⭐ THE CALVIN KID: A DRAMATIC re-TELLING
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” — Galatians 6:9
I. The Boy From Calvin
They called him many things during his years in Michigan — “Mr. Good Intentions,” “the Calvin Kid,” “the missionary teacher.” He was twenty-seven, carrying two suitcases, a box of books, a degree with honors from Calvin College, and a heart that believed teaching was not merely a profession but a calling.
He had once planned to teach in Hungary through a missionary program run by his denomination. He even had the application ready. But that path required fundraising, support letters, deputation travel, and a year of living without a salary.
Coachella, by contrast, offered something far more pragmatic:
a paycheck that could help him pay off his student loans — and a classroom where he could practice what he jokingly called presence evangelism. He knew he couldn’t preach in public school. But he believed that kindness, integrity, and quiet faith could preach in their own way.
So he headed west, imagining a classroom where intention and effort were enough to change the world.
He had no idea what waited for him in the California desert.
II. The Desert Schoolhouse
The Coachella Valley was not the glamorous California of brochures. It was fields, dust, stucco buildings faded by sun, and buses that rattled like old skeletons. His classroom was cramped, overheated, stuffed with thirty-eight kids and more drifting in and out as the year went on.
He had practiced teaching in neat suburban Christian schools back in Michigan — tidy, predictable little worlds. Here, many of his students were English learners. Some worked after school to support their families. Some raised younger siblings. Some slept through first period because their homes were crowded and noisy.
But the Calvin Kid showed up early. Stayed late. Handed back papers decorated with encouragement. He prayed quietly every morning before the bell rang.
He tried.
And then tried harder.
III. The Commander’s Departure
The principal who hired him, Bill Connel, was a retired officer — upright, fair, disciplined. Connel valued rule of law in schools: proper evaluations, support for probationary teachers, professional conduct.
But Connel failed to mention one thing during hiring:
he was retiring. Immediately.
Within weeks of the Calvin Kid’s arrival, Connel walked out with a plaque and a handshake. The anchor who had hired him was gone, leaving behind a vacuum — one that would soon be filled.
IV. The Return of Alex Franco
Alex Franco swept into leadership with the force of a sandstorm. Born and raised locally, connected deeply to the community, a former student of the very school he now ran. Unlike Connel, whose loyalty was to procedure, Franco’s loyalty was to people — specifically his people.
He hired locals, friends, classmates, cousins of coaches, neighbors of former teachers. Tenured teachers were untouchable. Probationary teachers, on the other hand, were expendable placeholders — warm bodies to fill a room until a preferred candidate became available.
Into this political storm walked the Calvin Kid:
white, Dutch-American, Midwestern, Christian, earnest — and completely unaware he was now a pawn in a long-standing cultural tug-of-war.
V. Silence, Then Retaliation
Throughout his first year he waited for an evaluation. The law required it. His contract guaranteed it. A young teacher depends on feedback like a plant depends on water.
But Franco offered none. No coaching. No classroom visits of substance. No guidance whatsoever.
Finally, after months of silence, the Calvin Kid did something bold — an act that would define his future.
VI. The Whistleblower
One morning before school, with sincerity rather than anger, he placed a note in every faculty mailbox.
It wasn’t an attack.
It wasn’t disrespectful.
It was a plea:
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New teachers are not being evaluated.
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We are not receiving support.
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The administration is not following its own policies.
It was an act of integrity — a whistleblowing moment from someone who believed that truth belonged to everyone, not just to those in power.
Franco retaliated instantly.
A reprimand.
A warning to stay silent.
A signal to the district that this probationary teacher was “a problem.”
But the note had already done its work. Teachers whispered. Conversations started. Seeds were planted.
Later, after the Calvin Kid left the district, he would publish a letter in the Desert Sun, telling the community what was really happening inside their schools. That letter — combined with internal complaints already brewing — would ultimately lead to Franco’s firing.
