This story is part of a series; however, each story stands on its own and you may decide to read the others if you enjoy this one. All characters are well over 18.
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It did not take long for Lesley Crawford to take full total control of the high school where she had become principal at the relatively young age of 26. Lesley was a dark-haired, take-charge, active woman who had top-level degrees and already had accumulated a surprising amount of experience for someone so young.
She had arrived in late summer and had seen that Janice Vinson, a veteran teacher in her early 40s, had done an excellent job as interim principal. So she immediately sounded Janice out and made her Assistant Principal. Janice was able to handle many day-to-day problems with ability; this freed Lesley to focus on the more challenging issues facing all high schools—increasing demands by parents, reluctance of boards to provide needed funding, and constant need to get students to buckle down so that the high school would be seen as a great supplier for the top-ranked universities.
Janice found she could handle the problems teachers brought to her because they were afraid of tangling with the hard-nosed, attractive, and clearly domineering young principal. Lesley trusted Janice to carry out her policies because the principal knew before she arrived that Janice had long before been submissive to Lesley's aunt when Janice and Valerie Ellis, the aunt, had been in college together.
Had the other teachers known that the take-charge Assistant Principal was usually wearing tight Spanx and a butt plug underneath her conservative grey flannel skirt, they might have wondered about her capability to confront troublesome students as well as the inevitable difficulties between teachers and their department chairs and even colleagues. Janice, however, had had long experience as an excellent classroom teacher who inspired her history students and served as a model for many of the school's best instructors when they had been starting out.
Her subservience to Lesley was never disclosed by either to the other teachers, except perhaps from the way Lesley spoke to her assistant principal, calling her Jan, which no one else presumed to do. Most of the teachers assumed this was part of their strong working relationship, because Janice did indeed refer to her young superior as Lesley, not Miss Crawford.
Now and then, Janice had to employ what she began to refer to—if only to herself—as the nuclear weapon. This meant when she felt she had to refer a problem to Lesley because it had become too difficult for her to resolve. She did not like doing it because she knew Lesley had great confidence in her and trusted her to take care of these matters, but Lesley also understood that Janice would only send the most intractable problems—and people—into the Principal's Office.
This was something the teachers appreciated, so when Janice might finally say, "Well, I suppose that since we can't seem to deal with this, I'm going to have to pass this on to the Principal," most of them drew a breath and made one last effort to see if they could work things out with Janice.
One young Latin teacher, Judith Maples, had become a bit of a thorn in Janice's side. She was having trouble controlling a few of the older boys in her class. Because they were bright, this was not the usual problem of high school boys being resistant to smart young attractive female teachers, a profile Judith definitely filled, but more that she didn't seem to care about their difficulties in dealing with her. Janice knew that this was going to be a major problem, because Lesley did not like to see anything getting in the way of the better students doing well.
So when Janice summoned Judith, a bright, blue-eyed blonde, with nice curves, to her office, the young Latin teacher seemed above it all with the comparatively senior Assistant Principal. Judith flashed her eyes when Janice asked her why these boys didn't seem to be challenged and were thus fooling around.
"I don't have to cater to these boys who want to look up my skirt," Judith complained. "They're smart so I can't mark them down and nobody cares about poor conduct grades any more."
"You might have them serve as aides or give them projects that challenge them, if they are truly able," Janice suggested.
Judith snorted, as if trying to figure out how best to address these students' needs was beneath her. Janice realized, although it had taken her a few minutes, that the problem was Judith. Judith, she finally grasped, didn't like boys. Janice then decided that Judith's being something of an intellectual snob made her someone who needed a dose of Lesley Crawford to get her on track.
She told Judith that a scheduled meeting was about to start but that she was setting down an appointment for Judith to meet with the Principal later that day, after classes.
Judith for once looked surprised and taken aback because most teachers had only a distant relationship with the principal, and wanted to keep it that way. They saw how Lesley addressed the students, as well the faculty, and some even had seen her in action at parents' meetings and school board forums. Those who had seen how effective she was and how strong she appeared did not want to engage with her.
"Oh, Janice,..." Judith now said in a softer tone, "is that really necessary? I had hoped we could deal with this here."
"I think it is, Judith," Janice now responded firmly. "I think that Miss Crawford will be able to get to the basis of your difficulties which I'm sorry I haven't seemed to do. So come back down to the office to see her at 4."
Judith reluctantly left it at that and walked back to her classroom, disturbed at the upcoming encounter she was now destined to have with this young woman who was about her age but already had achieved quite a major level of responsibility and thus power.
When she arrived at the office, Janice's door was shut so Judith felt deprived of at least a smile before the meeting with Lesley Crawford. Then the door opened to Lesley's inner office and with a knowing smile, she summoned Judith to enter, beckoning her with her index finger. The finger motion was calculated to unnerve visitors like Judith, which it did.
"Judith," Lesley said firmly, after pointing to a low chair for her visitor to sit, "Janice informs me that you seem unwilling to deal with some quite capable students who just don't respond to being treated like the run of your pupils."
"I feel that I'm not there to entertain them, Principal," Judith answered rather formally. "They try to peek up my skirt and make cracks to each other, and I don't want to start the bother of marking them down in Conduct grades when I know that will just bring their parents to your office."
"Let's get to the point," Lesley snapped. "I'm thinking this may not be the school for you. You may need to be transferred out of here to a school with less demanding standards for everyone."
Judith blanched at the suggestion, which was much more powerful than a threat.
"I wasn't thinking about that, Principal," she said in a much softer voice. "I could try to design a project for them."