R.I.P. South Region High School #2 (Gage and Central Community Schools)

 

Central and Gage Community Schools stolen from the design team members who created the plans

UPDATE March 22, 2012: Apparently, there are rough seas at SRHS #2, especially at the Communications and Technology School.  I heard from a staff member of the complex that student behavior is out of control and that the administrators refuse to discipline the kids.  Some teachers are displacing themselves due to the conditions.  Recently, at an event, a student spit in the face of a teacher and nothing was done.  

I am so glad I work at a no tolerance school- no tolerance for bad behavior- students can and are sent out for even minor infractions and it works- the rest of the class knows we are serious and there are very few behavior problems.   One of the biggest issues in education today is the expectation that “classroom management” is the problem and not poor behavior.   100% of responsibility for behavior and achievement is put on the classroom teacher.

Whatever motivates the machievellian leaders in Local District 7, George McKenna and Russ Thompson, it certainly isn’t the education of students- that’s the last thing they care about- why else would they get about 20 dedicated teachers to do all of the work of planning a new school then take that school from them?  It’s a recipe for sheer chaos.   The principals and teachers who will staff these schools did not write the plans and have no knowledge of what was intended to be a community -based school for our students.

Curiously,  I am no longer that upset about the hijinks pulled by Local District 7 in regards to the school that so many ex-Fremont teachers put so much of their unpaid time into.   Nor am I upset that the feigned sympathy by PSC officials turned into nothing when we turned to them for help.  I was ready- I’ve been ready for this because I saw it coming at least two months before we began to lose control of the schools.

I guess that would have been right about in late March or so when Dr. Thompson sat down with the design team members and with a totally straight face- and I have to hand it to him for his fabulous acting job- said that due to the budget shortfall  there would be absolutely no money for professional development to open the four small schools and that in fact, we design team members would have to come up with our own materials for PD and have it off site.  We would not even be allowed to step foot on our own campus- a campus complex of four small  schools that we spent hundreds of unpaid  hours working on. You can bet all the editors and other retired LAUSD employees with six-figure pensions were getting paid but the teacher design team members who often put their own money into the project did it so we could hopefully teach in South Los Angeles once again.

At that moment, I really knew, I just knew it would all go bad.  How can you not provide PD for a brand new school and tell the design team members they would have to do it all themselves at their own expense off  site with no pay for new teachers?  Because LD7 knew that we most likely would not be there.  Then of course there was the suggestion that we “just consider” the 8 X 2 schedule. Yea. Right.   That was the moment that I stopped working on the plans diligently and started putting some emotional distance between myself and the Central and Gage project.   I’m sure that was much easier for me to do than for the former Fremont teacher who conceived the project.  I imagine she felt kind of like I did when I drove away from Fremont for the last time, knowing that my teaching skills were not the reason I was not going back, knowing that yet again, the kids of South LA were getting screwed.

The icing on the cake was when Erica and Kelley were univited to their own revisions meetings. Just because they were not hired as principals doesn’t mean they still weren’t on the design teams.  That was the blatant power play that LD7 did that was not challenged. It was also the biggest mistake by the design team- to allow George McKenna, a known hater of teachers, to have the final say in the principal hiring process.

I could get into UTLA’s role in this but I won’t- they are too weak in the Public School Choice process to really matter at this point.  Then of course there was the principal hiring process which I bailed out of at the first sign of D7 sleaze tactics   I can’t go into anymore detail  because I as the other design team members on the committee signed a confidentiality agreement. Unlike Local District 7, the design team members keep their word.

I don’t even bemoan the time I spent on the project that I could have spent on something else.   You see after the happenings at Fremont, I actually look at this as good fortune.  Technically and logically, the design team members were supposed to be at Central and Gage, but we are not going.  When the time came to replay a similar situation as what happened at Fremont, this time I did not hesistate and neither did the other design team members.  We stood together because Erica and Kelly  matter and our students matter.

There is a reason for everything and I view these series of events as a gift that I cannot yet appreciate- some force is looking out for us even if we can’t yet understand the meaning of the difficult  events that took place. On the surface, hundreds of unpaid hours, driving to countless meetings only to lose the schools seems senseless but it’s not.    What happened is not an accident.  It’s  providence – and I embrace it.

Even after Fremont reopened 30 rehired teachers quit- that’s not an accident, that’s evidence and an indictment of reconstitution.   I still see myself at times in my classroom at Fremont and I can picture where every single one of my Period 2 and Period 4 seniors are sitting.  I can see their faces- The picture pops into my mind when I least expect it.    I see Christian reading aloud from the third of  a series in a novel we were reading and wished I had recorded his voice. I see Lupita who didn’t like to speak in public confidently debating the Palestinian side of the Israeli -Palestinian conflict and I don’t feel bitter at the loss anymore. I feel so grateful to have had these experiences with these students that most of the robotic administrators who were “just following orders” will never experience.

I know many of the other design team writers and members are moving on with plans such as obtaining administrative credentials and advanced degrees and I know they will be successful.  For one brief shining moment, we thought we could bring back what was lost at Fremont and for whatever reason, that is not to be.

What will happen to the schools now?  They will become as one design team member put it bastions of  “LD7 style mediocrity” where periodic assessments pass as teaching and teachers are bullied over test scores.  I’m sure the new principals will be compliant and spineless, just as LD7 would wish.  LD7 bureacrats are much too threatened by intelligent, dynamic true education leaders such as Erica or Kelly to hire them.

And what will become of our students who asked for assurances at the community meetings that the teachers they met would be at SRHS #2?  That’s the worst crime of all. South LA students, screwed over yet again.