Day 47 Sunday May 16, 2010: Higher Ground
Today is Sunday, May 16, 2010 and is Day 47 of my time left at the Mont. I’m in a thoughtful mood (yeah, insert obvious joke)—been contemplating the death of a friend yesterday, someone I’d just reconnected with this summer, which led me to a movie watching binge: “The Big Chill,” which I always seem to watch whenever I get the word about such things, which led to “The Breakfast Club,” which I was dragged to by my closest friend instead of him letting me sulk; you may notice the appalling number of references to that movie in my writing and my speech, often connected to things not happening: “It’s an imperfect world, sir. Screws fall out.”. Another connection? He’s dead, too. And tomorrow is the anniversary of my mother’s death, the 20th is my father’s. A bit of a dark spiral, eh? But I think a lot of ideas come out of the dark.
I’ve been musing about the “Coalition for Change” that Mr. Balderas should probably put together, that group of dedicated “Laker” students, parents and teachers who will support his vague plan sent out to the parents and approved by LAUSD at a presentation made at D7 last month. Maybe good old Alfie, who abandoned the District and went to a charter, the one who thought a Dream Team of “Laker teachers” would approve of the coalition, since all of his PDs seem to have been wasted on us, since we remain sow’s ears. Of course, since he went to a charter from D7, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it? I guess he’ll get to pick-and-choose students, unlike a PUBLIC school, and he won’t have to deal with those pesky UNIONS, like the ones a social studies teacher would teach about.
After all, the District needs to rev up the propaganda machine, find its own Josef Goebbels to spread the gospel of reconstitution, even though a teacher who reapplied wrote an angry letter to UTLA stating that 80% of the teachers want to stay, and therefore approve of the changes to take place at the Mont. If the approval rating is 80%, maybe those of us objecting ought to get a large serving of “Shut the Hell up!”
A couple of problems here. Are there 80% who approve of the changes at the Mont? If there are, which I doubt, are they approving of the impact this will have on the students? Or are they approving to keep their jobs?
What are our jobs about, eh? How many of you feel that using lessons out of a can is the best way to reach students? (This also begs the question, “How many of you went straight from one side of the desk to the other, without doing something else for a living?” I worked with Federal inmates for a couple of years.)
I was not a stellar student. I was a bit of a “free spirit,” which was why my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Nelson, selected me, along with several other students, to go on “independent study” for a quarter; all I had to do was check in and show a finished product. Result? I adapted a favorite novel, “Earthlight” by Arthur C. Clarke, into a screenplay. An anthropology professor at CSULA tried the same trick. Instead of a poem about a Cinco de Mayo festival in Lincoln Park, I wrote a collection of poems, some of which were published. I was also a lousy history student. As quoted in the documentary in which I appear, “In Service to the Dream,” “I was a lousy student. I’d read the history book on my own, but when I was told to read a section and answer questions… ‘Yeah, that’ll happen.’”
My point? Often you need a non-traditional approach to reach students who are turned off to the traditional. What is your goal during the day? To get kids to dutifully turn in completed work or to make them think? We deal with poor student attendance daily. The two really bad years for dropping out are 9th and 10th grades, which is why I teach 10th grade exclusively. Have I made a difference? I do not know. I’m sure there are some statistics someplace. I try to make organizing a notebook and taking notes non-threatening. I encourage writing and try to make it as non-threatening as possible, falling back on what every writer has ever told me: “The only way you get better at writing is to WRITE.” Result? About 1600 poems written, a quarter of which were published, mostly under “Yaroslav Olynyk”, some stories as well. Yeah, got rich off that, eh? But students take it to heart.
Are you going to get these lessons out of a can?
I remembered AP English teachers who swore every kid they had would pass the test—and squeezed any love or even toleration of reading out of them. They came into Mat Taylor’s class dreading books, placed there because a counselor thought it was a good idea to have as many kids taking as many AP classes as possible. Because I often shared these students, and because I often had them for AP Government (yeah, I used to be allowed to teach AP students once upon a time—go figure—try 47 students in an AP class and 4 books) we were in each other’s classes all the time, teasing each other in front of the students that his class was “Story Time,” while mine was “Cut-and-Paste.” And I watched Mat work his magic wearing his prescription sunglasses.
Traditional? Kind of like Socrates. A teacher, some students, a tree stump to sit upon. Will the students at the New Fremont get that? Does that come in a can? Will you get that in an overpriced PD next year, complete with highly-paid consultants (to use the grant effectively) to help you implement that?
I doubt that. But I saw kids reading, getting over their loathing of books, as they read “Ask the Dust” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”. Students did SSR in Claudia Pilon’s class. How can you measure that? I don’t know. I got removed from teaching AP. I might not have been any good, according to some. My approaches were pretty non-traditional, as well. I wanted the kids to give a damn about what they were learning, from which all else follows. Ask Bianca Cortes about my AP Government class. Ask Ramon Mendez about what it was like to be a student in my World History class. Better yet, don’t ask them. I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble.
