The Landry News by Andrew Clements Read Free Book Online Page B

seventy-five copies had been distributed in less than six minutes.
    And late Friday afternoon, one copy of The Landry News ended up on the desk of Dr. Philip K. Barnes, Principal.

CHAPTER 11
TREMORS POINT TO MAJOR QUAKE
    A COPY OF the second edition found its way to the office because the principal’s secretary, Mrs. Cormier, had found one on the floor in the hallway. She thought Dr. Barnes would enjoy reading the article about the best teachers.
    Dr. Barnes sat down at his desk and read every word of the newspaper carefully, nodding and smiling now and then. This was good, clean fun—excellent writing, a fine learning experience. The bit about the top-ten least-favorite foods was cleverly done, and the story about favorite teachers was written in a very positive way. The writers didn’t take any cheap shots. There was no foul language. There was no criticism of the school, the school administration, or school policies. There was nothing even a little bit controversial about the second edition of The Landry News.
    But when Dr. Barnes read the editorial, his eyesnarrowed, and his heartbeat quickened. A scowl formed on his broad, fleshy face, and his nostrils flared and quivered. He reached for a red pen, took off the cap, and starting over, he read through the entire paper again, looking for a problem, any problem. But when he was done, he had only circled one item on the whole page. It was in the editorial. He had drawn a heavy red circle around one name: Mr. Larson.
    Dr. Barnes had strong opinions about Mr. Larson. For the seven years Dr. Barnes had been the principal of Denton Elementary School, Mr. Larson had been a constant problem.
    Dr. Barnes didn’t hate Mr. Larson. That would be too strong a word—too emotional. This had nothing to do with feelings, he told himself. This was a matter of professionalism. Dr. Barnes disapproved of Mr. Larson because Mr. Larson did not behave professionally. For Dr. Barnes, education was serious business, and Mr. Larson took his educational responsibilities too lightly.
    Dr. Barnes opened his desk drawer and took out the key to the file cabinet where he kept the records about each teacher at Denton Elementary School. Swiveling around in his chair, he unlocked and opened the wide file drawer. It wasn’t hard to find Mr. Larson’s file. It was three times fatter than any other file in the drawer.
    Every year Dr. Barnes got letters about Mr. Larson from worried parents. Parents asked if it was normal to have no homework in social studies, no homework in reading, and no homework in English—no homework at all for the whole year! Parents wrote to ask if their children could be transferred to the red team, and the real reason was always the same: getting out of Mr. Larson’s class.
    At the end of every school year each teacher was required to have a meeting with the principal. It was called a performance review. Dr. Barnes flipped through the stack of performance review sheets he had filled out for Mr. Larson—one for each of the last seven years. Poor. Poor. Unacceptable. Poor. Unacceptable. Unacceptable, and—Unacceptable.
    At the bottom of each review form, there was room for a brief statement from the teacher. Over the past seven years, every statement from Mr. Larson had been pretty much the same. Turning to last year’s review sheet, Dr. Barnes gritted his teeth and read what Mr. Larson had written:
    It is clear that Phil and I have very different philosophies of education. I sadly acknowledge that he objects to some of my methods and practices.
    Sincerely,
    Karl A. Larson, Teacher
    Many parents thought that Mr. Larson should not be a teacher. Several school board members thought that Mr. Larson should be fired, and several other board members thought it would be nice if Mr. Larson retired—early.
    But as every principal and every school board knows, getting rid of a teacher is not an easy thing to do. There has to be something serious,