The Turnaround

To fully understand and perhaps appreciate this post, you need to have read Falling Short Part One and Part Two...
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I'd been gone from my class for over a month. My world was now consumed with breastfeeding, changing, bathing, and loving two babies. We were planning to move out of the city.  Things were in flux.

When the phone rang I was surprised it was Judy Budd, my principal.

"You'll never guess who marched himself into my office today." she said. I could hear the grin on her face through the telephone.

"Who?"

"James Walker."

James did everything in his power to avoid the principal's office but he inevitably landed there.

"James ?" I asked in shock. "Why ?

"He said,

'If you don't move me outta that room I'm gonna get in big trouble.' Can you believe it?"

I couldn't. I could not believe it.

"What did you do?"

"I moved him into Cindy DeJoie's room."

I smiled from ear-to-ear. Cindy was called "the drill sergeant" by the rest of us. If anyone could keep James in line — it would be her. She was young, tough, caring. A great teacher.

"You have to hand it to him," Judy said instructively, "It was a pretty mature thing to do."

So. There was hope for James Walker after all.

And for me.

Falling Short - Part Two

Home in our apartment, flat out in bed with belly protruding, I could tell exactly when it was 3:20 because the phone would ring and it would be one or more of the girls from class calling to tell me what a mess the day had been.

“The teacher was fighting with the boys!”

"Jabbar fell asleep in class!"

“No one did their homework!”

“Karim was climbing on the cabinets!”

“She let us have SODA!”

Things were falling apart. My replacement was a brand-new first-time teacher who had just graduated in December.  She was young and green and they were eating her alive.  Even my colleagues (when I pressed) reluctantly told me the kids were "swinging from the rafters." 

The calls went on day after day. Shamefully, I began to avoid answering the phone after three o’clock. I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to know what was happening.

What was happening?  Why were they acting up?  Why weren't they behaving as they had learned to behave?  What had changed?

Just one thing.  Only one thing had changed.

I was gone.  And with me went all that I'd worked so hard to instill. All they'd worked so hard to achieve, all that struggling, all that striving.  Turns out they didn't do any of it for themselves, they did it to please me.  I failed to teach them that they should make the most of their skills and talents because of what it would mean to them — I didn't know enough to teach them that.  Everything they did, they did out of a desire to please their teacher. And once the teacher was gone, so was the behavior.  All I had accomplished was to make them loyal to me.   

All they had gained under my tutelage soon fell by the wayside.  

It would take me decades to figure out how NOT to make that mistake again.
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Read the conclusion to this tale in The Turnaround

Falling Short - Part One

It wasn’t until I was forced to leave teaching and go on bed rest that I found out how I had failed my students.  Though I'd tried to impart to my class all I had learned from my teachers there was a fatal flaw…and it wouldn't become known to me until it was too late to remedy.

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It was inevitable.  In two weeks I would have to stop teaching and go on bed rest.  Though my principal Miss Budd had made every accommodation she could to make it possible to stay, my doctor said if I continued working I'd be endangering my twin pregnancy.  

Twins often came early, premature and with complications.  To minimize the risk to their physical well-being you had to make it to at least 32 weeks to avoid respiratory distress syndrome (lungs not fully formed to support healthy breathing). Thirty-six weeks was even better.  At 36 weeks they’d still be premature but more fully developed.  If I was going to make it to either of those milestones I had to stop working and go on fairly complete bed rest.  I’d contracted shingles, had gestational diabetes, and my doctor cautioned I couldn’t put it off any longer.  I had to quit.

Though I hated to admit it, truthfully, continuing to work had been tough. In spite of my colleagues pitching in and helping out, even with the kids being so good, working was taking its toll.  I’d thought I was doing such a great thing by eating fresh fruit and drinking juices five or six times a day — until my fasting test showed I had gestational diabetes.  I needed to cut down on the sugars and monitor my blood five times a day, twice during school hours.