Given the proper circumstances, the canned lesson might work. But what about the kid it doesn’t work for? In a world of “pacing plans,” how many students is it acceptable to leave behind (keep in mind NCLB) on the bloody altar of “one size fits all”? How many kids will you be willing to lose to a “pacing plan”?
What will the “80%” who are offended by the actions of the Committee to Save Fremont do about the kids who just won’t fit in with “one size fits all”?History class.
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Day 50 Thursday May 13, 2010: Changes
Today is Thursday, May 13, 2010, and Day 50 of my time left at the Mont. It is also my last Parent Conference Night, which my students and I call “The Impressive Child-Beating Ceremony” as an homage to “Catch-22.” I’m taking a few breaks from grading and watching them work collaboratively on their projects for what I feel is the most important unit of the year: the two World Wars, Totalitarian Ideologies and the Holocaust. Odd how the subject of inhumanity brings out humanity in many. Even the laziest kid reacts during this unit. Even the laziest kid begins to understand the evils of an a totalitarian regime. To quote a David Bowie song, “Changes,” (quoted in the opening of “The Breakfast Club”):
“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through.”
We’re all going through changes here. Even the District. After all, the District plans for the New Fremont (even though we’re not supposed to use that phrase blah blah .. Hasn’t stopped them, though, eh?) which were the Powerpoint on-line at http://teachinla.com/makeadifference/fremont/new_fremont_sh.pps#347,1,Slide 1, have been sent out, with a letter from the principal, Mr. Rafael Balderas, and at last have been translated into Spanish, something which the District had failed to do when they were advertising for our jobs and a teacher just happened to stumble across it on line. I believe it is also the same Powerpoint Dr. George McKenna III told reporter Connie Llamas of the Daily News (I was there at the February press conference when the conversation took place), “I never made such a Powerpoint.” So there are changes.
Another change is that the Small Learning Communities or SLCs are not being destroyed, according to the mini-superintendent (that is what you call the superintendent of a mini-district, isn’t it?); rather, the New Fremont (again, mea culpa) is merely focusing upon the five SLCs that worked. Like cutting and pasting the Pathways mission statement verbatim? Like using the Humanitas name? Weren’t documents with this mission statement and that name filed at the District? As I recall, they can also be found on-line. Now, maybe the proposed Academy of Environmental and Social Justice will teach something on what plagiarism is. Or just good old-fashioned stealing, eh? Isn’t that what it is called when something is taken that doesn’t belong to you? “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”—unidentified US Army major…
How about lying? The letter which serves as the cover of the booklet mailed out to students is dated April 1, 2010. Is that just a bit of silliness or what? Why do I hear Nelson from “The Simpsons” going “Ha ha”? The silliness stems from the New Fremont’s own timeline, which stated the “student compacts, New Fremont HS academy description (trifolds)” would be mailed out the week of April 19th, with preferences due by May 15 (which is a Saturday—does anyone writing this dreck own a freakin’ calendar down there?) to the counseling offices, and programming of 10-12 grade students into selected academies occurring from May 15-30.
I guess the problem lies in that, aside from being told by at least one counselor that if you (meaning the student) are in Humanitas A, you will be in the Humanitas academy, administrated by Ms. Barker and counseled by Ms. Palomo, and if you are in P3, you will be in the Academy of Environmental and Social Justice, overseen by Mr. Balderas and Ms. Lua. If you are in other SLCs, that is probably where the choice comes from. I am curious why students are not allowed to choose from the SLCs on other tracks. Also, what happens to any 9Rs (and there doubtless will be some this year because of our lack of expertise in our chosen profession)? Will they be retained in the 9th Grade centers? What if they still don’t complete enough work to get their credits? Will they get promoted—or wished into the academic cornfield?
What is really sad about this—aside from the almost Biblical level of injustice and cynicism—is that the booklets, which have the District’s vague Powerpoint now translated but do not give further explanation, were received by student’s families LAST WEEK and that B-track’s deadline for choice—based upon descriptions so lacking in detail that if you received them from a student, you’d given a low grade—is Monday. So that month of choice that B-Track would have received is really a week. Why am I thinking about the “sense of urgency” here, the “sense of urgency” so necessary to get people to react blindly, like a mob looking for any leadership? Think about the lyrics to Mr. Bowie’s song.
So there are really big holes in this plan. And the Committee to Save Fremont did present some valid points and scored some hits at the Board meeting—even if the Chain of Command pretended to mess with papers and fiddle with cellphones as they sat near the front. If they truly are meeting with parents and the community, why are we able to collect 700 SIGNATURES? Why is their plan no different, even though we’ve been shooting holes in it for a couple of months—save that someone finally had the foresight to translate it? WHY HAVE THE PARENTS NOT BEEN ALLOWED TO HELP DECIDE HOW THEIR CHILDREN WILL BE EDUCATED?
