Katie gets an ‘A’

It was one year ago from this very day when I graduated from college. Now I held the fate of hopeful high school graduates in my hands. My first year consisted of teaching two courses: a sophomore American History course, which I taught for two periods, and an American Government course, which I taught for four periods. On all accounts, the Government course was more pressing because it was a junior and senior course required for graduation. Several students tend to fail their junior year and are under the gun to pass it their senior year. I had a couple of students who were in this spot and needed a solid grade on this final exam.

It was the last senior exam day and the last period of the day. School would be out for summer in a little over an hour and a half. Having no exam to give this period, I decided to finish grading the exams. After I finished grading, I entered the numbers into the gradebook. Kyle, one of the seniors in question, earned a ‘C’, barely squeezing by with a final grade of a D-. Katie, the other senior, was not so fortunate. She needed a C+ to bring her grade up to passing. Having earned only a C-, she was going to have to return to school next year and repeat the course. It’s a shame because I do like Katie. She’s always been nice, but she’s very inattentive, which led to some bad test scores, and she does not complete homework.

I heard a knock at my door and I walked over to answer it. It was Katie. She did not have an exam this period and she dropped by to check on her grade. I sat her down to give her the bad news.

“Katie, I’m sorry. You came up a little short on the exam. We’re going to have to meet with your guidance counselor to schedule you for a Government class next school year.”

She sat quietly, somewhere between sadness and frustration. She started to plead, “Are you sure, Mr. Tasker? I mean, couldn’t you give me a few questions here and there just to help me pass”

“I’m sorry”, I replied. “If it were two or three questions that you were short, I’d give them to you, but in this case I’d have to give you somewhere around 10 questions on the exam to get your C+. That’s way too many for me to be comfortable doing.”

She didn’t say anything else. She stood up and walked toward the door.

“I’m sorry, Katie”, I restated.

Instead of walking out, she simply closed the door to my room and walked back over to my desk and sat back down. I figured this was the point she would turn the waterworks on and try to guilt me into passing her, but her demeanor wasn’t sad or desperate at all. Oddly enough, it was confident, even bordering on cocky.

“I think we could make an arrangement, Mr. Tasker”, she said.

I shook my head, “No Katie. I’m not accepting any late work and there is no extra credit available. Sorry.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t talking about anything like that. I had something else in mind.”

From the flirtatious smile on her face and the naughty-sounding tone of her voice, I knew what she meant. A thousand different thoughts ran through my head in a matter of seconds. I always thought Katie was a very cute girl. She had a great body, framed even better today with a lower cut pink shirt on, revealing just enough cleavage to make you imagine the rest of what lied under it. A rather hot first week of June brought out shorts that, when she was seated, ran up to her nicely tanned upper thighs.

I tried to eliminate those thoughts. She wouldn’t turn 18 for another couple of weeks. This is only my first year on the job.