I couldn’t leave the room and hike down the stairs to a faculty bathroom every time so, I decided to make it part of the day’s lessons. The kids could track the level of my blood sugar and plot it on a graph posted on a bulletin board in the room.  They could compare and contrast how I was doing within a day, day-to-day, or week to-week.  They liked recording the number, plotting the point, drawing the lines, making predictions.

In those days the high-tech glucometer was a hand-held gun that allowed you to stick a disposable needle — a lancet — in the machine, shoot yourself in a fingertip, press to get a drop of blood, then stick a litmus-like tab of paper in the blood, slide the paper tab into the meter and wait for the reading to register and appear digitally.  Then you had to write down the number, carefully place the lancet and the tab in a safety bag for disposable.  Twice a day the kids would gather around my desk while I went through this ritual.  The boys couldn't wait to hear that trigger pop and see the blood slowly emerge —  the girls held back and cried.  They were convinced that it was hurting me.  I tried reassuring them, laughing even, but after awhile my fingertip pads were marked and sore and I couldn't laugh it off.

The day had been particularly long. I'd been standing on my feet too much (carrying the weight of twins) and cramming it in so the kids would have as much as possible in their heads before the dreaded “test.”  There was no telling who would come in and replace me. It certainly wouldn't be an established teacher — they’d all be in jobs already.  I was stressed and worried and felt guilty and adding to my anxiety that moment, I was teaching my absolute least favorite subject in the world…math.

I sent the next group of three to the board to work out some multiplication problems.  Class clown James was trying my patience by sauntering up to the board and doing what my mother would call “lolly-gagging.” The other two students quickly did their calculations; we checked the math, they sat down.  James was standing there with his trademark grin on his face and fooling around with the chalk.

“James," I said impatiently, "just work on the first set of numbers.  Just look at the first numbers to multiply.  What’s 3 times 4?”

He jerked around grinning, giving me what he thought was an endearing look.  


“I don’t know…” he drawled and everyone burst into laughter.  Grinning and laughing, James was enjoying the comedic moment.  

I wasn't laughing — I was livid.  If I'd told him once, I'd told him a hundred times. He had to memorize those times tables.  


I had spent months trying to get James to work to his potential.  Praised, cajoled, reasoned, given him a hug, a kick in the pants, anything I thought might work.  Despite his poor grades, to me he was a smart kid.  There were glimpses of his intelligence but the only role models he saw around him in his neighborhood were non-productive adults.  The three "D"s were part-and-parcel of the adults he knew outside of school — drinking, dealing, and drugs.

“Class.” 


Everyone turned to me, still laughing, but curious about the tone in my voice, not one they'd heard.

“Class.  Are you laughing WITH James or AT James?” and James turned to the class — still enjoying being at center of it all and still laughing when they called out loud and clear “AT HIM !!”   


The smile disappeared from his face.  He got angry, turned to me with fury in his eyes and said, “I didn't know that because I thought you asked me, What’s 4 times 3 !!”

And at that I put my hands on the board and moved my head forward and back as if I were bashing my forehead into the blackboard over and over in sheer frustration. The class thought it was hysterical.


I turned to him.  “James.  If you don’t know that 3 times 4 is the SAME as 4 times 3 — then I give up. I GIVE UP.  You say you want to be a pilot?  What do you think that control panel in the cockpit is made of?  Dials with NUMBERS.  NUMBERS THAT REQUIRE MATH.  Did you think the plane was gonna FLY ITSELF?  SIT DOWN.  I’m through. I wash my hands. No more talks, no more trying to get you to learn, no more sessions after school — I'm DONE.”

The class had gone quiet. James had taken his seat.  He had a steely look on his face.  His eyes were filled with bitterness.  It was a terrible way to treat a student. It was awful.  I was awful.

After that, James stopped talking to me.  He was in class but he wasn't present.  He didn’t act up but he didn’t look at me and he didn’t speak to me.  I tried pleading. I don't remember but I hope I said I was sorry. I do remember saying to him, “James. You can’t keep this up. I’m leaving in a few days.  Please.  Is that the way you want to say goodbye?”


