THREE-RING BINDERS WERE the highest level of the organizational hierarchy, according to Maybelline. They were not like flimsy manila folders, which one could fill with leftover worksheets, then stash in some accordion folder inside a file drawer. They were not like pocket folders, which one could stuff with meeting notes and forget in a pile. Binders required full attention. One had to neatly label each divider before anything could go into them at all.
And so, with this year’s district-mandated data binder in front of her, Maybelline couldn’t possibly have time to notice the whistles and yells on the football field outside her window. These were not important. What was important was the first set of pre-test results, which Maybelline had printed days ago. She’d organized the results by class, as required, and when that didn’t seem quite sufficient she’d created additional spreadsheets based on each of the new curriculum standards. Then she’d color-coded students’ names based on how they’d done on each standard. Ever since, she’d been checking her e-mail for the arrival of the final element: the official cover sheet on which she would input her average pre-test scores and projected goals for the TCUP. It hadn’t arrived until this morning. But still, she would have her data binder set up a full week before the due date, probably before any other teacher in the school.
Out in the hallway beyond her door, she heard sounds of teachers leaving for the day. These were the same teachers, Maybelline was sure, who would have to rush to finish their binders by the deadline. Most of her colleagues fell behind on paperwork. They forgot to print out pre-test results. They misplaced forms.
As the year went on, they waited too long to grade papers. Then, before they knew it, they were accepting stacks of makeup work from students—the ultimate sign of a weak organizational system. Maybelline Galang never accepted makeup work.
She sliced open a fresh box of plastic sheet protectors. What better way to show that one had not waited until the last minute than to encase each page in its own glossy sheet protector? The time would come to provide documentation. And when it did, Maybelline would be ready.
It would be a different story for some of her colleagues. Lena Wright, for example, probably had her pre-test printouts in some overflowing manila folder belching its contents onto a shelf. One look at Lena’s paperwork would be enough to show any observer she was more concerned with organizing happy hours than with organizing data.
Maybelline slipped the final, completed form into its sheet protector with what should have been a victorious swish. So why did something about it feel empty?
Maybe it was because, even with the deadline only a week away, Dr. Barrios had waited until this morning to send out the goal-setting cover sheet. This suggested that, once again this year, he wouldn’t be coming around to check the binders, which meant, once again, he would not know who’d finished on time. Maybe he didn’t even care if everyone procrastinated on their data binders, just as they did on everything else.
Everything except football. That they took seriously.
The racket from the field seemed to be directly below her window now, the pounding of players’ cleats trampling her own sense of accomplishment. Suddenly, she was consumed with the need to show Dr. Barrios that, even though he’d sent out the cover sheet way too late, she had finished early.
She headed to the office to sign out for the day, taking the binder with her.
The principal greeted her with a wide smile. “Ms. Galang! You’re here pretty late!” He always said this when she stopped by his office after school hours.
“I’m always here until this time. Sometimes even later.” That was another thing that bothered her: How could he not notice which teachers stayed late? If she were running a school, she’d keep an eye on the staff parking lot, noting the order in which teachers went home. “Actually, I just finished my data binder, even though we didn’t receive the goal-setting sheet until this morning, and I thought you might want to see…” She opened the binder, its sheet protectors glowing like treasure under the office lights.
“That looks great, Ms. Galang!” Dr. Barrios’s hand inched toward his desk phone. “Listen, I have a call scheduled right now, but Mr. Scamphers handles most of the evaluation stuff. I’m sure he can help you.”
“I don’t need help,” clarified Maybelline. “I finished already.”
“Okay, great. Take it over to Scamphers. He’s a genius at this stuff!”
Dr. Barrios put the receiver to his ear, squinting at a paper on his desk as if it required careful attention.
Maybelline’s frustration grew. She didn’t need Mr. Scamphers to be “a genius at this stuff.” She had finished early.
Even as she thought this, however, she fulfilled the request.
Mr. Scamphers looked up at her from his desk, his moustache hiding too much of his mouth to reveal a readable facial expression.
“I just stopped by because I finished my data binder and…” She trailed off, unsure what to say. Mr. Scamphers had always seemed so dismissive.
“Great! You’re the first one.” His tone was more enthusiastic than she’d expected.
“Actually, I had most of this done a week ago, but—”
Mr. Scamphers lowered his voice. “But our principal didn’t send out the final form until this morning, right?”
Something in Maybelline’s heart clicked into alignment. “Exactly.”
Mr. Scamphers gestured toward the wall separating the two offices, his voice still low. “I was the one who reminded him. I told him, the district guidelines say all pre-test data is to be printed and organized into binders with a goal-setting cover sheet no more than thirty days into the school year. But what can I say? The main office doesn’t exactly do things the way I would.”
“Well, some of the teachers around here don’t do things the way I would.” She stepped into the office and placed the binder on his desk. She felt brave, all of a sudden. “Then again, it must be hard to make a good data binder if you barely even look at the data.”
“Interesting.” Mr. Scamphers’s thick moustache lifted on one side in what was now almost definitely a smile. “Someone in the administration should look into that.”
“Yes,” said Maybelline, “I think someone in the administration should.”
She gathered the binder in her arms and hurried back to her classroom on light feet, barely even noticing the flyers announcing the first football game of the season.
Moments like this called for proper documentation.
By the time she finished typing and left, it was later than she’d planned. She knew Allyson and Rosemary would be waiting, giving her that look they both got on their faces when she explained how busy she was at work. The farther she drove, and the more she pictured the look, the more she thought maybe this wasn’t the best day to bring up her continued concerns about Allyson’s clothes.
Allyson had stopped complaining about the outfits she was allowed to wear to school. But Maybelline also noticed, on many afternoons, a conspicuous lack of the smudges and pen marks and lunch stains that signaled a day in fifth grade. She suspected Allyson was changing into Gabriella’s clothes before the girls left for school each morning, then changing back before Maybelline arrived.
And yet the timing always seemed wrong to bring up such a messy subject, especially on a day when she’d been the first teacher in the whole school to finish setting up her data binder. Better still, Mr. Scamphers had all but promised he would check everyone else’s work.
The binder sat, radiant, on the passenger seat of Maybelline’s car. It seemed almost to be smiling at her. You, it seemed to be saying, have done everything right. She didn’t move it to the back seat until she pulled up in front of Rosemary’s house, where Allyson slipped wordlessly into the car in her unwrinkled school clothes.