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Penn Charter Gets Schooled
Penn Charter Gets Schooled
by Rebecca Luzi
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It’s not wholly unexpected for former teachers of Adam F. Goldberg OPC ’94 to get the call: Can you come to the set of Schooled in Culver City, Calif., to film an interview with the actor who plays you? Unexpected, maybe not. Thrilling, yes. Schooled is the ABC series—a spinoff of The Goldbergs—based on Penn Charter teachers that debuted in January.
The latest teachers to jet out to Sony Studios to be filmed with the actors who play them, for a cameo interview in the series created by Goldberg, are math teacher Liz Flemming and visual arts teacher Randy Granger.
Liz Flemming got the invitation in January and began her whirlwind journey back to the ’90s as Adam F. Goldberg’s math teacher.
“I taught him eighth grade Algebra I,” she said. “He was a terrible math student, but he did fine in my class. He was in the C section. He told me he was supposed to be in the D section, but his mother begged and screamed and cried that he needed to be in C section or he wouldn’t get into college.”
Thanks to his “smother,” Beverly Goldberg (immortalized in the ABC series The Goldbergs), who saved everything, Goldberg knows he earned a B- in Flemming’s class. Not bad for a kid who spent all his time with a camera on his shoulder.
Liz Flemming's trailer at base camp at Sony Studio, labeled "Real" Liz Flemming.
“Math was not his natural thing, and it wasn’t his interest either,” Flemming recalled. “But he did what he had to do.” Goldberg was funny in class, she said, and he carried his camera with him “anytime a teacher didn’t yell at him to put it away.”
As part of her interview prep, Flemming shared her memories with Goldberg and Schooled writer Kerri Doherty. And she learned about her character, a rather intense teacher, and former track and mathletes coach. Sound familiar? The real Ms. Flemming has coached track, cross country, basketball and Math Counts. As for intense, Flemming passed along to Goldberg a recommendation from a current student athlete that her character “needs to be obsessively keeping track of stats.”
Once Flemming got a tour of the sprawling studio, finished with hair and makeup, and left her very own trailer—reserved for “Real Liz Flemming,”—she sat high in a director’s chair next to actress and comedian Lennon Parnham, who plays her on Schooled.
“Mostly what I was focusing on was trying to take it all in and be there in the moment,” Flemming said. “It was so surreal. I was nervous, but I was trying so hard to just be there that it wasn’t a bad thing. I was enjoying it.”
Liz Flemming with Lennon Parnham, the actress who plays her on Schooled.
Parnham asked her what goes on in the teachers lounge—Flemming assured her those conversations stay in the teachers lounge—and what Beverly Goldberg was like. “She … liked me,” Flemming said. “I think I gave Adam good enough grades … so I was one of the rare lucky ones.”
Flemming, who brought along her daughter, Anne, Class of 2020, flew back to Philadelphia on a red-eye, just a day-and-a-half after arriving in Los Angeles. “We got home at 6:00 am, fed the cats, changed clothes, had breakfast, and got to school for a full day of teaching and learning,” she said. “We just skipped the whole sleeping part. And it was worth it.”
The Mustachioed Art Teacher
Soon after, Goldberg invited his former film and photography teacher, Randy Granger Hon. 1689, to the set. Granger was in good company—his former student Ruben Amaro Jr. and friend John Dover, former Penn Charter dean of students, flew out to Sony Studios for their own interviews on the same day. Amaro is a recurring character on The Goldbergs, and Mr. Glascott, based on the real John Dover but named for the real Beth Glascott, assistant head of school, is principal of “William Penn Academy” on Schooled.
“When I arrived at the studio,” Granger said, “I was initially surprised—but not super surprised—at the hundreds of popular culture toys from Adam’s youth that covered the four walls of his office. I remember thinking that was so fitting and appropriate for the Adam I remembered as my student. When you make films about playful, comedic things, you have to be playful yourself.”
Greg Proops, the actor who plays Granger on Schooled, is a ringer for Granger, right down to the paint-splashed shirt and the shaggy mustache.
“I am so grateful for how he depicted me; he really got me,” Granger said. “I think the glasses were all wrong, and I wrote that to Adam, but other than the clunky glasses, I think Greg nailed my character remarkably well.”
Two Mr. Grangers on the Sony Studios set of Schooled.
On camera, Proops asked Granger about the real X Day, the annual arts festival developed by Granger at PC that was featured in the episode “Kris Kross,” and about his signature mustache. “I’ve had it since I was 18,” Granger explained. “Never cut it off—it just kept growing! It’s much shorter today than it was then. But I’ve always had it, and when I considered cutting it off, I thought, Oh no, what will people think; they won’t recognize me!”
No doubt because Granger kept the mustache, he was widely recognized when he arrived at the studio. “How do you all know me?” he asked. Cosmetic artists on the production team showed him a copy of his 1991 PC yearbook photo, mustache and all, taped to the mirror in the hair-and-makeup trailer. “You’re the only one on the show whose picture hangs on the wall,” they told him. “We see you every day.”
Granger taught Goldberg during his high school years in the early ’90s. “I remember fondly how he would share things about his family,” he said of his former student. “I never understood or believed the full family context he presented, especially the stories about his dad sitting in a recliner in his underwear at dinnertime. At first I thought he made it up, but now I see how he used his own family experience to create brilliant fiction in The Goldbergs.
“As a 16mm production student, Adam was technically accomplished. He possessed the ability to create imaginative narratives and reveal them in highly developed ways. He could envision new stories to share in film and translate them for viewers with great precision, detail and humor.”
As much as Granger valued Goldberg’s talents as a student, he appreciates his work even more as creator of The Goldbergs and Schooled.
“I think that much of the content that Adam presents in Schooled speaks to social responsibility,” he said. “It provides a valuable public service to viewers, especially here in the United States, where education is so widely back-seated. The perception that teachers are often not very accomplished, committed or passionate about being learners themselves is challenged by Adam’s narrative underpinning the humorous surface of the show: imperfect people constantly trying to do their best while holding up the values of educating youth with care, support and compassion. It speaks to all of us who have given our lives to teaching.” PC