But for those two weeks he just avoided talking.  Maybe on my last day he might have mumbled "goodbye."  I don't remember.  I only remember I left feeling I’d fail him.  

Soon it would get worse.

All of My Children

I came to teaching in a very backhanded way. I’d always loved my teachers (well almost always) and it seemed to me that teachers made a great difference in one’s life. I wanted to make that difference. I wanted to be in a place where I could do for some children what my teachers had done for me — save me. I wanted to throw out the lifeline that would reel them in and hold them tight and not allow them to feel that they were simply adrift at sea with no anchor, no shore. For a short time I became a teacher and the classroom with the experience of many personalities — all affecting you in some way, many ways — was a place I had always wanted to be. I got that chance in my mid-thirties.

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I’d just begun my first teaching job in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper West Side...a job I went to later in life and without the proper training.  I was scared — a class of thirty-one fifth and sixth graders, some bigger than I was!  Still, in my heart of hearts I knew — I was meant to be a teacher.  It was just a matter of figuring out how.

Those first weeks, I came home drained and worried:  their lives were so troubled.  How was I going to give everyone what was needed?  Would I focus on the few bright ones that needed to be challenged to their potential before they were “bored” out of school?  Should I concentrate on keeping the ones who were on-grade-level on-track?  Or should I pour the bulk of my efforts into the struggling, barely scraping by, cohort of kids who seemed to have little chance of ever succeeding? I didn’t know and without any teaching experience to fall back on, I troubled over these choices again and again before falling 
asleep each night. It was making me sick to my stomach.

As time inched by, I grew more confident and less naive. I began to learn more and more about the “real world” my kids lived in — a world foreign to me.  Their world (a world I truly didn't know) intruded on us daily — when we had to clear our macadam schoolyard 
of the used condoms, broken glass, and empty syringes before playing kickball.

My education started the day half my class came in bleary-eyed. Why? Because early that morning a SWAT team had descended on their building trying to flush out a suspected "cop killer."  Police with machine guns and dogs had roused them crack-of-dawn out of 
their beds, scaring them out of their skins.

I continued to learn about the world of my students through class assignments.

Writing letters to then President-Elect Bush (the first) yielded a surprise when I innocently began sharing them aloud to the class: 
“Dear President-Elect Bush, I don’t think mothers should be allowed to use hot irons or hangers on their children…Sincerely, Natalie.”  
That taught me to pre-read their writing before sharing.

The assignment to “draw a picture of a room in your home” produced a believable depiction of 11-year-old Selena being straddled in bed by a male stick-figure (her step-grandfather, I later learned). She'd carefully drawn her younger sister and brother standing nearby, watching.

Or the twin who when it was his turn to answer, "What will you do over the holiday break?" kept insisting that he was going to stay in our classroom, by himself, all vacation. No matter how I tried to convince him otherwise, he told me he wasn’t going to leave our classroom to go home. I had him stay in at recess — trying to elicit what was going on.  On an impulse I had him look in the mirror.  “Tell me what you see, Robert,” I asked. “Nothing,” he replied, “nothing.”

Emotionally, physically and sexually abused faces eagerly greeted me each morning — looking for all I could give.  No wonder I felt sick every day.  But my husband didn’t buy it.  “This is nuts,” he persisted, “what if you have cancer or something?  You’ve got to 
get checked out.” And so I did.

I didn’t expect to be pregnant.  I’d just taken on this new job and had my hands full with thirty-one kids; I didn’t need another.  Still, except for being surprised at the timing, 
we’d both always wanted to be parents and were genuinely happy about it.

My class was delighted.

Six weeks later the midwife I was seeing told me that she thought I might be carrying twins. “What would make you say that?”  I asked.  She explained that due to the height of my fundus (whatever that was) I was either a month further along than I thought, incredibly constipated, had fibroid tumors or was pregnant with twins.  “But no one in 
our families has twins,” I protested. “Well, they have to start some place,” she smiled.

