Her name was Beatrix Smith, but I always thought of her as Saint Bee. She was not of the Catholic faith, so I never uttered that label in person, but in my mind and heart, the moniker fit. My mother taught middle school for many years in Banning, a city that neighbored ours, and early on in her career, which began at the age of 50, she was teamed up with the somewhat-diminutive Bea—my mother teaching science and math, while Bea taught English. The two shared much in common, as they were both teachers of a similar age that got a later start on their teaching careers. They were also both single parents of teenage sons, a commonality that I am sure inspired concentric sympathies. And both found common ground in their sincere dedication to serving their students by delivering the best education they could provide.
The schools Bea and my mother taught at were attended primarily by poor children, as Banning has always been a poor town. This meant that budgets for the school were often very tight, and teachers there dipped into their own pockets to pick up the slack, including these two single parents. They spent long, dedicated hours before, during, and after school preparing the best education they could provide, efforts that were often hampered by a lack of available funds and the need to fit approaches into an increasingly stifling teaching environment where the government constantly tried to apply “result rubrics” that did not comport with the best instruction practices for the local school. Teachers were (and are still) treated horribly by the public despite their endless sacrifice, being perhaps the most accessible face of any public system that the aggrieved could harass. Most teachers resent being treated as though they weren’t doing their job, but they persist because it’s a calling. Unfortunately, ham-fisted, top-down standards for instruction handed down by politicians attempted to flatten the needs of all students into that which was testable instead of allowing students the chance to learn as they were best equipped to. As many of her school’s students were English-learners and recent immigrants from other lands, these formulas were ill-suited to demonstrate their educational progress and the school’s test ratings suffered enough to often put them into “troubled” categories no matter how much the teachers continued to try (and as they still try because there are no greater fonts of hope and bastions of hard work than teachers).
After 30 years of exemplary service, my mother decided that the stress of these demands was too much for her health. She loved teaching, but the fight around these increasing limitations and the ageist abuse against older teachers got to be too much for her. Bea stayed on until she died, dedicated not just to her students, but to their families and the entirety of Banning. People truly came to love her for that dedication, and in the last non-Covid-halted year before her death, Bea received long overdue recognition of her exemplary service from the state.
I had always told myself that after she passed, I would do everything I could to try to get the name of the school my mom and Bea taught at to change its name to the Beatrix Smith Middle School. The name of the school is Nicolet, named after the street, it is on, a name taken after it was changed from what it formerly was, Banning High School, the later institution has upgraded to a larger facility. From every account I have ever heard and from personal experience, Bea was completely dedicated to her community and to the profession, a true guiding light and a person who was welcoming of all who came with good intentions. As an incredibly modest person, Bea never intimated she was sick during her last social phone call with my mom, even though we later found out she was calling from her hospital bed. Not having heard from her in a while, my mom attempted to reach out, only to have another person pick up Bea’s home phone to tell her Bea was now receiving palliative care in her living room. Hearing this, the next day my family rushed over to see her one last time. She was barely coherent, but we wanted to show her an inkling of the love she had always showed us, and we said our peace. It was here that I first informed her directly of my plans to push to have the school renamed in her honor. Even in her daze, the news of this brought a smile to her face, and I knew if I had the blessing of this humble servant of G-d and man, I could follow through with my plan to honor her. She died the following day. After her funeral, which was held directly across the street from the school she taught at, I personally advocated my plans to many of those who attended the service, a blockbuster event that at times overflowed the mortuary. Every face I pitched to was in tacit agreement, and many told me to call them afterward to set things up.
So, I did.
And again.
And again.
And I got what equates to lip service if I got a response at all.
My failure to make this happen has been one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever dealt with simply because it makes little sense.
The first and most salient reason I could come up with for its rejection was the costs associated with the change. To make sure this wouldn’t be an issue, I had from the jump explicitly said that I would cover the entirety of what was needed, posting the sum in advance to a trustworthy, agreed-upon third party arbiter that school officials could draw from as they were getting the change done. My offer to do so was neither discussed with me nor accepted, just as every other aspect of my proposal failed to garner response.
My follow up emails have tried again and again to garner support but have ultimately failed to accomplish anything. I have tried to enlist the principal of the school (who initially expressed support for the idea), the school board, and her former colleagues to no avail. Letters to the city council and the local newspaper have led to nothing. After months of prodding, I have at this point given up, and I feel ashamed for it.
Nothing but effort, not even the cost as I have stated, stands in the way of this perfectly appropriate honoring of someone who should serve as a shining example of duty and sacrifice. But there’s nothing I can do from the outside to shepherd the effort any further along. So, I write this in memory of “Saint” Bea Smith with the solemn hope that it might somehow change someone’s heart. She was a center of that town, and she deserves to serve as one of its moral guiding stars going forward. Immortalizing her name would help to make that a reality.
