BOOK 'EM

"Boy, have we got a story to tell you," exclaims another couple in Six Degrees of Separation.

"Have we got a story to tell you," replies the actress playing Trost's wife.
The play is based on the true story of a poor young black man who,through outrageous lies, worms his way into the lives of wealthy, bored white couples. As Trost stands waiting to deliver his lines, he recalls his own true story, another story driven by outrageous lies.

It is the tale of a gifted music teacher who, having once given up on the profession, decides to try it again. He accepts an offer from a private Denver school, Graland Country Day, only to discover that many of his students are spoiled brats running amuck in the classroom.

When he tries to bring some sort of order to the chaos, he runs afoul of two young troublemakers and suddenly finds himself accused of touching one of them inappropriately. It doesn't matter that the boys are lying. They are children, and as child welfare workers are fond of saying, children don't lie about such things.

Eventually, he is cleared of the charges. But it is too late. While his accusers waltz away unscathed, teaching is forever ruined for the man described by a former employer as "one of the finest music teachers in the region."

On the stage, under the hot lights, Trost can momentarily forget his own story. But when he is off-stage, emotions boil quickly to the surface. The mere sight of children gathering is enough to make him cross the street to avoid hearing their voices or seeing their faces. To other people they may be angels; to him they are devious liars.

He cannot forget, or forgive, that at Graland Country Day School, the kids were in charge. Cross them and it could cost you your job and your reputation. Cross them and you're lucky not to wind up down at the police station, fighting for your freedom.

Graland Country Day School lies on First Avenue, a few blocks east of Colorado Boulevard in a neighborhood of manicured lawns and pricey homes. Founded in 1927, the private, coeducational school takes students from kindergarten through ninth grade.

Among its more famous alumni is former senator Tim Wirth, whose mother taught at the school for years. Other Graland veterans include Harvard professors, doctors, lawyers and engineers. The class valedictorians for East, Manual and Cherry Creek high schools two years ago all hailed from Graland.

According to Graland's recruitment literature, "the school strives for a diverse faculty and student population, while offering a broad and balanced curriculum of academic, artistic, and athletic programs at each level.

"The common goal of all these programs is to provide a climate which fosters growth and which supports students as they develop into sensitive, caring people who are confident and eager to adjust to change in the world."

The students at Graland Country Day are groomed for success--but such an education doesn't come cheaply. Tuition for the 1993-94 school year was $6,400 for kindergarten, $6,725 for grades one through three and $7,385 for grades four through nine. And that didn't include the required yearly fee of $595 for continuing students and $995 for new students, or field-trip assessments that ranged from $85 for fifth-graders to $850 for ninth-graders, who make a traditional pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., at the end of the school year.

Even so, the school still has its hand out. The Annual Giving Campaign is designed to make up what is said to be a $1,100 difference between tuition and the actual cost of educating a child. "Each family is encouraged to contribute as generously as possible so that the financial burden of its child's education will not fall on others," according to campaign literature.

In return for their generosity, parents are assured that their offspring will receive a fine education.

Enrollment at Graland hovers around 590 students, providing an enviable student-to-teacher ratio of about one to eight. Every Graland student has a faculty advisor who is available to discuss problems while offering support and encouragement.

Academically, the children receive not only a strong foundation in reading, writing and arithmetic, but they can also partake of a smorgasbord curriculum that resembles the class list of a well-rounded liberal arts college. By the seventh grade they're reading "novels exploring multi-cultural themes"; in the eighth, they study biblical literature and "novels related to initiation and rights of passage themes."

In order to develop into those "sensitive, caring people...eager to adjust to change," older children also explore moral dilemmas, gender roles, prejudices and substance abuse. And they can also indulge in the fine-arts department's cornucopia of classes in art, music and drama--including the annual highlight, the winter musical.

Opening night was only a few weeks away last December when Graland was rocked by scandal. David White, the production's director and the music instructor for the fifth through ninth grades, was arrested at the school and led away in handcuffs.

White was accused of having had an ongoing sexual relationship with a female student he had met while teaching at Pecos Junior High in Thornton in 1989. The nineteen-year-old girl, who'd been fourteen when the relationship began, turned White in after she discovered he was having sex with other young girls.

Graland administrators were trying to fill White's suddenly vacated position when they came across the application of John B. Trost.

