Fox nods. "Good."
Charlie B. is back on the job.
"Estos son wire nuts." These are wire nuts.
"Estos son plugs." These are plugs.
Charlie B. is teaching his mother about the tools that he and the other electricians are using to make lights for the stage. Maria Benitez has made special arrangements for a neighbor to baby-sit her toddler daughter this February morning so she can see what her son is learning in opera class. She is suspicious.
Late last fall, Benitez had approached Levine in the parking lot after school. She brought along her daughter Jacqueline, 11, to help translate.
Levine recalls Benitez crossing her arms over her chest.
"I don't agree," Benitez said, in a halting but firm English, "with the way you teach."
Jacqueline explained: Charlie told his family he hates opera. He hates his job, he hates his teachers and he hates school. He does not want to do his homework.
Jacqueline, at her mother's direction, has tried to help Charlie with his work, but when he writes, he circles words that he knows are misspelled rather than try to spell them correctly. He says that this is what his teachers told him to do. His mother wants him to write the words over. Evenings end in screams and tears.
Levine remembers being surprised by what she was hearing. She thought Charlie B. loved opera class."I asked [his mother] to please think of it as an experiment," Levine recalls. "We will teach the kids how to spell, but this is not the focus of the assignment. It's to try to get their ideas on paper." She asked Benitez to refrain from asking Charlie to correct his spelling and let him write. She invited her to come to a class and see Charlie do his job. Give us a chance, she said.
The Benitezes live in a squat brick house a few blocks from New Hampshire Estates, but Charlie is not allowed to walk home from school without an adult. Not even his older sister can venture out by herself. Too many men, some reeking of alcohol, loiter around the neighborhood. Benitez says she feels like she has already lost one child. She fears losing another.
In 1987, she left El Salvador to escape the country's civil war and grinding poverty. She also left behind a baby girl. To support her daughter, mother and other relatives, Benitez worked as a live-in nanny for a Navy couple and their two little boys. It would be 13 years before she could return to El Salvador for a visit.
Her daughter, now 19, immigrated two years ago and lives in Northern Virginia. Benitez purses her lips when she discusses her oldest child. They talk, she says, but "not like mother and daughter."
These days, Benitez, 38, is a full-time mother. Jose Benitez, the "good, good man" she married in 1991, works 14-hour days as a self-employed contractor, building decks and painting houses. Money is tight on one income, and the children barely see their father during the week, but Jose Benitez prefers that his wife be home. He, too, left behind his first child --a son --when he immigrated here.
In their house, Christian books and videotapes of Bible stories line the shelves of the entertainment center. The children are not allowed to watch much else. Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons are spent at the Spring of Life Apostolic Church in Hyattsville.
Maria Benitez, a sober-looking woman, wears long skirts and a lace head scarf required by her church. Daughter Jacqueline is an image of her mother, sans scarf.
Jacqueline "never has trouble," Benitez says. This coming year, Jacqueline will be in sixth grade, the point at which her mother had to quit school and help take care of her younger siblings after her father abandoned the family. Jacqueline's school certificates, for honor roll and perfect attendance, hang on a living room wall.
"But Charlie," Benitez says, taking a deep breath. Last year, Charlie learned bad words from a classmate and insisted on wearing baggy jeans. His best friend was a boy whose parents worked all the time and "was like a grown-up already," says Benitez, who went to the principal to get the two separated in class. Sometimes, Charlie gets so angry, she says. "It was terrible. He break things in the room."
"Liar!" Charlie says as he walks by, holding a pair of binoculars to watch birds from the living room window.
"Charlie, that's not true," she scolds, ordering him with her eyes to be quiet. He goes to the window. She sighs.
At a parents meeting in December, Levine and McGinn had explained the concept of legacy --the theme of the opera --by asking everyone to write about what gift they wanted to leave their children.
Benitez sat, watching the other parents write. A Spanish interpreter at the meeting came over and prodded her. Finally, with the help of the interpreter, she composed a few sentences in Spanish: Her legacy to Charlie is that he will study. She doesn't have a specific career in mind for Charlie, who wavers between being a carpenter and a police officer. She just wants him to grow up to be a good, honest man.
For the rest of the meeting, Benitez crossed her arms over her chest. She thought the teachers were wasting her time. She already knew what she wants for her children. She needed to see the teachers helping.
When Benitez visits opera class, the teachers are scattered with other children. It is Charlie B. who leads her by the hand to the electricians' corner and tells her about their project. He points to the cans that they are cutting in half with clippers so they can be used to hold light bulbs.
"They're reflectors," he says. "We have to make lots of them."
Benitez doesn't understand everything that he is talking about, but his enthusiasm makes her smile. He doesn't act like a boy who hates school.
Charlie B. puts on fuchsia gloves, an old pair found in the storage room, so his hands will be protected from any jagged pieces of metal. Luis giggles, "Pink, like a girl!"
Charlie B. doesn't pay attention to him. "This is hard work," he says, struggling to clip the heavy metal. His mother holds the can.