I guess the next step will be for the District (meaning the folk in charge of this fiasco being born) will be to forge an alliance of “pet parents, pet students, and pet teachers” who will be told to cheer everything about the plan. (I think of a teacher who told Joel Vaca a couple of months ago, "I'm not saying anything now. I'll bet I'm going to be like you in five years." I doubt it.) That would make sense. If you attempt to deprive people of rights and information, you will have to substitute misinformation. As Benito Mussolini said, “The truth is that men are tired of liberty.” Those in charge of this seem to agree, which is why so little choice is offered. Why not? After all, there will be plenty of money available to hire consulting firms, to offer as incentive pay—if one really thought that way.
The problem with liars is they expect everybody else to be lying, too. To quote the episode “Free Willie,” in “Due South”: "You know, Ray, when I was a young man, my father told me one thing to always remember about thieves. Well, actually he told me two things, but I've forgotten the other one. Anyway, the important one is that despite the adage, you will rarely find honour among thieves."
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Day 52 Tuesday May 11, 2010: “Like A Rock”
Today is Tuesday, May 11, 2010 and is Day 52 of my time left at the Mont. My last year is not going as planned—duh. Lessons I wanted to cover get merged together, details blurred or sacrificed because we have the time crunch. The year is shorter—to save a buck. The sacred CSTs loom like a storm from Mordor, the same CSTs which have cursed us as losers in a profession, and is the excuse for the District to sacrifice the next several years of education on the altar of buzzwords and consultants… and maybe a bit of union-busting along the way. Money will flow in, to assuage the guilt of those on the fence. Money will flow in to deep-clean the school, ridding it of our essence. Money will flow in for incentive pay, for those who raise test scores, for those who improve attendance, for those who just raise their grades. Money will flow in for yet another set of PDs which the faculty does not select. Well, “Take One,” eh?
In the mean time (boy, does that phrase have an edge now), teachers are trying to leave, at least those who now realize what the New Germany—I mean the New Fremont—entails. Students are trying to leave. Juniors and sophomores ask questions beyond the dreaded uniforms, actually seeing what is about to befall the school.
A group of about a dozen teachers from all over the country, rallied by Anthony Cody, is also attempting to speak (or is it have an audience with) Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education. Details can be found on Facebook: “Teachers’ Letters to Obama,” which Anthony Cody started in an attempt to get others to see what is going on. I am one of the dozen, flustered because they all seem to be NBCT and I’m the “loser teacher” from a P-infinity school undergoing reconstitution. What the hell am I doing here?
What I always do. My dad taught me to fight, to stand up and be counted.
So I try to make my words come out, to try and not sound like the stereotypic teacher from an urban school. Maybe if they see me, they might, at last, see the rest of us for what we actually are and what it is we do every single day.
So, I’m not in my classroom today. I’m going to try to speak to the Board of Education. Here are the words I hope to use.
“Members of the Board of Education, Superintendent Cortines, Ladies and Gentlemen,
“As a long-time faculty member of FremontHigh School, I implore you to stop the reconstitution effort directed at our school. While we are not the worst, Fremont has HAD problems with low test scores. But to base improvement solely upon test scores fails to view the larger picture and excludes both family and community from the process—as is evident from the over 700 signatures we have collected from within a few blocks of our school of those who want this injustice halted. In the quest to fix our low-performing schools, we have to be careful not to toss out both baby and bathwater.
“The stereotype is a group of “loser, apathetic teachers firmly entrenched in the tenure system, knowing they can coast through their careers” as the culprits at such schools. From a personal view, that is far from the case. When we propose “turnaround models” and “reconstitution” as the fix, we ignore the wider-ranging issues of poor student attendance, high student transience, a large proportion of English language learners, and students who do not care much about academic success, issues all directly related to poverty and social inequity.
“Getting rid of all the teachers or even half the teachers does little to address the deeper problems. The key is to personalize the learning, to develop relationships. I keep thinking of an anthropology book called "Small Is Beautiful," by Schumaker, which can be applied to those struggling schools. Isn't this the concept behind Small Learning Communities, to personalize education, the village raising a child, to cite the West African proverb? To be able to have (besides the smaller class sizes we all long for but will probably never appear) a group of teachers sharing a group of students (at the Mont, each SLC is about 400, which works for US) so that we know the problems of the kids and are able to plan for grade-level and vertical teaming, lowering the number of students who "slip through the cracks." One of the successes we had in the use of SLCs is what I call the Legacy Effect. Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews and cousins learn to look forward to being in the same program, which builds success.
“Extending the year won't do it, nor will an introduction of block scheduling, because these students already have a bad track record for attendance; the block schedule looks like a quick-fix to recover lost credits. Our faculty has also voted against it. So, short of reducing class sizes, I think this might be the best path. Growth and progress seem slow, but do you want to build quick and shoddy or for long-term? At this point, not only will there be a shortage of qualified teachers (isn’t that what NCLB was about, to begin with?), but now I personally know juniors who have decided that they do not wish to sacrifice their educations to this grand experiment—and they have brothers and sisters… Many sophomores I know are following suit. The New Fremont will not only bleed qualified teachers, but the students we entered this profession to serve.
