maintained many ties with her former colleagues and used these ties to
help the school find supporters in the business community.
The industry mentoring program she began in Ms. Rivera’s suburban
high school was a great asset for its students. Such programs are com-
monplace now, but thirty years ago they were cutting edge. Her Adopt-a-
Student program paired at-risk students with mentors from the business
world. This was not just a simple “show the kid around the office” type
of program.
Because she knew the business community well, Ms. Magenta cre-
ated a program with a mission, objectives, and requirements for both the
students and the mentors. There was a specified number of meetings and
telephone contacts. There were special kickoff events, end-of-year cel-
ebrations, and award ceremonies.
The business mentors, many of whom were in executive positions, met
and spoke with their assigned students on a regular basis. Many came to
parent-teacher conferences with their students’ parents. Many contributed
to a scholarship fund to help exemplary students in the program with fu-
ture college costs. Some stayed as mentors to the students through their
college years and into their careers. There is no way to measure how
many students did not drop out of high school because of Ms. Magenta’s
program. Instruction in the business department was diminished because
she taught three classes instead of five. But, because of her, the students
most in need of help had a much better chance of succeeding in school
and in life. In this case, Ms. Rivera had no negatives to minimize, only
positives to maximize.
Ms. Rivera’s chair of mathematics and science, Mr. Silver, was often
remiss in the completion of his observation reports. No matter how many
reminders Ms. Rivera sent, verbal and written, he was always far behind.
Every semester Ms. Rivera did much of his work, personally completing
many of the required observations on his teachers. Mr. Silver had other
talents that compensated for this and made him a valuable member of her
administrative staff.
First, he was very good at training new math and science teachers. He
would stop in to see them almost every day. He would talk with them about
their instruction. He would personally address many of their classroom dis-
ciplinary problems. While he was remiss in the formal observation process,
124 Chapter 9