Railton High School

Railton High School is the public school where Lily teaches students placed in the low track, work she chooses over more advantageous teaching assignments. Its principal’s expected retirement also gives Lily a reason to press the school board to clarify who will succeed him, tying her commitment to local education to a private question about whether she might leave Railton.

Institution and Setting

Railton High School belongs to the beleaguered public secondary-school system in Railton. Lily teaches students whom other teachers refer to as “the rocks,” rather than using her tenure, seniority, and teaching ability to pursue honors students or a lighter load at the college. Her choice places her in what the narration calls the community’s educational nether regions.

The school is also part of the town Lily runs toward, not away from. The narrator contrasts her route with his own evening runs out of town and presents her work as a reason she turns back toward Railton. He imagines that, from a hill, she can see the town and her task there, while explicitly admitting that this view of her purpose is his own conjecture. Their home in Allegheny Wells is described as a temporary refuge where she can recharge before returning to the next day’s work, not as an escape from the community.

Lily’s Work and Commitments

Lily could use her seniority and evident gifts to improve her position within the high school, or follow the example of some faculty members’ spouses by seeking a college job with a lighter teaching load. Instead, she continues teaching the low-track students. The contrast makes her work at Railton High School a deliberate commitment, rather than simply the best available post.

Her connection to the school is presented alongside her family background: as the daughter of a Philadelphia police officer, Lily is portrayed as more inclined to turn and fight than to retreat from a difficult environment. This characterization helps explain why the family’s house outside town does not mean she has withdrawn from Railton’s public institutions.

The Principal’s Succession

The principal is expected to retire after the following school year, creating uncertainty about who will take over. Lily tells the family that she is trying to get the school board to name his successor. A job interview in Philadelphia gives that effort an immediate personal edge, but Lily explains that the interview is not something she is seriously considering; she is using the possibility to press the board to clarify succession at Railton High School.

The possibility nevertheless unsettles Teddy Barnes, who asks whether the family might leave. Lily reassures him that they will stay and asks him to keep the interview to himself. Later, when Julie asks whether Lily would take the Philadelphia job if the board refused to act, the narrator cannot answer for her and redirects the question. The exchange leaves Lily’s intentions partly private, while making clear that the school-board succession is bound up with a choice about her future.

Place in the Narrative

Railton High School is not presented through a detailed institutional portrait; its significance emerges through Lily’s decisions and the family’s conversations about her work. The school’s succession question shows her trying to exert influence locally, while her low-track teaching places her among the students and conditions other educators might avoid. Together, these details make the school a concrete point of contact between Lily’s professional commitment and the wider question of whether the family belongs in Railton.