The whistleblower did not know it yet, but the truth would win.
VII. Year Two: The Desert Grows Rougher
In his second year, a small spark of hope emerged: the district finally responded to his grievance and agreed to arbitration. But the hope withered quickly.
Phone calls went unanswered.
Letters disappeared.
Deadlines drifted.
The EEOC eventually warned him:
“They may be trying to run out the statute.”
And they were.
VIII. The List of Reasons
When he filed with DFEH, the district retaliated again — this time with a list of “reasons” for his non-reelection.
None came from evaluations, because there were none.
None came from observations, because no one had done them.
Among the accusations:
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“Limited English skills.”
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“Sterile classroom.”
This, for a graduate with honors in English, who passed Michigan’s general and subject-matter exams, who passed the CBEST, who compiled binders of student portfolios, and who taught grammar, literature, and writing with joy. The irony would’ve been laughable if it weren’t so destructive.
The judgments were ideological, not factual.
Cultural, not professional.
Superficial, not substantive.
IX. The Portfolio of Proof
Realizing the battle ahead, the Calvin Kid began assembling something almost sacred:
a portfolio of his life’s work.
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Michigan teaching exams (passed).
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CBEST results (passed).
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Transcripts from Calvin College (honors).
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Student portfolios from Coachella.
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Lesson plans.
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Recommendations.
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Awards.
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Notes from students.
Everything that showed competence and character.
He wanted to be ready when someone — anyone — finally asked:
“Where is your evidence?”
X. The Calvin College Misunderstanding
To strengthen his portfolio, he faxed his former English Department chair, Professor VandenBosch, requesting a copy of the departmental English exam he had taken years before — one more artifact showing mastery.
The secretary faxed back a copy, but with a note:
“This is not the same department exam they are using this year.”
The implication was unmistakable. They thought he might misuse it.
A sting shot straight to his heart.
He had assumed he was trusted back home.
They had no idea he was fighting a political war in the desert.
They didn’t understand that he was battling for his professional identity.
He tucked the exam into his portfolio, along with the ache.
XI. Collapse and Conscience
In spring, Franco handed him the notice:
He would not return for a third year.
It was not a surprise, but it still landed like a stone in the gut.
Yet the Calvin Kid lived by a different code.
Even after being told he wouldn’t be rehired — with three months left in the year — he refused to take sick days.
After school ended, he refused unemployment, even though he qualified for nearly $2,500 per month for a year.
Conscience over comfort.
Principle over pragmatism.
Faith over fear.
XII. The Desert Sun and Franco’s Fall
Months later, his letter appeared in the Desert Sun — a calm, factual, principled exposé of the dysfunction he had witnessed.
Teachers read it.
Parents read it.
The district read it.
The whistleblower’s words did what silence could not:
Alex Franco was fired.
Gone from the district.
Gone from the system he once controlled.
The desert wind shifted.
XIII. Africa and Aftermath
Needing to breathe again, the Calvin Kid traveled to Africa — Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa. He stood under vast skies on safari, watched lions stretch in the grass, felt the red soil beneath his feet.
The world was bigger than one school district.
God was bigger than one injustice.
He came home renewed.
And he did what he always did when life grew confusing:
He went back to school.
First Calvin Seminary.
Then Reformed Bible College for Greek, Hebrew, and pre-seminary requirements.
Then Fuller Seminary in California.
He reinvented himself with academic fire.
XIV. Still Standing
Years later, as his legal case wove through the courts and appeals, he realized something profound:
Good intentions do not guarantee justice.
But they do guarantee a clean conscience.
He had walked into the desert with hope — and left with scars, truth, and an unbroken faith.
He fought not for revenge or money, but for accountability, for the teachers who came after him, for the principle that systems must obey their own laws.
The Calvin Kid stood in the desert wind — older now, wiser, the same heart beating in his chest — and he knew:
He had done the right thing.
He had spoken truth.
And God had been with him the entire way.