I almost didn’t tell my husband, but of course did. He lit up at the possibility, then absorbed the shock on my face.

“How will we know?”

“My sonogram on the 16th.”

We had a month to go. Two weeks later for my birthday he gave me this unusual pair of  pins — Scottie dogs: one red with a black bow and one black with a red bow — tiny contrasting satin bows around their little plastic necks.  They were darling.

“Just in case," he said dog-ishly.

I’d never been a parent but imagined it would be hard enough with one, let alone two babies and besides, I didn’t think it was possible.  I’d had two abortions in my past and always felt that somewhere along the way God would punish me for them.  No matter that one of these pregnancies was headed for a miscarriage and the doctor who assessed me determined I was in no shape to wait out Mother Nature’s timetable.  Both times I had entered into the sex for the benefit of someone else but to the detriment of me.  I 
pushed the thought of “two” out of my mind.

But much like an American Express television commercial airing at that time, my husband and I received the astounding news during the sonogram. Splayed on a table, in an unfamiliar office, covered with jelly, gauges, and straps, the doctor (unknown to us) asked, “Is this your first sonogram?”

I answered "Yes."

“You’ve never had an ultrasound?”

“No.”

“You mean this is the first sonogram you’ve had during this pregnancy?”

Skittish and exasperated I barked, “Why do you keep asking me that? This is the first time I’ve had a sonogram. You've asked me THREE times already — why would I lie about it?!”

My husband was gripping my hand gently, hoping I’d calm down. We were both anxious and this klutz wasn’t helping things.

“Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. I see two. I see two in there.”

“I don’t see two,” my husband said in disbelief.  But the doctor just circled on the monitor “Twin A.  Twin B” and we stared with our mouths gaping.

It was funny how everything changed that day.  It was like finding out all over again that you were pregnant.  A lot was gonna change.  We couldn’t stay in our apartment, not enough room.  My salary wouldn’t cover daycare costs for two.  Before, we didn’t want to know in advance what sex we were having. Now, we needed to know.  

We told no one the news until we could get acclimated to it ourselves. 

I was in my mid-thirties and having boy-girl twins.  I took it as a sign of God’s forgiveness.  We were being blessed with an incredible gift I didn’t deserve.  I was stunned by the symmetry of it.

It soon became clear that I could no longer continue teaching. There were consecutive complications, all fairly serious, all pointing to the urgent need for complete bed rest. Though I’d explained to the class that my doctor insisted I stop working, and that the safety of all three of us was the only reason I was leaving, my kids still looked at me with acute disappointment in their accusing stares. Yet one more adult in their young lives abandoning them. No matter what I said, their faces let me know I was making a choice and I wasn’t choosing them. 

The price of my gift became apparent. 

Two for thirty-one: painful as it was, I was grateful for the choice.

You Is Important

Aibilene tells little Mae Mobley…

You is kind.

You is smart.

You is important.

I read The Help but I hadn't seen the movie and just watched the DVD after spotting it at the library.  So it surprised me when I heard Aibilene say those words over and over — instilling self-esteem in that little girl.  I hadn't remembered those words from the book. I hadn't reacted the first time I heard her say them to the little girl in the film — but all of a sudden it struck me.  She was brainwashing her in the most positive way and I only recognized it as such because I’d used brainwashing myself when I first started teaching.

My first class of thirty-one kids.  Everyone told me how slow and low the class was — low in scores, slow to learn.  As a rookie alternative-route teacher,  I troubled over how to turn that around.  I didn't start out thinking about brainwashing.  I just knew they had a sizable hurdle to get over academically and while I’d try the best I could to advance their skills, as a newcomer, they were each going to need something more.

At that time in New York, there were end-of-year tests, much like the End-of-Grade (EOG) tests in North Carolina and everything rode on how well you did on that test — for both student and teacher.

One morning I faced my class and said, “I want everyone to follow me and do what I do.”