"You can do it, but it's a process," Fox says. "You have to keep your fingers away from the metal."
"I'm getting there," Charlie B. says, several clips later.
He grunts. Finally, the can snaps into two halves. "I can't believe I actually did this."
"Fuerte," Fox tells Charlie B.'s mother, using the little Spanish he knows. Strong. She laughs and whispers in Spanish to Charlie. He looks up and shouts to Fox: "My mama says she's going to buy me gloves!"
Charlie B. keeps raising his hand.
It is early March, almost time for the state standardized tests. This morning, the kids are hovered over their math worksheets. They are getting ready for the assessment tests that all second-graders must take.
"Can I go to the bathroom?" Charlie B. asks. A teacher's aide shakes her head and tells him to finish his work first.
Charlie has completed the addition and subtraction, but he can't understand the word problems. "Can you read me this?" he pleads. But the teachers and the aide are busy with other students.
Charlie puts his head down: "I'm going to take a nap."
Levine and McGinn have been worried about Charlie B. They know he is a bright boy and has improved so much from the fall, but he still reads below grade level. Sometimes, he won't try to sound out words. He simply shuts down.
At the teachers' request, Charlie's mother and father come in for a conference. Levine and McGinn later recall telling them that Charlie doesn't recognize words that an average second-grader should. The teachers want him examined to find out whether he is learning disabled. The principal and a counselor give the Benitezes forms to sign, with the help of a Spanish interpreter.
The Benitezes do not say much. It is the first time Charlie's father, 35, has come to the school this year, and he took off work so he could be here. He wears his button-down shirt tucked in, and his dark brown hair and moustache are neatly trimmed.
When they finish with the forms, Jose Benitez starts to thank the teachers, but he is unable to finish the sentence. He breaks into sobs. He is afraid for Charlie, the teachers remember him saying.
"This was me," he says. He had problems in school, too. In fragmented English, he tells them that he was placed in a special program in El Salvador. He never finished his education. Here, in the United States, his clients appreciate his work and urge him to go to community college and get a degree.
"I know I can't," he tells the teachers.
Levine and McGinn jump in to reassure him. Charlie is no longer crying when he has to read, they say, and they can tell that he's trying. The tests will show the teachers if he needs special help. He will not be labeled "stupid" and sent away.
Jose Benitez looks embarrassed about his outburst; his wife sits quietly, expressionless. The meeting ends. There is no more time for the teachers and principal to talk with the Benitezes. Parent conferences are scheduled back-to-back, and so many other students at New Hampshire Estates need extra help.
The upcoming state tests put every school under scrutiny, and the pressure is especially intense in the so-called red zone, the cluster of Montgomery County schools that includes New Hampshire Estates and others with low-income students.
At the beginning of March, county schools Superintendent Jerry Weast uses New Hampshire Estates as the backdrop for a news conference touting gains in reading scores during the previous year, but says more needs to be done. Weast and the school system are spending $60 million on the red zone to cut class size, offer full-day kindergarten and boost teacher training. They want to do everything they can to make sure these schools perform well, but schools outside the red zone are clamoring for funds, too. The test scores need to prove that the money is justified, and No Child Left Behind has put the jobs of school officials on the line.
Levine and McGinn say that so much is riding on test scores that they wonder if they will be able to do the opera program in coming years. Not even kindergartners have been spared from testing pressures: Art, music and playtime have been reduced to make room for more reading and writing, and the 5-year-olds get summer homework packets or attend summer classes before they start school.
Jane Litchko, the current principal at New Hampshire Estates, says she appreciates the way the opera program helps children with skills the tests can't measure, like self-esteem, and introduces them to sophisticated vocabulary words. At the same time, she says, the kids in the opera program do not score significantly higher on the standardized tests than the other second-graders. She says she supports the opera lessons, but "who knows what the future may hold for the testing."
In March, afternoons that were previously devoted to "buddy reading" --when the students are allowed to pick a storybook and read with a friend -- have been dedicated to drills from a test prep manual called "Scoring High." The picture on the book shows smiling kids giving a thumbs up. Charlie B. likes to toss his manual on the floor. Several kids keep asking for buddy reading.
One afternoon, McGinn says she wants to share something special with the class. It is a Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken." She discovered the poem when she was in middle school and has loved Frost's work ever since. Each year, she reads the poem to her second-graders before test time.
"He left a legacy for the world with his poetry," McGinn says. "See, everything comes back to legacy."
She reads the poem once, twice, and again. The kids hear about a traveler standing where "two roads diverged in a yellow wood." He took the one less traveled and "that has made all the difference."
Several kids are whispering to one another. A couple are more interested in the imaginary spots on the carpet. Charlie B., who is usually one of those, is looking straight at McGinn.
"I love the way Charlie B. is sitting, thinking about this," she says. "Why can't other people be like that?"
When the class is asked to draw a picture of Robert Frost's two roads, Charlie B. draws a boy in the middle of two two-lane roads with his finger to his head, and explains: "He's thinking."