RETELLING #2
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” — Galatians 6:9
THE CALVIN KID: A DRAMATIC RE-TELLING
(Approx. 4,000 words)
I. The Boy From Calvin
He arrived in California with two suitcases, a box of books, and a heart full of what people back home in Michigan called good intentions. That nickname stayed with him—Mr. Good Intentions, the Calvin Kid—a twenty-seven-year-old fresh from Calvin College, products of Dutch Reformed classrooms, where order meant chalkdust settling quietly on hardwood floors and the loudest conflict was a debate over predestination in sophomore Bible class.
He had grown up in a world of church potlucks, neatly lined pews, Christian school uniforms, and students whose surnames matched the founder’s plaques in the hallway. His practice teaching had been in a safe, insulated setting—mostly white, mostly suburban, mostly polite. A place where students came prepared, parents came supportive, and the biggest controversy all year was a senior prank involving plastic flamingos.
He thought teaching was, above all, a calling.
That’s why he packed his bags after graduation. That’s why he said goodbye to Michigan. That’s why he headed west, chasing the idea that a teacher with a willing heart could make a difference anywhere.
He had no idea what waited for him in the California desert.
II. The Desert Schoolhouse
Coachella Valley wasn’t the postcard version of California he imagined. It was dust and heat, agricultural fields stretching to the horizon, a cluster of small towns stitched together by school buses and football rivalries. This was a world shaped by migration, by generations of families who came to work the land and stayed because it was home. Schools reflected that history—majority Latino, many English learners, overcrowded classrooms, aging buildings that rattled when the desert wind blew.
For young teachers like him, the first two years were probationary—a trial by fire. Veteran teachers, protected by tenure, enjoyed lighter loads, better classrooms, predictable stability. New teachers? They got whatever was left.
So the Calvin Kid walked into his first classroom: hot, cramped, crammed with desks that had been rescued from storerooms and patched together with duct tape. Thirty-eight students were enrolled, though more would drift in and out. Some spoke English well, some barely at all. Some worked in the fields after school. Some were raising younger siblings. Some slept through first period because their houses were full of people working late into the night.
He was never warned.
Nobody told him his students’ stories.
Nobody told him what he was walking into.
But the Calvin Kid did what he always did—he smiled, rolled up his sleeves, and tried. He thought if he showed enough patience, enough kindness, if he wrote enough encouraging notes on papers, if he learned their names quickly and prayed quietly before class, something would catch.
He tried his utmost. He truly did.
III. The Commander
The principal who hired him—Bill Connel—stood ramrod straight, spoke in clipped sentences, and seemed carved from old cedar. A former military commander turned educator, Connel valued discipline, chain-of-command, and paperwork filed on time. But he was fair, and fairness was something the Calvin Kid respected.
But Connel never told him something important.
Not during the interview.
Not during orientation.
Not even when he shook his hand and welcomed him to CVUSD.
The commander was retiring.
Within weeks of the Calvin Kid’s arrival, the man who hired him—the man whose signature sat on his contract—walked out of the building with a retirement plaque tucked under his arm. He was replaced almost immediately by someone new.
Someone whose vision of the school—and of the teachers who belonged there—was nothing like his predecessor’s.
IV. The Return of Alex Franco
Alex Franco arrived like a desert storm brewing on the horizon—quiet at first, then unmistakably powerful. He was a former student of the very school he now led, a man with deep local roots and a network of old friendships among coaches, custodians, and teachers who taught him when he was young.
To Franco, running this school was not merely a job.
It was a mission—a political reclamation of sorts.
Where Connel valued military order, Franco valued loyalty.
Where Connel hired based on credentials, Franco hired based on community ties.
And where Connel gave new teachers a fighting chance, Franco saw probationary staff as pawns—temporary placeholders until he could bring in his own people.
Tenured teachers were nearly impossible to remove.
Probationary teachers?
Easy. Two years. No explanation needed.