I held up one finger (they held up one finger) and said out loud:

“I will stay calm.” And they repeated, “I will stay calm.”

I held up two fingers and they did as well.

“I will do great on this test.”

“I will do GREAT on this test.” They repeated.

Three fingers: “I believe in myself and so does my teacher.”

“I believe in myself and so does my teacher.”

They looked around at one another, their eyes questioning, their faces puzzled, their thoughts quiet.  "Do it again and do it louder.” I instructed.

“I will stay calm!” They called out.

“I will do GREAT on this test!”  Their voices rose.

“I believe in myself and so does MY TEACHER!”  It was a chorus.

We continued to do this the first day and then every day, at random throughout the morning and afternoon.  They thought it was a game.  They thought I was crazy, but for whatever reason, it made them smile.  Whenever I just held up my fingers and then called out “I WILL stay calm!”  “I will DO great on this test!”  “I BELIEVE in myself and so DOES my teacher!” they followed me in unison.

The next week I switched the order around and I stopped saying the words.  I just held up two-three-or one finger and they had to respond. And respond they did.  In some ways it was like a religious call-and-response.  We kept on with this practice, their smiling faces singing out the words of reinforcement.

Then I told them they had to NOT say the words out loud but only think them.

I held up my fingers, they held up their fingers and no one said a thing. At times some faces crinkled up as if they were thinking hard, other faces were calmer and still had their smiles.  They were building a belief in themselves.

Finally it was time for the only one to be holding up any fingers was me and no one said a thing.  They just THOUGHT the thoughts.  I had resorted to brainwashing.

We did this silent ritual before each spelling test every week.  Before the science quiz.  Before the reading comprehension tests.  Kids that never did well started to do better.  Kids who did well did better.  It seemed crazy but I saw them improving. After report cards came out that quarter pretty much everyone had done better than before.  

Unexpectedly, after school, Carolina (pronounced caer-o-LEENA) came back into the classroom with her father. She said he wanted to see me.  Carolina had to translate for her father because he didn't speak much English.

“My father says he wants to know what you’re doing here.” she said shyly looking away from me.  This was indicative of her Hispanic culture, children did not look adults directly in the eye.  I didn’t know this when I started teaching but one day in the teacher’s lounge, complaining loudly how frustrated I was that I couldn’t get some students to look at me when I was talking to them, one of my colleagues explained that this was how they were taught — it was considered disrespectful. 

I knew why Carolina wasn't looking at me but her father wasn't either.

Carolina was a pretty, shy girl, with pierced ears and a gentle manner. She never gave me any trouble in class and just came each day and sat at her desk and tried to do her work.

“I don’t understand the question Carolina,” I told her, ”Does he mean the subjects we study?  Does your father want to know the schedule of subjects for the day?”  She translated in Spanish and spoke in her usual soft voice.  

“No,” she told me looking at her father while talking to me, “He says that he doesn’t understand how I am getting A’s in spelling when I’ve never had them before. He wants to know what you did.”

“Well tell him you’re working very hard,” I said smiling at her through the translation, “and that we’re practicing how to do well on our tests.   Tell him I’m very proud of the progress you’re making.”

As she turned toward her father, and prattled in rapid-fire Spanish, her beautiful white teeth began to show through her lips and I could see that he saw that she was happy and then he looked straight at me and I was happy and as he put his hat back on his head and rose from the too small chair, he was smiling and happy, too.

When Aibilene in The Help is forced to leave the household and her heart breaks at leaving sweet Mae Mobley with a detached mother who shows her little love or affection, she focuses hard on Mae, squats down and holds her at the shoulders and says firmly “Do you remember what I taught you? I need you to remember what I taught you.” and the little girl responds back:

“You is kind.  You is smart. You is important.”

I hope my thirty-one kids (wherever they are) remembered as well.

