Part Twenty-Four: Standards-Based Assessment
For the seniors, the final was, for most of them, a formality. For the college bound ones, they'd already gotten their acceptances and rejections. For the ones joining me earlier in the so-called real world, their GPA might matter on their first, maybe second job application, and after that, might come up again in a couple decades when their kids asked them what kind of students they were back when. So long as they graduated - and with our funding dependent on graduation rates, they almost always did - their success wasn't in question. We tried not to let them know that, but by this point, we'd taught them enough that they knew better.
Ergo, my seniors didn't take the kind of exam that produced a solid, straightforward grade. My seniors wrote essays. Multiple choice was well and good for efficiency, gave easy targets for studying. With grades due less than twenty-four hours after the last finals were distributed, they were sure as hell a lot easier on me. That wasn't how I saw things, though. These last essays were an opportunity to think like a scholar and a citizen and a human being; to process and analyze and reflect and defend and elucidate. I'd received lots of positive feedback from former students about those exams over the years, too. On a personal level, it helped me end the year feeling like I'd accomplished something and started recharging the batteries for summer.
It took days of intense review and discussion to be ready for it. I'd already been cutting it close starting
Catcher
as late as I had. Although I was home from the police station before ten o'clock that Thursday, nevertheless the semester review was being handled by a substitute while I sat at home, twiddling my thumbs as I waited to hear back from Horen.
Not knowing what else to do, I wrote a thank you letter to Capaldi and put it in the mailbox, then met up with Isa for lunch. Unlike teachers, resource officers were free to take lunch off-campus. We met at my place, where I had her strip to her panties and play with herself while I filled her in on my meeting with Shipman. For all she put on a show of sulking over it, it sure didn't slow her budding arousal any.
"So that's it? We're really in the clear?" she asked, eyes squinted shut.
"Sounds like. He thinks the Sterns tried to set me up, bullied Cassie and Tabitha into going along with it. Some kind of report is going to Horen. Could be there now, honestly. I was able to get my lawyer on the line after, and he said there shouldn't be much grounds to continue pressing for my termination. We'll see. I never got a sense that Horen disliked me or anything, but sometimes it's hard for somebody to admit they're wrong."
"Especially when they're right, master," grunted Isa sullenly, hips bucking against her fingers.
"Yeah. Still, you did good. I wanted to bring you by and say that to your face. Kept everybody organized, put up a solid front, kept everything contained. If there's something I can do for you to pay you back, name it. And I know you're busy right now, so think on it if you like."
She didn't respond right away, though only because she was mid-orgasm. A few shallow gasps, and the officer collapsed on my living room rug, spent. Her thighs were splayed wide, a dark spot growing and darkening at the crotch of her panties. "Just... just promise me you'll be more careful from now, master," she managed at last. The woman didn't bother trying to right herself. Not like kneeling would be any more dignified than her present position. "My top priority is keeping you safe and preserving your freedom. I can't handle another scare like that."
I nodded. "No worries there. You and I will sit down together sometime soon, once finals are done, and come up with some protocols - starting with nothing at the school. Though I guess it won't really matter except for Abbie."
"You say that like Abbie's still going to be a student next year," Isa replied. "You can't do the kinds of things she's admitted to doing and not get expelled, at the bare minimum. If Shipman really is some pathetic incel like you made him out to be-"
"All I said was that he was awfully ready to mistrust the Sterns," I protested.
"-then I'd be surprised if they didn't land in real trouble. They're two eighteen-year-old white girls, so, system being what it is, they might get off with warnings. Still..." She sat up, brushed some dust off of the thin sheen of sweat along the side of her breast. "Hard to say. Most likely scenario, I'd say, the two never go back to school, maybe finish their GEDs while serving time in house arrest."
"Oh sure, because I'm the asshole, here?" I snapped, rising to my feet as if I weren't already looming over her in my chair.
"Master, I didn't accuse you of-"
"I didn't know they could get in this kind of trouble! I thought it was a simple house-egging, a slap-on-the-wrist deal! I never would've thrown them under the bus if I'd realized...!"
"I'm only saying-"
"I hear what you're saying! It's not my fault! They made their beds with a dozen years of apathy, mischief, and rancor. And suddenly there's consequences when it all bubbles over, and that's on
me
?! Bullshit!" I swung a fist at the air blindly. It didn't come anywhere near her, but she fell back anyway as it collided with my lampshade and launched the thing into the wall. Pieces of it flew everywhere.
After a moment, Isa silently busied herself cleaning it up. I insisted she put her shoes on first for safety's sake, and added to it that she may as well get dressed anyway. She waved me away as I tried to help, so there was nothing to do but sit back and watch her clean up my mess, blushing at my overreaction. My admission of guilt.
She came to stand at attention in front of me, her hair back up in its tight bun, body hidden away in her uniform. "Master..."
"Don't. I know what you're going to say already, OK? Obviously it's my goddamn fault. I know it. So yes, I'm the miserable piece of shit who's ruining the lives of these innocent girls, just like you've said a hundred times before. You win, OK? Tell Candy you were both right about Canon. I'm a monster. I get it."
"That's not what I was going to say," she said softly. "If you'll let me..."
"Fine."
She lowered herself to her knees. "Sorry, this is hard to do standing up, master. But you know what? Yes. You do bear a significant burden of responsibility for what you did to those girls over the past month, master. Whatever your intentions, you did exactly what Horen accused you of. You fucked your student. Then three more. That's on you. But what happened in your classroom Monday?"
Isa shook her head. "What happened Monday was those girls showing no common sense at all. They were impulsive and careless and stupid, and you were very nearly the one who burned for their idiot mistake. Now the way the system works, mistakes have consequences. For Cassie and Tabitha? The consequences are going to be the awkward conversations they have with their parents." She glanced in the direction of the Browns' house. "Well, for Tabitha at least."
"Yeah, pretty sure Megan's not losing sleep over it."
"But for Taylor and Abbie? No, they didn't bully the other two into being in there - they turned those girls into sex slaves, and
enslaved
them into being in there. And their harsher consequence comes from a lifetime of being deviant little hellspawn, and frankly, they probably had something like this coming for a while now."