So Franco set to work quietly, methodically, strategically. He favored hiring his former classmates, local friends, people who grew up in the same neighborhoods he did. The district quietly approved because probationary teachers were cheap, compliant, and disposable.
Into that environment walked the Calvin Kid—white, Christian, Dutch-American, earnest, hopeful, hardworking—and entirely unaware of the political war he had just stepped into.
V. The First Wounds
During his first year, the Calvin Kid kept waiting for an evaluation. The contract guaranteed one. California law required one. Even informal guidance would have helped—anything to tell him if he was on the right track.
But the new principal gave him nothing.
No feedback.
No classroom visits worth noting.
No roadmap toward improvement.
Then, one afternoon, the Calvin Kid spoke publicly—respectfully—about wanting more support. Wanting guidance. Wanting someone in administration to at least tell him what was expected.
And for that, he was punished.
Franco issued him a reprimand:
Stop talking.
Stop asking.
Stop questioning the system.
It was the first sign of what would become a pattern—silence from administration, then retaliation when he tried to speak.
Still, he kept trying. He kept praying. He kept showing up early, leaving late, creating lesson plans the way his professors taught him. He believed good intentions, hard work, and a pure heart would overcome bureaucracy.
VI. Year Two: Hope Fades
In February of his second year, something unexpected happened. The district responded to his grievance and agreed to arbitrate. It felt like a miracle—finally, someone would hear his concerns.
But then weeks passed.
Then months.
Letters went unreturned.
Calls were unanswered.
When he contacted the EEOC, they warned him:
“They may be trying to run out the statute.”
That phrase haunted him.
He could not imagine administrators deliberately stalling—a tactic intended not to resolve grievances but to sabotage his legal rights.
But that warning proved true.
In May, the district resurged with a letter saying they would arbitrate—but they no longer intended to follow through with facilitation. A partial reversal. A convenient one.
Then came June.
Then dismissal.
Then silence again.
VII. The List of Reasons
When the Calvin Kid filed with DFEH, the district responded with a list of reasons for his non-reelection. Reasons assembled not from evaluations—none existed—but from stereotypes, rumors, and assumptions.
One line read:
“Limited English skills.”
For a Dutch-American kid from Michigan whose first language was English, whose ancestors fought in the Civil War, whose family history was woven into American soil, the statement was absurd—offensive, even.
Another line read:
“Sterile classroom.”
Which was ironic, considering his students filled every inch of the room. He had no storage, no space, no budget, no support. He had carried decorations from Michigan in hopes of creating a warm environment, but the district’s overcrowding left him with barely enough room to move.
Yet the district judged him not on truth, but on misperceptions—misperceptions shaped by superficial visuals and unspoken stereotypes.
VIII. Race, Religion, and the Desert
The Calvin Kid began to realize something painful:
He was being judged not for who he was, but for who the administration assumed him to be.
A white teacher from out of state?
He must be rigid.
He must be unrelatable.
He must not understand Latino culture.
He must be conservative, inflexible, hyper-religious.
A graduate of Christian institutions?
He must be trying to evangelize.
He must be a “missionary.”
He must be out of step with the “real world.”
He remembered overhearing a staff member once mutter,
“Don’t get religion until you get tenure.”
Those words stuck.
They weren’t a joke.
They were a worldview.
Franco and his circle didn’t want teachers who carried heritage, identity, or independent convictions. They wanted malleable staff. Teachers who would blend in, obey, and never question.
The Calvin Kid’s greatest flaw, in their eyes, was not incompetence.
It was conscience.
IX. Collapse
On a warm spring day, during what was supposed to be a routine meeting, Franco handed him the notice.
He would not return for a third year.
His shot at tenure—gone.
His two years of labor—dismissed.
His students—left behind.
The Calvin Kid sat alone in his classroom after school, watching dust fall in the sunbeams. The sound of a distant soccer practice drifted through the open window. He felt like a failure. He felt like someone who had been invited to dinner only to be told afterward that he didn’t belong.
