Chilly Pond High

The quirky Ms. Custis, a young, but veteran English teacher at Chilly Pond High, offers her unique observations about public school life. This character-driven novel begins with day one of the school year and chronicles the highs and lows, funny and sad, and inspiring and infuriating aspects of teaching. Real-life federal and state education policies are embedded into the dialogue and interplay between characters, giving the reader a more vivid view of the application of laws that affect the classroom than any new story possibly could- and do so certainly with more humor and amusement.

Ms. Custis discusses literature with her students and gabs about life with her colleagues. Southern culture is on clear display through the conversational dialogue as well as the attitudes shared about women and marriage by women in marriages.

This story touches on many of the conflicts at the fore of education reform- how to fairly evaluate teachers, how to reward and retain effective teachers, how to train effective administrators, and, most critically, how to define the term “effective”. The novel humanizes these issues through vivid characters, lively dialogue, and offbeat illustrations of current policy.

Chilly Pond High is constructed with over one hundred short chapters, readable and intelligent. It is designed for a busy professional to pick up easily- either to read a couple of chapters at a time or a couple dozen.