After what seemed like a lifetime spent in classrooms, the 49-year-old Trost had been out of teaching for five years. Born in 1944 in a small Illinois farming community, Trost became a model student. He did what his teachers asked him to without argument--his mother was a teacher, too--and earned straight A's right through college.

Trost was also a talented singer and actor, and as he began to debate career choices, he was torn between his love for the stage and his knack for teaching. The theater didn't offer a lot of security, however, so with the encouragement of teachers, family and friends, he decided to be a music instructor.

His first teaching job was in Chicago. Three years later he moved to Colorado with his wife and their two young children; the couple had been hired as dorm parents and teachers at Colorado Springs School, a private academy.

In those early years, teaching was easy. He liked kids, and the feeling was mutual, especially among those who came to school every morning hungry to learn. They became part of his extended family; for years after graduation, they would call and write to thank him and stay in touch.

Trost was able to keep up with his love of theater on weekends, performing at Bob Young's Cabaret, up Ute Pass west of Colorado Springs. He was performing in a melodrama when he met fellow actors Jan and Marcus Waterman; he was best man at their wedding. The Watermans considered Trost a fine actor, but they were most impressed with his dedication to teaching--especially the way he was often able to reach kids that others had given up.

But during the seventeen years Trost taught at private and public schools, the profession changed. Discipline went to hell as administrators and school boards grew leery of lawsuits and overly protective parents. Kids were coddled. It was as if they felt that the school, the teachers, their parents, all owed them something--something they shouldn't have to work for. And they just didn't seem as eager to learn...especially the fine arts, unless you considered heavy metal a fine art.

Or maybe it's just me, maybe I'm burned out, Trost thought. It was becoming harder and harder to look forward to each approaching school year. He lost his appetite for trying to cram something he loved--music--down the unwilling throats of students. So he quit. He and his wife had divorced, and their two children were nearly grown. It was time, he decided, to chase his dream of becoming a full-time actor.

The stage was a joy, but after a few years he had to face the fact that he was fast approaching fifty and the theater provided little security. His five-year hiatus had rejuvenated his feelings for teaching, however, and he thought he'd try it again if he could find the right position. He sent out applications for employment as a substitute teacher, mostly to private schools, where he believed the arts might be treated with more respect.

He came highly regarded. Albert M. Adams, head of the middle school when Trost taught at the Colorado Springs School, wrote in a letter of recommendation, "I think of John as one of the most energetic and creative performing-arts teachers I have known in twenty-two years in the field.

"His obvious love of music and drama, combined with his sensitivity to young people's developmental needs, made him a favorite among students and colleagues alike. In effect, John built the Colorado Springs School music program from scratch and, in a very short period of time, was acknowledged as one of the finest music teachers in the region."

Adams, who had since become the headmaster of Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, noted that Trost was "eager to return to the world of teaching, where each day presents the opportunity to make a very real difference in young people's lives."

There was also a glowing report from Julie Fairley, the director of Douglas County secondary education. Fairley had known Trost since the mid-Seventies, when she was an administrator with Air Academy Public Schools north of Colorado Springs and he was the music/drama instructor at the junior high.

As a longtime administrator, Fairley was familiar with the work of many teachers, most of whom lacked one quality or another that would have made them something special. Some knew their material but couldn't relate to the kids. Others loved working with children but were shaky on their subject matter. Trost had that rare combination of expertise and empathy; he was one of the finest teachers she had ever met.

She appreciated his skills not only as an educator but as a parent. Her daughter, Evie, had musical and acting talents and a dream of using them, but she had never been challenged to develop her gift until Trost took her under his wing. She went on to graduate from what was then Loretto Heights College for Women with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, then moved to Hollywood, where she worked on the stage and in television. In 1993 Evie returned to Colorado to pursue a new career: Recalling what Trost's support had meant to her, she now wanted to teach.

So when Julie Fairley heard from Graland that her daughter's mentor wanted to return to teaching, she happily recommended his hiring. Unaware of the reason for the opening, Trost, too, was pleased to get a call from Graland asking if he could take over the music program for three months while they looked for a permanent replacement. He knew that the students' parents paid a lot for their children's education; it stood to reason that those kids would be interested in learning. He celebrated with the Watermans, who thought that the stage's loss would be a tremendous gain for the children at Graland. Their friend seemed excited and ready to go back to school.