This Budd’s For You

The return address on the envelope was unfamiliar to me…I didn't know "R Reilly," but as I read the card inside, it told me that Judy Budd had died.  Judy Budd, Principal of P.S. 145 on West 106^th Street, Manhattan, NY. Age? Way too young.

I first met Ms. Budd as I stood inside the Felt Forum in New York City along with 2300 other newly licensed teachers or TPDs. A temporary per diem (TPD) license was given to people like me who wanted to teach but hadn't majored in education. If you could pass the rigorous oral and written exams, a TPD enabled one to begin teaching for a year and then get formally licensed. Without a set job, TPDs had to go on the dreaded substitute list. Subs would be called around 5:30 am and had to go to any one of the five boroughs, no matter how far or how tough. The job fair was a way to avoid all that. Twenty-three hundred or not, I was determined to land a job.

Though I hadn’t come up through the regular ranks, I’d spent the past seven years in educational publishing, working with a host of former teachers, developing materials for the K-8 classroom. In my job, I’d met with, observed, and presented to hundreds of teachers. I felt qualified to teach, but after I went through a few sixty-second interviews, it became clear that only those with education degrees were being seriously considered. I could understand the requirement, but I thought it small-minded.

Disappointed, but undeterred, I kept at it until the day was drawing to a close. I realized this principal was my last chance…and still there were eleven people ahead of me. Patiently, I listened as this imposing blond woman nodded her head and said at the close of each brief interview, “Thank you very much. We’ll keep your resume on file and should a position open up, we’ll know how to contact you.” However nice, it was the kiss of death. Finally — my turn. I sat down and began my pitch. I told her I’d be perfect with second or third graders as a first-timer. Just as I sensed the interview was over I quickly blurted out, “Do you believe in numerology?” She smiled and shook her head no. “In numerology, in the ancient Qaballah at the top of the pyramid of life, everyone has a key number. Mine is a master number, an 11. An eleven stands for A Teacher of Teachers. All my life, every job I’ve ever had, people have told me, 'You should be a teacher.’ I know I can do it.” Judy Budd smiled and said her standard, “Thank you very much. We’ll keep your resume on file and should a position open up, we’ll know how to contact you.” But I noticed she put a big asterisk next to my name in her book.

Weeks went by and no job bites; I was getting nervous. Labor Day was closing in and without a job; my name would go on the sub list. Yes, you could refuse to accept if you were fearful about the neighborhood, school, or age group, but your name would drop to the bottom of the list and after three refusals, your name would be dropped completely. If you were dropped from the list, you wouldn’t be called to sub, and without any subbing experience you would lose your TPD, so it didn’t pay to say no.

I decided to make a last ditch effort to visit Judy Budd at her school. I thought perhaps I could talk my way in. I took the three subways necessary to find my way to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I transited the broken beer bottles, spent condoms, and empty wrappers that littered the macadam courtyard. I walked into the sweltering office where two small fans didn’t seem to be doing much good. I asked to see Ms. Budd. “Do you have an appointment?” the secretary asked. “No, but I think she’ll see me,” I said boldly.

I was ushered into Ms. Budd’s office, cluttered with huge piles of papers, folders, records. She smiled and indicated I could sit down. I began to speak in a rush.

“I don’t suppose you’ll remember me, but I met you at the job fair and I just came by to drop off my resume and remind you that I really, really want a job and was hoping you could find some spot for me...”

“I remember you,” she said with a smile on her face. “I have a position.”

I was stunned.

“It’s a bridged class,” she continued, “fifth and sixth graders, and the teacher who was going to take the class just decided today he’d rather stay part-time with us instead of going full time. He’s a math tutor and works twenty hours a week. This class, really the toughest kids on everyone’s list, was going to be Ms. Offen’s. She’s a pro, but computers are her thing and now that we’re finally getting the computer lab that was requested last year, that’s going to be her spot. He agreed to go fulltime but has had second thoughts. I've got to fill this teaching position by 3:30 today or the central office is going to fill it for me.”

