“Meet the Teachers”

by Frank J. Tassone · 16 July 2020

classroom with full of students with a teacher speaking

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We sit in G’s new room. H. grades papers. Ilana checks her messages. D has his iPad open. Judy arrives with a handful of parents. She presents; one asks a question. Then another. Soon after, they leave for another “workshop.” H. resumes grading. I work on an IEP. D and Anthony, who arrived with the first parents, chat softly in Swahili.

I leave to join my Special Education team in another room at six. We see one parent, then talk. I text Frankie through the set-up for his new phone. Before we know it, we are leaving the inaugural “Meet the teachers” event.

Out of a student body of over 500, maybe fifty parents came.

the drive home

H. standing at the corner

under a streetlight

Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

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Frank J. Tassone

Frank J. Tassone lives in New York City's "back yard" with his wife and son. He fell in love with writing after he wrote his first short story at age 12 and his first poem in high school. He began writing haiku and haibun seriously in the 2000s. His haikai poetry has appeared in Failed Haiku, Cattails, Haibun Today, Contemporary Haibun Online, Contemporary Haibun, The Haiku Foundation and Haiku Society of America member anthologies. He is a contributing poet for the online literary journal Image Curve, and a performance poet with Rockland Poets. When he's not writing, Frank works as a special education high school teacher in the Bronx. When he's not working or writing, he enjoys time with his family, meditation, hiking, practicing tai chi and geeking out to Star Wars, Marvel Cinema and any other Sci-Fi/Fantasy film and TV worth seeing.