very involved with language arts, and was the language arts coordinator for our school. This is a person who is designated to be the liaison between the system level curriculum person and each local school. I had no knowledge of her reputation but was soon to find out. She would come to play a key role in my experiences at this school.

It did not take long to see what the problems were. When I arrived at her room at the appointed time, her first interaction was usually to say, “Oh good, you’re here. I need to go make some copies.” OR  “Thank goodness you’re here, I really need a rest room break.” OR “Now that you’re here I need to go call my doctor’s office.” OR “I need to go set up a conference.” You get the picture. She would come in the door of the school in the mornings either right at the student bell or later. During lunch or her planning period she sat around the lounge or the office talking. She always volunteered to organize events, and some of this was part of her responsibility as the language arts contact person. There was the spelling bee, the recitation festival, the battle of the books, and meetings at the county office. All of which took her out of her classroom.

The situation was not much better when she was in the classroom. In fact, I felt it was worse. She sat behind her desk or occasionally on a stool at a podium in front of the room. She proceeded to talk “at” the students in a loud, forced voice. It was not a conversational tone. Few students were paying any attention. They would be reading library books, drawing pictures, passing notes, carrying on low conversations with classmates. When she wasn’t ignoring the off task behavior she would be constantly harping. “James, put that away. Crystal, close that book. Dontae, look at the board. Serita, sit down. Jordan, quit poking Ryan. James, I said put that away. No, you can’t go to the bathroom. No, you can’t get water. I don’t know if we’re having recess. You better pay attention to this, it might be on the test. You better stop that or I’ll call your dad. You better listen because report cards are only two weeks away.” YADA YADA YADA. The interactions between students often escalated into name calling contests, hurling insults, and sometimes, even scuffles. More than one fight had broken out in her classroom. 

When she was addressing subject matter, which was basically the same way as the other veteran teacher, standing at the front of the classroom reading aloud, students were not engaged. I myself could barely stand listening to her voice. I can imagine how those poor kids felt having to hear it a good portion of the day.  I came to prefer that she leave the room and just let me manage the class. Her lesson plans were always well written and she was doing what she planned, but it was basically one sided. The majority of students were totally disengaged. She was open to suggestions, and we did occasionally try some small group work, but as with the other class, it was just okay. And I could still hear her piercing voice throughout the classroom. I eventually had to just ask the principal if I couldn’t pull out my EIP students and give some quality instruction in a more consistent atmosphere conducive to learning. And that is just what happened. Ellie followed the same course with her group. We both had the same experiences with Maizie and often discussed strategies for improving the situation.  After trying to be a positive influence in the classroom, modeling lessons, and making suggestions that seemed to have little effect we decided the best we could do for our students was pull them out.

As we both learned more about Maizie, it appeared things had been this way since the beginning of her career. There were two teachers in the building whose own children had been in her class years ago, and they confirmed this. There was also a young, though not first year, teacher in the building who had actually been in Maizie’s class herself. She vividly recalled how she and her friends would just stand their folders up and do whatever they wanted behind them as she either droned on reading the story aloud or constantly denigrated students. Her reputation was also well known in the community. A friend of mine, not a teacher, but whose children had gone to this school, asked me upon hearing that I had transferred there, “Is Ms. ____ still there? She was awful!” When I responded that yes, unfortunately, she was still there, this friend could not believe it. She questioned me as to how this is possible. How can an incompetent teacher stay in the system, much less at the same school, for decades? This question gnawed at me. As you will read later, it eventually became a question I could not, on the principle, suppress any longer.

Another key development the first year I was at FIS was a very pleasant surprise. Shortly after the beginning of the school year, I received a phone call from a friend from my church named Marie.  Our paths had drifted apart due to our work locations and ages of our children placing them in different activities. Marie said she had been browsing the local school systems on the internet and came across my name at FIS. She was looking into going back to full time teaching now that her boys were older and thought she might start out substituting. Her preference was older elementary or middle school so the “Intermediate School” title had caught her eye, and as she browsed the site she came across my name on the faculty list.  She said is this you at FIS? I said yes and we had a conversation about the school and the county system in general. Freedom county had long been considered one of the best systems in the state. Her youngest son was in eighth grade in a neighboring county that was experiencing major turmoil in its school system and population, and she was interested in a change for him for high school. She wanted to let her older son finish his senior year at his current school.

I encouraged Marie to get into the substitute class, come by the school and let me introduce her around, and I was sure she would get plenty of work. She knew as well as I and most other teachers that this is the most direct route towards getting a permanent teaching position. Marie began subbing at our school in the fall and worked almost daily. Come March, a change occurred in some administrative positions across the county due to the upcoming opening of another new elementary school. Ellie, my FIS roommate, applied for and received an assistant principal position. In April, my friend Marie was assigned as her long-term sub to last until the end of the school year. This meant there would also be an EIP position available the next year as long as were given our same allotment. Marie is a fine Christian lady and a lot of fun to be around. I was glad to have her as a roommate and she fit in wonderfully with our EIP team. Of course we missed Ellie, but we had known from the beginning she was on the fast track to an administrative position.