I looked at the clock; it was 1:35 pm. I didn’t know what to say. “I was kind of hoping for younger kids, you know second, third graders — even fourth would be okay, but I don’t know if I can handle that age group.”

“I’d make sure you had help. I’d schedule the class for at least one period out of the room daily — that would lighten your load.”

“My math isn’t the greatest. I don’t know if I could handle the math at that level.”

“I’ve got a math lab they can go to twice a week and Mr. Reed will be available to help the weakest students with pull-outs, too.”

“I’d need to talk to my husband…I’d like his advice before I make a decision,” I said hesitantly.

“That’s fine, I can give you till 3:00, but this is my first school as principal and I’d rather fill the spot myself, than take a chance on what the central office will send me.”

“But you’d be taking a chance on me,” I added.

“I know,” she said, again smiling, “but something tells me you can do it, and you’d be MY chance and not theirs.”

My husband was home when I got there. I laid it all out for him. “It’s certainly better than subbing. I’d be teaching, which is what I wanted. And if I can’t do it, I can always just leave, though that would be awful. I don’t want to sub. This is the chance I was looking for — no matter how scared I am, I think I've got to try.”

Our school, but I wish I had a photo of Ms. Budd instead

When the Superintendent of the district came to visit our school, everyone was on high alert. We didn't know which classrooms he’d be observing but we were told to go about our day, as usual. That day my class was working on the newsletter we’d begun publishing. When Ms. Budd and Superintendent Alvarez walked in, the class was busy at work, clustered in controlled chaos.

Diving in four days later, that job turned out to be the most rewarding work experience I’ve ever had. Judy Budd became my mentor and my supporter. She guided me to teaching in a way that gave my students the best of what a raw recruit had to offer. Though I struggled, made mistakes, and often felt I was way in over my head, I taught my 31 hellions, found my way, and made a difference for some of my brood. When I took the job that day, I was pregnant with twins and didn’t know it. Though I ended up having one complication after another, needing one accommodation after another, Judy was always there for me.

“Class? This is Superintendent Alvarez. Say ‘Good morning’ to the Superintendent and Ms. Budd.” They sang out "GOOD MORNING" as we’d rehearsed and I asked beamingly, "While Superintendent Alvarez is visiting, does anyone have any questions for him?”

“Where you Super?” one of the kids asked. A smile broke out on Judy’s face, as I hastily intervened.

“Class, Mr. Alvarez isn’t a super of a building, he’s the Superintendent of our school district.” This explanation was met with blank stares and silence. I could tell they were thinking of the janitorial staff at our school. Desperate I said, “Kids, do you know how I’m your boss, and Ms. Budd is my boss?” Their heads nodded in understanding. “Well, Mr. Alvarez is Ms. Budd’s boss.”

“Ooohhhh…” they exhaled. “You must be pretty tough,” announced Rudy.

Even though I left school in March to go on bed rest, not two years later Judy came to my rescue again. My husband was out of work, we had two small babies and no insurance. There must've been a panic in my voice (in the phone call meant to keep in touch with my former colleagues), because suddenly Judy said, “Come work for me one day a week in an F-Stop position. You’ll get full coverage for all four of you.”

“F-stop position? — What’s that? One day a week? Full medical coverage for one day? You've got to be kidding. How is that possible?”

“It’s possible — com’on, I’ll call the central office and put in the paperwork. I’ll give you your prep first period, that way if the trains are running late, you won’t have a problem.”

Though the pay wasn’t spectacular, the health insurance was. And for another year, Judy Budd saved my butt while one day a week I taught centers to kindergarteners, imaginative writing to second graders, and had third and fourth graders working on pollution raps.

Though years had gone by with only the sporadic Christmas card passing between us, news of Judy’s death (in response to my late Christmas letter sent in February) hit me hard. She'd made an important difference in my life. Though she had no evidence, she believed in me. She'd given me a chance, and in that first-time teaching job, I never felt more valued in my life.

Judy? Wherever you are, this Budd’s for you.