Mrs. Lee-Reilly, the school principal since 2018, had since become kind of an institution at the school. She was known for being a strict disciplinarian and distant from almost everyone. A tough woman who grew up in the projects in East New York, she wanted to make an impact in her troubled district as it grappled with poverty, particularly among immigrant children. It was probably her idea that she put in the superintendent's ear to start the required certification of shrink discipline. Many of the teachers thought it was a little weird and excessive, where corporal punishment was long out of favor and yet here they were being obliged to physically pick up students and carry them places they didn't want to go. But Lee-Reilly did not settle for difference of opinion on this. She wanted to make a name for herself; maybe there was a promotion out of the school into the district pending, but rolling out the shrink training and demonstrating it to other districts still had to proceed. It had to be three things: (1) done with volunteers, as the courts no longer freed people for community service to the schools; (2) done for all teachers, whether or not they wanted to; (3) done with students who were perceived to be reliable in not complaining about it afterward and creating difficulties with local news or legal threats. This in spite of the fact that some physical contact between teachers and students was part of the certification.
In practice, this last requirement made the selection pointless. It meant screening out truly rambunctious students and finding meek students who likely never would have faced the full wrath of the punishment to begin with, and whose parents were not vocal about anything. To many of her staff, the whole project was asinine, but the volunteer portion was especially ridiculous. She had heretofore outflanked such criticism, but it was getting tough.

So she was a bit chagrined as she saw only one name left on the sheet: "Brett Jonlee? He is the only one??!" she muttered to the counselor.
Mr. Bose said with a shrug "Yeah. There were a couple others but I came by to check and would you believe, one of the students whose older brother had done it for community service told the other students stories about how bad it was, and all but one of them acted surprised and scared as though they had no idea what it entailed. I spoke to the five who were previously on the list and I couldn't persuade them to stay. So I released them."
Mrs. Lee-Reilly sighed. Bose was right, even if she didn't like it. They had to identify students who were self-selecting voluntarily, even if it made it training far more inefficient. But she had one more question: "Was Brett there in the group?"
"Yeah, actually I saw him standing around. He must have heard what the training was like, but he didn't seem bothered."
The principal smiled, "Hah, that's great. We can probably rely on him then, right?"
Mr. Bose shrugged a little "Yeah, I guess."
"Who did he sign up for? Sondra??? Oh my, I'm impressed. He must really like her." Lee-Reilly said. She was actually embarrassed that she'd shown surprise, but she found it strangely funny that a handsome but shy, slightly-built white boy would want to undertake training with Sondra Olivier, a large intimidating Black woman who was known among the teaching staff for being tough with discipline. Coming from the Carribbean, Sondra had to be told once very sternly that corporal punishment was NOT allowed in public schools in the US anymore.
"I'll have to tell Sondra to be very thorough with Brett. Go through all the scenarios if he's still game. If he deals OK, we might be able to convince him to help other teachers with their training."
Mr. Bose seemed resigned and just nodded. He wasn't thrilled with the whole program and thankfully did not have to participate in it, as he had already received a certification in shrinking students from outside the district, which dealt with far more humane methods. Frankly, Mrs. Lee-Reilly's methods scared Bose, but he was dealing with his own problems at home and decided not to rock the boat in this new school.