By the time Naomi Goodloe made her way back home from the first day of school Thursday, she had spent more than three hours on buses, sat through several hours of class, met scores of new classmates and helped launch a massive educational undertaking.
Naomi, along with 474 other children from the failing Normandy School District, had the opportunity to attend Francis Howell schools Thursday under a student transfer law upheld this June in court.
For the 11-year-old, it was a long, exhausting day. First, she was dropped off at the wrong school. Then she got home 50 minutes later than expected, and was supposed to turn around and do it all again today.
“My best friend, she’s not coming back,” Naomi told her mother, Lorrine Goodloe, as she sat down to dinner on Thursday evening.
The first day as a Francis Howell student wasn’t an easy one, but neither was the route to Naomi’s new school.
When her mom first heard that Normandy administrators chose to send buses to another county, she was upset. As a single working mother of two, getting transportation was necessary. So was getting a better school for her daughter.
At her Normandy school, Naomi wasn’t happy, and neither was Goodloe. In first grade, Naomi had a substitute teacher the entire year. Back then, Goodloe, a teacher herself, said she was worried her daughter wasn’t learning to read as she should.
Normandy had been provisionally accredited until this year. State officials had given the district an extra year to make improvements in reading and math scores, student attendance and graduation rates. When that didn’t happen, the district became unaccredited.
Last year, Naomi had some trouble with bullying at school. She’s tall. She didn’t talk like the other kids, and they picked up on that, Goodloe said.
“When you have a child not excited to go to school, it affects everyone,” said Goodloe, who also has a 12-year-old son with special needs.
On Thursday morning, it was still dark outside when Naomi awoke so she could catch a 6:09 a.m. bus to Francis Howell.
Her mother vetoed her first outfit choice of shorts and a T-shirt. With the help of her older cousin, Naomi picked out a pink shirt with jeans. That was better, her mom said.
“You have about 17 minutes,” her mom told her. “Get your backpack. Where’s your schedule?”
When Goodloe learned Naomi could transfer to a good school this year, she was excited. Then, she and Naomi watched the coverage on the news of a meeting just a month ago where Francis Howell parents angrily spoke against Normandy students coming into their schools. It hurt, she said, and Naomi began to have second thoughts.
“I didn’t take it personally. These are parents, and they’re concerned about their own kids,” her mother said. “There is violence in (Normandy) schools, but some of these kids are raising themselves, by no fault of their own.”
To prepare Naomi for the transition, they talked to her every day about going to a new school where the majority of students would not look like her. They watched a movie about Ruby Bridges, an African-American girl who helped integrate all-white schools in New Orleans.
Goodloe told Naomi about her own experience, riding the bus when she was in third grade to attend a new school during an attempt to integrate schools. There were protesters outside when her bus pulled up.
Naomi still wanted to go.
“I told her, ‘This is your opportunity to be in a more positive setting,’” she said. “I was encouraged to learn, not by my teachers but by my peers. That meant something.”
At her bus stop Thursday morning, Naomi shooed her mom away from walking up to the bus with her. But she looked out the window and waved as it pulled away up the hill, soon getting on the interstate to travel 22 miles to Saeger Middle School.
Earlier this week, when Naomi’s bus had pulled up on Tuesday for the district’s “transition day,” a parade of band students and cheerleaders welcomed her.
“They rolled out the red carpet,” Naomi said.
But the first day of classes wasn’t so smooth. She said she told the bus driver she wasn’t at the right school, but she had to get off anyway. She told school staff and the bus came back, but she was 30 minutes late and didn’t get breakfast.
As Naomi recounted those problems at home after school, her mother kept a smile on her face and stayed positive.
“It’s school you’re comfortable with, but not the bus ride,” she told Naomi, over a dinner of hot dogs and baked beans. “Give it a few days.”