“We are on the road to success for our students and community. Let these Pathfinders travel this path we have found! It will lead to success.”
May 11, 2010: “Tension Continues Over Mandated Fremont High Reforms”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/tension-continues-over-mandated-fremont-high-reforms-.html
http://www.utla.net/photos/FremontPacktheBoard_May/index.html
Video clips of May 11th School Board Meeting
http://www.utla.net/node/2668
https://www.utla.net/system/files/ut_may.pdf
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 Day 58 May 5, 2010: Working Conditions and King Rat
Today is May 5, 2010—Cinco de Mayo and Day 58 of my time left at the Mont. Jasmine Lucas, who works on C Track in Magnet sent me something to share. Know that feeling when your cat or dog decides to share what it found in the yard? When Jasmine told me I’d just love this picture, I knew this was going to go south. It also didn’t help when Jill Pyrko told me about the rat that ran past her on Monday in her room. So, without further ado, heeere’s Jasmine!
“So I’ve gotten used to the mice in my classroom, rustling in the ceiling tiles and leaving ‘evidence’ in all my desk drawers, regardless of how assiduously I clean them.
“I’ve reconciled myself to the mice running under my feet during faculty meetings and across my body when I sit on the couch in my classroom, grading. I have even named them. They're all Fievel.
“I thought I understood the full extent of Fremont’s rodent problem.
“Then this afternoon, walking across the quad to do AP review (a few thoughts on that – why no AP retreat this year? Why are the students testing in the big gym, with distracting “tardy sweep” announcements every hour and with constant construction noises outside? I've heard we have an outstanding balance with the church where students tested last year – but if that's true, why haven’t we paid them?) I spotted a pair of crows, squawking and wheeling above my head. They were fighting over some prized object, clutching it in both sets of claws. Before I had time to wonder what it was, it fell to the ground, passing a few inches away from my face.
“What was this object, you ask? I think you know. It was the desiccated corpse of a rat. Rat jerky, really. Here it is”.
“I heard a great suggestion the other day. Maybe, during the week between the closing of Fremont and the opening of Semi-New Fremont, someone can call an exterminator. Then at least one good thing would come from the reconstitution.”
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Day 59 Tuesday May 4, 2010: “Jump” Today is Tuesday, May 04, 2010 and Day 59 of my time left at the Mont. I have heard rumors that this is Teacher Appreciation Day (in fact, Teacher Appreciation Week). I heard it from a very reliable source: Superintendent Ramon Cortines of LAUSD personally called me to tell me so. Oh, he called you, too? Maybe it’s like being friends on Facebook; some folk have a few friends, some hundreds. Superintendent Cortines must have thousands. “Good Day. This is Ray Cortines. Today is National Teachers Appreciation Day. In fact, it is National Teacher Appreciation Week. On behalf of this district, and the Board of Education, and myself, I want to share my gratitude to each and every one of you as a teacher, for what you do for our students, all you do, in your classrooms. These are tough times and so much more is being asked of you. “And yet because of you our students are succeeding. “You’ve heard the expression, ‘If you can read this, thank a teacher.” This message can be expressed in many ways. “If you can add, subtract, know the state capital, understand why the moon is full, if you can speak more than one language, if you know who the 16th President is, if you can play a musical instrument, sing like a professional, dance on stage, if you can draw, paint or sculpt, if you can run, pitch or jump, please thank a teacher. “Those who can, teach. And those who teach, care. “I salute you.” This day often seems to get mocked at the Mont. I remember the odd gifts we received over the years: the industrial-gray organizers with “Fremont” in red letters on the cover and no paper or dividers inside, the magical pens which had the name “Fremont” on them, magical because they both leaked and refused to write, the occasional muffin or apple… By far, the most significant gift came from when Rosa Morley was principal. In each of our boxes was a piece of the Berlin Wall. The legend at the base read, “This is a piece of the Berlin Wall, a barrier to the free-flow of people and ideas. Because of people like you, this wall fell.” This had a special meaning for me. I remembered the day the Wall fell, I saw my parents dancing in the living room to no music, the news on in the background. It was the only time I ever saw them dance. I did not get along with Ms. Morley. We had verbal sparring continuously for the years she was principal at Fremont—I once told her that if she did not do something about the way adult school kept moving desks from room to room, that I would go out and buy chains and locks and chain the desks together for each and every social studies classroom. Two APs nodded and said, “He’ll do it.” So we definitely did not play well together.Yet she appreciated her staff—even the people like me. But did C-Track get a speech, a letter, an email, for their service when they left? This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Day 60 Monday May 3, 2010: “Pay For What You Get”
Today is Monday, May 03, 2010, and Day 60 of my time left at the Mont. B Track returned; the parking lot was full and the campus didn’t seem like such a lonely place today. It was a needed breath of energy, of collegiality so lacking the previous week, even though the administration was in evidence in the hallways.