As the teachers walk around the room to look at the children's work, Charlie B. makes a request. "Miss McGinn, Miss McGinn," he says waving her over, "can we write about it?"
Charlie writes that a boy is deciding between two roads, and the sun is shining on the woods to make them look yellow. On the margins of his paper, he prints, "I can do it. I can do it."
If only, McGinn thinks to herself, the county could give Charlie a score for this. The lights work. They flash all around the stage, in the tin-can reflectors that Charlie B. and his fellow electricians have spent weeks cutting.
Onstage, the carpenters have erected a wooden eagle cage. The story is about four kids who see an eagle at the National Zoo, which the opera company visited in February. One boy, a bully, secretly lets the eagle out of its cage and the eaglets are left without a mother.
Kathleen and the other carpenters are responsible for moving the silhouettes of the animals between the acts. In the fall, Kathleen had been distracted, and withdrew into her own world with worries about her parents' divorce and remarriages. She hid her face behind her long brown hair. Today, she is listening to the actors rehearse, ready for her cues.
"I hardly recognize her," says Levine.
It is early May, a week before the performances, and the teachers wish they had more time. Not because they are behind schedule on the script, sets or costumes. But because each week, more second-graders redefine themselves.
In late March, Tigist, who spoke no English last year, began raising her hand. She wanted to share news about the script, which she had been working through recess to complete.
One day, Tigist and her fellow writer, Judy Kindo, sing to the class the song that they wrote for Ozzie the bully, who realizes that he acts out of anger and sadness for his own dead mother. Tigist raises her voice with each verse. "I'm tired of being shy," Tigist says later, flashing a dimpled grin.
By now, the performers are learning to project their voices and stay quiet if it isn't their turn to speak. The public relations officers have made invitations and sent out press releases explaining the opera. The composers will play their glockenspiels with a pianist accompanying their music. Deborah the production manager wrote a speech to introduce the opera, "Endangered Legacy."
Danilo, the stage manager, spent several nights drawing diagrams of where the performers should stand. Being in charge is hard work, he says. "Poor Miss McGinn," says Danilo, who now relies on persuasion rather than pushing to get his classmates to do what he wants. "How can she take care of all of us?"
Standing tall on a chair, Danilo motions across the room to Charlie B., cuing him to switch off the lights. A few seconds pass. Charlie B. doesn't see his cue. He is looking toward the back of the auditorium, where his mother and two sisters are sitting. His father, who arrived late because of work, stands near a doorway.
When Charlie B. looks back to see Danilo, he ducks his head in embarrassment. He pulls the plug on the house lights and the auditorium goes dark. The show has begun. It's a humid May evening, made even hotter inside the auditorium by the presence of about 150 parents, relatives, teachers, former school staff members, and performers and artists who have visited the opera class during the year.
The kids are clearly nervous performing in front of this crowd. Deborah, who wears a frothy pink dress her mother bought for the occasion, freezes and forgets to recite the Spanish translation of her opening speech. Between scenes, there is a drawn-out lull and loud thumps behind the stage as the carpenters change the set. The actors forget some of their lines as they speak and sing.
But, unlike in some of the rehearsals, actors Kevin Ventura and Jacob Dweh remember to stay away from each other and not laugh inappropriately. Danilo follows the script and reminds Luis when to turn on the back and front stage lights. Without their teachers to prompt them, Kathleen and the carpenters remember their cues.
Levine, wearing an ivory pantsuit, and McGinn, in a black dress, couldn't be prouder. They stand to one side, watching their students go through the entire half-hour performance on their own.
The opera concludes with Ozzie the bully, played by blond-haired Milan Moreau, regretting that he let the eagle out of her cage and hurt the eaglets. He tells the other kids that he doesn't want to leave a bad legacy.
The actors break into song, and this time Charlie B. is ready. He dashes up to the stage. This is his favorite part of the performance. Deborah introduces all the job groups and the entire company joins in the chorus:
Listen to the stories,
learn the lessons,
keep them in your heart
or in your mind,
and pass it on, pass it on.
The audience is on its feet, applauding. The principal presents bouquets of flowers to Levine, McGinn and the volunteers.
In the days to come, reading assessments will show that nearly every child involved in the opera is reading at or above grade level. Charlie B. is just a few points shy of grade level, and the teachers call the improvement remarkable. On a critical-thinking test with puzzles to identify gifted and talented children, Charlie B. gets two-thirds of the problems right. The tests to detect learning disabilities uncover weaknesses but no serious problems. Charlie B. just needed more confidence in himself, his teachers conclude. And now he's got it.
After the show, Jose Benitez wraps his son into a hug. "He did a good job," Charlie's father says.
Later, he quietly drops a $5 bill into a jar for donations to the opera program. Charlie and his family walk home, hand in hand. Charlie hums the opera's theme song. It's a legacy.
Pass it on.
Phuong Ly covers immigrant communities for The Post's Metro section.
Setting the Stage