I'll really be able to get down to the nitty-gritty of teaching, he thought on his first day. But the euphoria didn't last long.

First, the winter show had to go on. Although the music already had been selected, the production needed a lot of work. Privately, he wondered whether it was possible.

And then there was the behavior of the kids in some of his music classes. The ninth-graders were wonderful to work with--they participated in his lessons with delightful abandon. But the sixth- and eighth-grade classes were out of control. They yelled. They screamed. They walked around at will and laughed loudly at their private jokes. If they deigned to participate in classroom activities at all, it was usually with sullen compliance or derisive backtalk. If he attempted to impose some sort of order, he was ignored or given the silent treatment. The students who wanted to learn were as much hostages of the unruly kids as he was.

He'd been puzzled when other teachers had come up to ask, "So how are the sixth-graders treating you?" But he soon understood: They weren't acting like this because he was a substitute. They'd been like this for his predecessor as well. It was little consolation when Elizabeth "Buffy" Berger, director of the middle school program, confided that the kids were behaving better in his classes than she had ever seen them.

With long hours and hard work, the winter pageant went off without a hitch. The school's administrators were so impressed that Trost was asked to remain at Graland at least through the year, and perhaps, they hinted, permanently. He thought he'd take the job, which came with an attractive (for a teacher) starting salary of about $31,000 and good benefits. Still, he was growing increasingly disenchanted as the behavior of certain students deteriorated.

In early January he showed the eighth-grade class West Side Story as part of a historical review of American musicals. After the lights came back on, Trost tried to engage the students in a discussion of the film. But whenever he asked a question, there was either silence or some flip answer that would spark a wave of tittering through the class.

He had pretty much given up on the frustrating exercise when he caught a girl and boy passing a note. "I can't believe he's making us watch this," it read. "It's so boring." He asked the pair to remain after class.

The students listened politely while he tried to find some way to get through to them. Then the boy spoke up. "You have to understand. We've hated music for two years," he said matter-of-factly. His compatriot nodded her head in earnest agreement. It was as if they were the ones trying to reason with an unruly child.

Trost stood looking at them and wondered, Who's in charge here? He lost his temper. "That's nonsense," he told the surprised pair. "I'm sick and tired of hearing how bad this has been for you. It's my job to teach and your job to try to learn."

The students fled his classroom and went in search of their advisor. The girl was in tears, milking the sympathy of friends who gathered around as she walked down the hall. But the advisor told the two students to quit complaining and get with the program.

As far as Trost was concerned, that should have been the end of it. But when the students returned the next day, their sweet, vacant grins had been replaced by sullen, cold looks. They wouldn't participate in class. Their hostility, as well as the continued uproar caused by other kids, caused Trost to broach the subject of the students' behavior with other Graland teachers. Most were circumspect. Something had occurred the year before on the playground with a teacher named Linc.

Also, in the spring of '92, three sixth-graders had beaten up another at an off-campus party; the fighters had been put on probation, and Graland administrators had held a series of meetings with parents to discuss "inappropriate" behavior. And then, of course, there was the matter of his predecessor's sudden dismissal for sexual assault on his "girlfriend." Although no one would elaborate, a few warned Trost to watch his step. There were certain cliques of students, particularly those from privileged backgrounds, who were known troublemakers and not above fabricating stories.

These students were in a position of power, and they knew it. The school counted on their parents to fork over not only tuition and fees, but also generous donations to the Annual Giving Campaign. One child had been heard telling a teacher, "My dad's a millionaire, and you can't touch me." The unspoken school policy was to handle these kids with, well, kid gloves.

Some of those kids had left the school the year before. But there were others, several teachers confided, who should have been asked to leave as well. They were a constant disruption and didn't seem to get much discipline from their parents, much less the school.

Trost kept hearing the same names and noted that several were the main instigators behind his problems with the sixth graders. Most were boys, but not all. One little girl in particular, a brooding child whose face seemed to wear a perpetual pout except when she was cutting up in class, gave him fits. During lectures she would turn to talk to her friends in a loud voice. If he separated her from the rest of the class, she would bang her feet on the chair and insist that she be allowed to return.

One day, as he was trying to wrap up the lesson, the entire class was on a rampage. Finally, he raised his voice: "We will not be going to lunch until you quiet down!"

The room was silent until the little girl spoke up. "You can't do that," she said angrily. "This isn't a penitentiary."

end of part 1