The Magic of the Mont. Harder to kill than a cockroach in a corner on a linoleum floor—and who would know better than a teacher at the Mont about that, eh? Like the damned dandelions on my lawn. In this case, like a phoenix from the ashes. Superman should be so invulnerable. What I saw reminded me of the way we’d often greet each other the evening before the first day of fighting in our SCA wars; old friends who saw each other but once a year, ready to play at Valhalla, fighting by day and reveling by night. The laughter and warmth were not brittle; they felt genuine. To quote “Firefly,” “Shiny!”
Shiny, just like the money that went missing. I know, I know, I know. You get tired of hearing the question. But if you’re tired of it, imagine how the administration must feel dodging the problem. After all, wasn’t one of the big issues Superintendent Cortines brought up December 9 was that Fremont had squandered vast amounts of money, although he wasn’t sure how or who specifically? Wasn’t that what the INDEPENDENT AUDIT was about, the audit which was being conducted the week of the Cortines ukaz (that’s a Russian and Ukrainian thing—an edict or pronouncement, like from a tsar [after all, Mr. Balderas compared Superintendent Cortines to Caesar] or a kniaz, a prince—thought I’d dress it up a bit)? That was supposed to be Stage One that week. All but forgotten.
Stage 2 was supposed to taken place in mid-February, some two and a half months ago. As I recall, the results were supposed to be announced in March.
We are in May now. There still has not been any announcement—not I heard tell. Lots of talk about a grant to power the New Fremont, but no answer as to how much money there was to begin with, how much was spent, and what it was spent on, or even who spent it. One has to wonder why LAUSD/D7/administration remains so silent on the matter?
There was plenty of noise in the beginning of NCLB empowering Superintendent Cortines on his Fremont witch-hunt—nothing personal directed at any pagans out there—but even there, the law seems to be set aside. Where are the parents and community members—not just the select ones, but the ones we met going door to door on community walks? Was it just blind chance we happened to find over SIX HUNDRED within a few blocks of the Mont? If this is blind chance, give us money and we’ll bet it for you in Vegas. If this were being done legally, why have the students not actually been involved? Why are there parents who need translators in other meetings sitting on the interview panels without benefit of translators present? Why are there no teachers involved in the process? Why are administrators often not in attendance? I suppose we’ll get the blame for the attendance of administrators, too. Maybe Superintendent Cortines will conduct another of his media-engorged educational search-and-rescues looking for the administrators gone missing from the interview panels. If we don’t see an administrator, are we supposed to call home? I sure hope the contact information we have on file is at least as accurate as the information we have for our students…
But then, we have to get back to those pesky legal issues.
Where have all the dollars gone? What happened to the independent audit? Why hasn’t the public been told the fate of taxpayer dollars which made their way into the Mont, but then disappeared?
And if NCLB, which was the justification for launching the campaign against the Mont, isn’t being followed, what exactly is the legal excuse?
Ah, maybe we’re making too much of it. To quote Teddy Roosevelt in “The Wind and the Lion,” “Aw, why spoil the beauty of a thing with legalities?”
Back to watching play-offs: Canucks versus Blackhawks, eh?
May 3, 2010: “Restructuring Fremont High, Pt. 2” on “The Patt Morrison Show” KPCC
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Day 62 Saturday, May 1, 2010 “Little Lies”
Today is Saturday, May 01, 2010 and it is Day 62 of my time left at the Mont. We got to do a practice run on a conversation a group of teachers are going to have with Secretary Arne Duncan, set for a couple of weeks from now, so I’m wading through the writings of other ten or eleven teachers involved and whatever else seems to pop up out of my monitor. I did take a break with some folks and talked about rodeos, which led to the topic of rodeo clowns. When rodeo first began, the concept of clowns developed as a way to entertain spectators in between shows or events and to keep the children in the audience from becoming restless. We all know that the rodeo clown is not the real show. He’s a distraction, but not the main event, entertaining as he might be.
Speaking of entertainment, I have to thank Barbara and Terra for wading through the interview Dr. George McKenna III gave to Patt Morrison’s radio show. As usual, his interview is filled with teacher-bashing and distortions of the truth, such as the section on the reapplication process, as well as his continual self-congratulation over his successes:
1:22 pm, 4/26, “Patt Morrison Show,” KPCC
Patt Morrison: “When schools simply can’t come up to snuff under NCLB, things have to change. In this case, it’s something called, ‘reconstituting.’ That’s what’s happening at Fremont H.S. Over the next weeks and months, we’ll be talking about it…what it means to the students, staff, leadership of that school. Dr. George McKenna III is the superintendent for Local District 7, which includes JCFHS.”
