They met on an icy afternoon, Clay Harris, an elementary math teacher at the end of a hectic day, and Eric Bethel, one of the city’s new master educators, there to render a verdict on Harris’s teaching that could determine whether he kept his job.
In polite, awkward silence, they walked to Harris’s empty classroom at Beers Elementary School in Southeast Washington and settled in kid-size chairs at a low, yellow table.
Bethel set up his laptop. Harris took out a piece of paper for notes and began tapping his pencil on it.
“I didn’t do everything perfectly,” he said almost apologetically.
Bethel smiled. “No one does,” he said.