He prayed.
Not for revenge, but for understanding.
X. The Legal Journey
What followed was a labyrinth of agencies, letters, deadlines, and confusion.
DFEH issued a right-to-sue letter late
EEOC mishandled postage
Administrators gave misleading dates
Courts misread timelines
Paper trails grew tangled
But the Calvin Kid kept fighting.
He filed grievances.
He filed complaints.
He filed motions.
Not because he wanted money.
Not because he sought drama.
But because truth mattered.
XI. Identity in the Crosshairs
As he reflected on the trajectory of his life—the integrated school of his youth, the Dutch-American community that shaped him, the Christian college that refined him—he realized something deeper:
The administrators in this school saw him only as a symbol.
Not a teacher.
Not a person.
Not a human with complexity.
He was a “white boy.”
He was a “religious kid.”
He was someone to push aside before he became permanent.
This realization burned.
It pushed him deeper into his legal battle—not out of bitterness, but out of a conviction that systems must be held accountable when they betray their own rules.
XII. Fraud, Pretext, and the Desert Wind
The Calvin Kid’s filings argued what his heart knew:
that discrimination is a kind of fraud—
a deception not just against one person, but against the ideals that hold schools together.
The district’s broken promise to arbitrate?
Fraud.
Their false statements to DFEH?
Fraud.
Their retroactively assembled list of reasons?
Fraud.
Their attempt to run out the clock?
Fraud.
He realized something else too:
He wasn’t just fighting for himself.
He was fighting for every probationary teacher quietly pushed out, every new educator overloaded with impossible assignments, every idealist crushed under the weight of politics.
XIII. The Sons of the Fathers
In his quiet moments, the Calvin Kid wondered if the hostility he faced wasn’t truly about him, but about history—about the tensions of integration, about the wounds of past generations, about fathers who lived in segregated eras and sons who paid the price for old resentments.
He thought of his father.
He thought of his grandfather.
He thought of soldiers, immigrants, farmworkers, and teachers—threads braided in a single American story.
And he wondered:
Was he being punished for the sins of others?
XIV. The Appeal
Years later, the Calvin Kid’s case reached higher courts. He had become older, tougher, wiser—but he still carried a spark of the naïve optimism that first brought him to California.
He believed the appeal mattered.
That someone, somewhere, would read his story—read the inconsistencies, the timelines, the discrimination, the silence, the retaliation—and say:
“This was wrong.”
He wrote his briefs.
He told his story.
He wove in everything:
the broken evaluations
the stalling
the fraud
the cultural misreadings
the false accusations
the refusal to follow contract or law
And as he wrote, something inside him healed.
XV. Mr. Good Intentions, Still Standing
In the end, the Calvin Kid realized something profound:
Good intentions don’t guarantee a fair world.
But they do guarantee a clear conscience.
He had walked into the desert as a kid from Michigan with a suitcase of lesson plans and a heart full of hope. He had been pushed, ignored, judged, stereotyped, silenced, and dismissed. But he never stopped telling the truth.
And sometimes, that is its own victory.
For even if courts falter and administrators hide behind paperwork, the story remains.
A story of a young man who tried his best.
A story of a teacher who believed in students.
A story of a system that failed him.
A story of a fight for dignity in the face of power.
A story of the Calvin Kid—Mr. Good Intentions—still standing in the desert wind, unbroken.