Dr. George McKenna III: “Well, the technical term is restructuring…under NCLB guidelines, Bush admin, federal law…That says if a school has been underperforming for a number of years…Fremont has been based on student achievement outcomes…there are four options: close it, charterize, lengthen day and year, or restructure. Restructuring means that all employees reapplies for their job. The principal has already been reassigned since the beginning of the school year. According to the Supt’s decision to utilize that part of the legislation…and that began when he announced it in December.
OLYNYK: Actually, Mr. Balderas was assigned to the Mont before July 1, but it was on that day he took up his duties.
Patt: “So let’s look at those four things, one of which has to happen. That was never a consideration, I would think?”
DGM3: “No, I don’t think anybody ever considered that.”
Patt: “What about making it a charter school?”
DGM3: “Well, then, you’ve given up. You’re saying that a public school can’t do, that other people who have for-profit enterprises are better. I believe that the alternative to public school is in some way is a danger. On the other hand, if we won’t do it, then they should. I don’t believe we can’t do it and shouldn’t do it. I was a principal. I was a principal at a school in this neighborhood that people didn’t believe could succeed…Crips was born there…after a while, there was a waiting list to get in…there were zero affluent children, just like Fremont HS.”
OLYNYK: Here it comes again. Just like going to a Stones concert—nobody get out without hearing “Satisfaction”—or is this “Self-Satisfaction”?
Patt: “What about lengthening the school year? This is something that a lot of educators have said, ‘This would really help academic performance’.”
DGM3: “Sure, if the academic instructional program were different. If you lengthen the same amount of mediocrity, you get the same amount of frustration. There’s not evidence that says a longer day of ineffective instruction improves children’s behavior. It may [be?] babysitting, containment. That’s not something that says we’re gonna do better cause we do it longer. We can be very satisfied at what we’re doing. But, if we’re doing it wrong, being satisfied doesn’t mean we get a good outcome. The data shows us that students were woefully underachieving, as far as student outcomes are concerned. One example is one-third of students are English Learners, but only 8% get reclassified…that is brought from English Language classes into English…and the District’s average is 14%. They have not made their annual yearly progress since the inception of NCLB, which is over a dozen years ago. They only made their API only twice in the last ten years. They made 8 points of growth last year. The District’s average is 13. We now have a 524 average at Fremont. The District’s average is 694. The state’s goal is 800.”
Patt: “So, if I could sum up the numbers from last year, fewer than 2% of Fremont students were proficient or better in math. Fewer than 14% were proficient or better in English.”
DGM3: “That is correct. There are five categories: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, and Far Below Basic. Over 80% of the children at Fremont are Below Basic and Far Below Basic.”
Patt: “Wow. So the decision was made at the District level to restructure.”
DGM3: “That is correct.”
Patt: “What does that mean in a practical sense?”
DGM3: “Well, logistically, it means that every employee, and they’ve been told many times, in writing and verbally, since December. We put a target date on it…simply says ‘I would like to return to Fremont.’ Nobody would lose their job. But, if you chose not to reapply, you would be relocated. Every teacher, every classified person who has a job, was guaranteed employment, but not location- you would be reassigned somewhere else. So they were never given dismissal notices. They were never told that they didn’t have a job.”
Patt: “So the word, ‘fired,’ was not used?”
DGM3: “It was never used. It’s been used in the media. It’s been used by some of them. We’ve been fired. Why are you firing us? That is not true. We never fired anyone. So the fact is that everyone had the opportunity to reapply. And then, that process, including, sitting before a panel of interviewees. And the interview panels- there were multiple panels- consisted of students, parents, and community members and alumni. So this is the first time in the history of the District that parents, students, and community people- stakeholders of this community- get to sit and ask ‘Why do you want to work in this school?’”
OLYNYK: My question is, who is the Doc referring to when he says “them”? And, has been pointed out, scripted interviews, and one parent on the interview committee who was encountered during the community walk on April 25 stated to those on the walk that she did not even turn in some of her interview notes to the principal. Wow. Talk about the purpose of the interviews being transparent!
Patt: “Essentially a job interview?”
DGM3: “It is correct. By the most important stakeholders- the students, themselves. Especially in the high school, they are sophisticated enough to make some decisions that are good for them. Unfortunately, many of the teachers chose not to reapply. They were encouraged not to reapply by their organization.”
OLYNYK: Which organization? Isn’t an interview on what is supposed to be about reality supposed to at least convey it? How about some detail? Wait, we’ve been asking for that all along.
So are parents and community members.
And I have spoken with students who are uncomfortable with the process, spoken with students who are continually summoned from class, losing class time. I student used to speak about the process and now denies involvement and looks uncomfortable. Transparent? About as transparent as the student conducting the interview who was known to ditch that particular teacher’s class and then sit on the interview panel.
Patt: “They had to reapply by the middle of March. How many teachers who work at Fremont did reapply for their jobs? What was the percentage?”
