At the end of each day, Evelyn stopped at Colleen’s classroom to ask, “Still here, Mrs. Rodriguez?” And Colleen would smile and say, “Still here, Mrs. Glover.”
Colleen’s initial impression of a well-appointed classroom had quickly faded. One of her desk drawers didn’t work properly, and the reading table was chipped. Some of the shelves under the students’ chairs were broken, so those children stored their belongings on the floor. When the bell rang for dismissal, they moved their things to their chairs so the custodian could sweep and mop.
Her biggest disappointment was the reading books. The bindings were repaired, glued, or reinforced, and it was clear that the books were respected, but they were outdated hand-me-downs, bearing the imprint THIS BOOK BELONGS TO KETTLE CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, not THIS BOOK BELONGS TO WEST HILL SCHOOL.
Two weeks into the school year, Colleen sat at the reading table with her plan book and some of the readers spread out before her. Evelyn entered the room, sat down on a low student chair, and smiled—a bit strained, but it was still a smile, a sign of friendship. Colleen felt encouraged, seeing it. Could she be honest and ask for Evelyn’s advice?
Colleen picked up one of the readers and opened to the page with Dick and Jane hurrying to help their mother take the clothes off the line because it had started to rain. Colleen had taught from the 1965 edition in her last school. In it, a Negro family with twin sisters Penny and Pam and their brother, Mike, were friends of Dick, Jane, and Sally.
“Evelyn,” Colleen said, “this is a really old book, from 1956. Why don’t we have the new edition?”
Evelyn’s rare smile disappeared. “We take what we get, and this is what we get. Did you look at the inside page? All the books came from the white school. When they got the new books, we got ‘new’ ones too.”
Colleen felt her eyes widen.
Evelyn shook her head. “Don’t look so shocked. Some folks think we should be grateful that we have a Negro school at all. ‘Separate but equal.’ A friend of mine had to set up a new classroom in a white school this year, and she found out that they store the books in different stockrooms: colored and white. If they can’t even mix the books, how do they think they can mix the students and the teachers?”
Colleen spoke carefully. “I’m just trying to understand how you relate stories and children like Dick and Jane to your students’ lives with these old books.”
“What do you mean?” Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“Since I don’t have a teacher’s guide, I’ve been writing comprehension questions for the class tomorrow.”
“Comprehension questions?”
“Yes, like, did they ever paint a chair like Dick did? Or float paper boats in a puddle?”
“Of course they painted a chair! Probably painted all the chairs and the table, maybe whitewashed a fence too. You’re going to waste time talking about floating paper boats?”
Colleen leaned back in her chair and almost tipped over.
“Let’s work on the basics first, all right?” Evelyn said. “These students are in 2C because they need more help than 2A or 2B classes. Drill and practice, Colleen, then drill and practice again. Be sure that they write every day. Don’t accept any careless work.”
Evelyn stood so quickly that she almost knocked the chair over.
Colleen watched Hurricane Evelyn leave. Why had her simple question about reading create such a storm?
She rose, trying to shake the unsettling feeling Evelyn had left her with. Instead, she focused on the pride her students took in their classroom. She was used to children forgetting to push in their chairs or leaving their belongings on the floor of the closet. These were the neatest seven-year-olds she had ever seen.
While Colleen was packing up her things to leave, Evelyn returned to the classroom, playing nervously with her pearl necklace. “Colleen, can we talk a bit?”
“Sure,” Colleen said. “I hope my question about the reading books didn’t offend you.”
Still lingering in the doorway, Evelyn shook her head. She cleared her throat.
“I was going to tell you this before. Mr. Peterson asked me to alert you to some events that happened last week not far from here. Some Negro teachers had to be escorted from their cars to the school building.”
“My goodness, what happened?”
“They were assigned to the white school, along with a handful of Negro students. An angry mob outside the building demanded that they leave. The school had to be closed, for now, at least.”
The words angry mob sent Colleen back to her hometown the night they closed the store she’d worked in. It was July 1967, and the Newark riots were on TV and the front pages of the papers. Police advised stores and residents in the community to stay indoors. The store was off a main highway and easily accessible to the crowd of rioters spilling over from the violence ten miles away. Colleen’s town had been targeted because it was known to be a segregated white community.
“Well”—Colleen tried to sound confident—“are the children in danger? The teachers?”
“Mr. Peterson just wants you to know. You should be aware that these things are happening. White families are withdrawing their children from the integrated classes. There’s some talk that they’ll set up their own school.”
“What does Mr. Peterson want us to do?”
“Nothing, Colleen.” Evelyn’s voice caught. “There’s nothing for us to do, except do our jobs for these children.”