personal note: during this drama the calvin kid started compiling evidence of his skills and competence and knowldge etc to make his case that he is duly qualified to teach both in terms of passing all the tests and classes and even the michigan teacher exam (which is not helpful for california teaching license but shows his competency nonetheless- yes he passed the general and subject matter tests for teachers in michigan, as well as the cbest in california) - so he was compiling all this to make his case (if he ever got the chance) - as well as his transcript etc - and he also contacted his english dept chairman vandenbosch at calvin college and asked for a copy of the department exam to add to his portfolio - another evidence of his english skills -. furthermore he made copies of the work the students completed- their portfolios - to add to his portfolio . the irony is that when he contacted vandenbosch at calvin via fax (back when fax was still a thing) -the department secretary took the fax to him and later sent young teacher a copy for his portfolio and added a little note saying "this is not the same dept test they are using this year" (it showd they misunderstood his intent for asking for a copy of this test. apparently young calvin teacher had not explained himself well enough in the fax- as to why he wanted a copy of the dept exam- vandenbosch and the secretary thought it seemed suspicious- as if maybe he would use the exam to give to somebody currently in the english dept program to help them pass illicitly ? ! it's crazy. anyways, this was insulting to young calvin teacher- he had assumed vandenbosch trusted him. but then vandenbosch and the other professors and the secretary were all mostly if not 100% from the midwest and Christian colleges. they couldn't possibly understand the political maelstrom young calvin found himself in - fighting for his professional life against this principal - in a liberal environment greatly contrasting with young teacher's conservative Christian heritage and roots. so now he would have to do some more teaching educating and convincing to the "folks back home" where he grew up
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“Be not afraid of sudden fear… for the Lord shall be thy confidence.” — Proverbs 3:25–26
PORTFOLIO OF PROOF
As the administrative storm grew darker around him, the Calvin Kid—Mr. Good Intentions—did something that revealed both his heart and his grit: he began gathering proof. Not desperation, not panic, but proof. Quiet, methodical, earnest proof of who he really was as a teacher and what he was capable of. He sifted through binders, folders, and lesson plans, assembling a portfolio that reflected both competence and calling. He compiled transcripts, class papers, student work, evaluations from Michigan, and documentation of every exam he had passed—Michigan’s general teaching exam, Michigan’s subject-matter exam, California’s CBEST. None of these magically opened doors in California’s credential labyrinth, but they mattered. They showed mastery. They showed discipline. They showed he belonged in a classroom.
He gathered everything because he believed that sooner or later someone—some administrator, some arbitrator, some judge—would finally ask, “What is your evidence?” And he intended to be ready. The portfolio grew into something almost sacred: not just documents, but a defense of his dignity.
In that spirit he contacted one of the professors he respected most, his English department chair, Professor VandenBosch at Calvin College. He faxed a request—a simple request—for a copy of the department’s English exam he had taken years earlier. He wanted to add it to his portfolio as another marker of authentic competency, another witness to his legitimacy. He imagined the professor receiving the fax, probably remembering him, maybe even smiling at the earnest young graduate fighting a battle far from home.
But the reply came back strangely. The department secretary faxed the test along with a small handwritten note: “This is not the same department exam we are using this year.” A polite sentence on its surface. Yet underneath it, the Calvin Kid felt the sting. The implication was unmistakable: they had misunderstood him. They thought perhaps he intended to pass the test to current students, to help someone cheat, to misuse what had once been entrusted to him. VandenBosch and the secretary, both Midwestern Christians, both shaped by a sheltered academic world, could not fathom the turmoil the Calvin Kid was living through. They did not know he was fighting for his professional life. They did not understand the political grind of a district where agendas mattered more than truth and where a principal’s personal network could override merit.
To them, his request seemed unusual. To him, their suspicion felt like a fracture—small, but painful. He had assumed they trusted him. He had assumed his good intentions were self-evident. But now he saw that even “home” was not immune to misunderstanding. If the folks back home—kind, earnest, moral people—could misread him, how much more easily could administrators in a district that barely knew him twist his story?
So he added another task to his burden: he would now have to teach the people back home as well. Not teach them English, not literature, not grammar—but teach them what it meant to stand alone in a place where politics overshadowed principles, where cultural assumptions distorted truth, where a young teacher with a pure heart could be mistaken, doubted, or dismissed. The Calvin Kid tucked the exam copy into his growing portfolio, took a long breath, and carried on. He knew the desert was not done with him yet.