DGM3: “Um, over 60% did reapply. Many threatened and said, we’re not, none of us, going to reapply. We’ll bind together. They’re still demonstrating this weekend. We have a flyer here that says they’re going to walk through the community. They do something every week that says we’re not going to do this. So, instead of collaborating, and we’ve written to them and asked them to collaborate. They said, ‘We will resist.’ But it’s not on behalf of the students. I think it’s a self-interest. I think it’s unfortunate, ‘cause there are many good teachers.”
OLYNYK: As Ms. Stam pointed out, the vast majority of the parents and community members had no idea—until we came along—about reconstitution. What is the reason the information for the purported, vague plan is on line in a Powerpoint that is English-only?
I’m glad somebody else noticed the change in the numbers of those who reapplied. The top estimate I was fed was 80%. Still, down to “um, over 60%.” I think we can all interpret that answer. You know the rule for how to convince people with numbers: on a resume, less than a year equals one year, fractions are rounded up. Follow the rest of the progression.
Patt: “Have the decisions been made yet about which teachers will be welcome back?”
DGM3: “Not yet. We’re still completing the interview process now. We will let them know, probably after we finish the testing of students. We don’t want that to interfere with the testing process.”
OLYNYK: The test dates move back and forth on the published calendars, like those time-lapse pictures of Jupiter. The staff was to be notified May 21, then May 24. The all-important CSTs had been moved back so they would be completed May 20, then moved back on the latest calendar to begin May 17. Did you guys even invest in a ouija board to figure out the schedule or are you still shaking a Magic 8-Ball over there. “Outlook hazy.”
Patt: “There are a number of schools in LAUSD that have a lot of English as second language students, that have a lot of poor students, whose numbers look better than Fremont’s. What do you think is happening here?”
DGM3: “There are too many variables to tell you what we know is happening. We know we can’t allow it to continue. And so, by restructuring it, we also ask teachers to commit to some things. Some of the things we’re asking them to commit to, if you come back to Fremont, are as follows- a few: give homework, grade it, and return it.”
Patt: “That wasn’t happening?”
DGM3: “No, not in every class. Parents didn’t know where the homework was. We’re now going to have a homework schedule- specific subjects on specific days. Lesson planning- the teachers actually plan a lesson, instead of implement it as it goes. Monitor student attendance so that there’s no such thing as multiple absences and the parents don’t know. Implement standards-based instruction so that teachers teach to the standards. Many teachers are not doing that. They’re just teaching what they’re comfortable with, and they’re not on the standards that California requires. Have an Advisory period where you personalize the environment with the students. Communicate with the parents regularly. One of my expressions is have a zero tolerance for drop-outs. Don’t let them drop out. If they’re not there for several days, call. If you have thirty on the roll, and only 19 show up, 11 are not there on a regular basis, so you can’t say you have an overcrowded class.”
OLYNYK: Is this based upon Dr. George McKenna III’s frequent visits to all of our classes—you know, like the claim he made at the January faculty meeting with was shot down in flames? Is this based upon the examination of our Stulls which any competent administrator would keep on file? Would not our Stulls reflect whether or not the standards are being addressed?
Anybody remember this from January 26th? If not see Day 156 “Just Because It Doesn’t Make Sense Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Logical”: “’You say you know about the standards, but I don’t see them, and I’ve been in a lot of your classrooms.’ This was met with uproar, then finally a show of hands of half-a-dozen teachers who actually had been visited by Dr. McKenna; his explanation was something along the lines of the other teachers were off-track or suchlike.”
Walk into MY class, Dr. McKenna, and take a look around—just like Dr. Cortines appeared in my third period on April 16 (which was his first and only time, by the way, and I did not jump up and suddenly “start teaching”—I continued to help students understand the Wilfred Owen poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and its place as a primary source in the study of World War I). MY month-long unit is laid out on one wall—DAY BY DAY, HOMEWORK INCLUDED. On the opposite wall the entire unit is laid out graphically. On the front board is the daily agenda, covering each item the student should have in their notebook (see the sideboard reference IN CAPITAL LETTERS—for your edification, of course—did you institute any of that at the success story you trot out whenever you get the chance?), as well as any primary sources they are going to be exposed to AND HOMEWORK IN THE ASSIGNED TEXTBOOK. Guess what, the Standards are up—all over the room: in the students notebooks (the detailed ones for each unit), both side boards, a poster, the front board—and they get used.
Did Dr. McKenna miss all the freakin’ PDs where all we did for years was unpack the standards? Did he not get it when we have actually had heated debates in Social Studies department meetings over which standards to bundle together and how in order to cover them—and which standards are the most-frequently addressed in the CST? And which standards will get double-duty between 10th-grade World History and 11th-grade U.S. History, so vertical planning took place?
