Class, Coffee, & Confrontation

Working under an egotistical leader who places blame for all that is wrong on everyone else. Watching as change is enacted just to shake up the status quo. Seeing the results of a world where facts don't matter to those in power. Questioning how far seasoned veterans need to go to oppose a leader and at what point extreme behavior to do so might be justified. Sound familiar? Maybe political? Could this occur in what was once considered a haven for freedom and debate? Class, Coffee, and Confrontation takes you inside Bantamville South High where Kassi Stanton, an English/Language Arts teacher for twenty years, struggles with forces that make her question her place in the field of teaching. First, she faces a devious, bullying new principal interested in her own self-promotion and image-building who overemphasizes standardized test preparation, high test scores, and school rankings over all else. Second, her school is victimized by someone making bomb threats, and arming teachers is promoted as a possible safety measure to guard against violent intruders. Third, she suspects a colleague she has mentored and befriended is supplying the principal with information to use against her. Pushed to do something, she recognizes connections between her real world and the literary world of fiction and tries to capitalize on them. Unforgettable characters and events in lit class favorites The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, and others inspire a ruse to take down her principal in front of the school board, identify the terrorist making the bomb threats, and tie the suspected team member to the information leaks. It all adds up to one eye-opening school year!