A Year on the Brink
by
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Randi Jacobs is a seasoned middle school teacher who deeply cares about her work teaching humanities and student government in
As the school year unfolds, Randi’s months are anything but dull. She returns to school to find that a well-liked long-time principal has left for personal reasons and has been replaced by a controlling, divisive administrator. The new principal insists that Randi accept the chairmanship of the Humanities Department against her wishes and fails to support her efforts with the student leadership program. She is especially opposed to the student newspaper the Leadership class publishes and this is a source of tension between the two women throughout the school year.
Randi does everything possible to prepare for a smooth opening in September. Instead she finds herself dealing with a mother who doesn’t think her son should be student body president, student complaints over the recitation of the flag salute and a parent who takes issue with the poem she has chosen for her students’ first writing assignment. In addition, her home is vandalized and a close friend and colleague is having trouble with an abusive spouse and needs support.
As things begin to calm down and October assumes a measure of normalcy amid a flurry of energizing fundraisers and special activities, a bright, engaging student seeks Randi’s help in figuring out why he saw a strange boy hiding among the shadows at the side of his friend’s house when he was trick-or-treating. This investigation takes on a life of its own as a young teacher, Max Cantu, whom she meets at a teacher in-service, overhears her talking about her dilemma and offers to help. Over a four-month period they have the satisfaction of unraveling a human smuggling operation.
Issues continue to arise routinely both at school and at home. Standardized testing and accountability are buzz words that the teachers spurn in light of the haphazard way the No Child Left Behind legislation addresses problems in the education system.
The school budget is stretched, leading to complaints being taken to the teacher’s association. The winter dance has been scheduled on a Jewish holiday and must be cancelled. Randi’s grandfather needs special attention and her son decides not to come home for the holidays. The talent show is greeted with administrative indifference and the conflict between Randi and her principal escalates over issue of a student newspaper.
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About the Book
A Year on the Brink recounts a year in the life of veteran middle school teacher, Randi Jacobs. Month by month, September to June, the day to day challenges of trying to live a balanced life, while striving to remain a consummate professional, are intertwined with the issues besetting public education and the dramas and traumas, both large and small, of often misunderstood and underestimated early adolescents. Set in the affluent coastal community of Manhattan Beach, California, the plot ebbs and flows, revealing both the struggles and joys of a dedicated classroom teacher who is gradually coming to the realization that it may be time to retire.
Along the way, administrative styles are explored as are legal obligations impacting the classroom teacher, some as seemingly simple as taking attendance and others as complex as First Amendment rights and the administration of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Randi’s energy is tapped as she attempts to meet the divergent needs of individual students, consistently deliver meaningful instruction and maintain quality relationships with family members, as well as lend support to close colleagues – one struggling as a single parent and another with an abusive husband. The year is further complicated when Randi is inadvertently drawn into a criminal investigation by an earnest student who comes to her with a story of an odd citing, made while “Trick-or-Treating” at another student’s home. As May turns to June and the time for indecision passes amid the end-of-schoolyear hubbub, Randi sorts through the components of her life and considers her options in order to come to a final decision.
About the Author
Jean Anne Turner received a B.A. in English Literature and a llifetime standard K-8 teaching credential from CSCLA. Following 14 years as a middle grade elementary teacher in Los Angeles and Orange counties, she taught Humanities and Leadership to 7th and 8th graders until retiring, completing 36 consecutive years in the classroom. She received the Orange County Department of Education's Social Science Educator’s award and was twice selected as the Irvine Unified School District’s Middle School Teacher of the Year. As a result of her classroom experience and years of service in the Irvine Teacher’s Association as a site representative and an executive officer, she experienced many changes in public education. She witnessed firsthand the widespread lack of understanding of the issues that impact the morale and performance of classroom teachers and thus, their students and the overall quality of education. A Year on the Brink, spotlights some of these issues and although fiction, is in part, a composite of the author's own experiences.