As to assignment of homework, does someone who holds a doctorate and brandishes his successes in educational reform truly believe that I should assign homework one night per week? Is not homework supposed to supplement and reinforce the lessons covered on that day? Are you suggesting that it would be more effective to lump together a week’s worth of assignments into a single night rather than reinforce what was taught while the lesson was freshest? Or should I reinforce a week’s worth of learning with an hour of homework and pronounce that adequate? Would YOU think that was good enough? Or are you assuming that we are all lazy and like that teacher in “The Breakfast Club,” who got into teaching so he could have summers off? While I’m certainly no Doctor and am not up on the latest research, even I can see that makes no sense, is not logical.
“Just because it doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean it’s not logical,” eh?
Patt: “Let me ask, just for a moment, these sound like common sense, how you run your classroom issues, not quality of pedagogy or curriculum issues.”
DGM3: “Well, standards-based instruction has everything to do with pedagogy. Accept professional development and implement it. Don’t just suffer through it. But, these things were not occurring. We have only 85% attendance. If you have only 85% of attendance at a school when the goal is 95% and above, you have a large number of days that the students are not in school. If you only have 85% attendance, you have something like 25 days that you’re not in school. We’re already a 3-Track school, which is an embarrassment, I think. It’s an obstacle that never should have been there.”
OLYNYK: In case you haven’t been paying attention, we have paid attention to the PDs. If you haven’t noticed, please see the above tirade regarding Social Studies as to standards-based instruction.
As to the attendance issue, in Day 168, “Somebody Had To Say It”: “Superintendent Cortines defined the culture of failure as years of low test scores, of poor attendance rates—he states the average student misses 25 days of school per year; that tallies somewhat with the figures I’ve kept—on the average, my 10th grade students miss 14 days per 74 days of an 81-day semester. Somehow we are responsible for that absenteeism, according the superintendent, NO EXCUSES, and that we are to go out into the streets to find our lost children.
“When am I going to do this? I have 178 10th grade students in my five periods of World History (more than the number of days I have left at Fremont), plus another 25 in my advisory period, half of whom wander in twenty minutes late in a 28-minute period. Exactly when am I supposed to track them down? And how am I supposed to achieve this educational search and rescue?”
When the student being absent shows up on ISIS (even revealing which period the student is missing) and we have large groups of students who go to both lunches (thought they were supposed to wear their IDs?)—I know, I have 4th period conference and so I see them—and who go hang out in PE—why is that the teacher’s responsibility to hunt them down?
Remember this from Day 69 “Don’t Look Back”: “Discontent is being voiced. When teachers and counselors have to take it upon themselves to go “clean up Dodge City” and go out to the P.E. area—and administrators find amusement in it, there is a problem. It shows a lack of initiative and responsibility on the part of the administrative team to go clean up an area where most of the students ditch on campus. When you find humor in it for several days straight, it shows a lack of respect for the staff that had to go out and do SEJ (somebody else’s job). Do you think you are going to keep a staff when you do that?”
Patt: “Why is it an embarrassment to the school district?”
DGM3: “It’s an embarrassment to believe that we could fabricate the concept that you’re better off with multi tracks. We did that for years. This District did that. I’ve been condemnative of my own District for many years. I was a principal here. I worked here for 28 years before I left and went elsewhere. There was no advantage to that, but that was a class and race issue, where people chose to move away from this community, went to the Valley. We used to, we sent students there voluntarily. The growth was in this neighborhood, but rather than build buildings, we stacked them up. We packed them in. We told them they were better off with multi tracks. Belmont, whatever, with 6,000 students in one school. We finally got around to building. And now, because there’re some new schools now, there are new high schools being built, we will also go to a single track in about two more years. But along with Fremont, you need to know that the pedagogy also includes reconfiguring the feeder middle schools to grades 7 and 8, which feed into Fremont. Because a high school cannot exist in isolation or succeed in isolation unless the middle schools send them more appropriately prepared students. I accept that. Also, the elementary schools will go K-6. This is what the parents want.”
Patt: My guest is…DGM3… “the New Fremont is the goal of the ‘reconstituting’ with perhaps different teachers and different emphasis on how classrooms are to be run. What is your mission statement for the New Fremont?”
DGM3:... “Every child will be college-ready and career-prepared. And all students will be prepared for college. Example…”
Patt: “Does every student have to go to college?”
DGM3: No! They’re prepared. The choice should be theirs. For example, 2,000 students every year enter Fremont. Less than 400 graduate. Every year. But that’s been the norm. And it’s been the norm for so long, it looks normal. And it’s an abomination. But we’ve been in that condition so long, it no longer looks like a problem. It’s the circumstances to which we’ve adjusted. But the challenges are the adults. It’s an adult issue. It’s the parents and us. We have a responsibility from 8 to 3. We have not fully accepted that responsibility. Many reasons are because many of the faculty and the administration have never seen excellence in this neighborhood. And because they’ve never seen it, they think what they’re doing is excellent. And they’re accepting these outcomes for this community, which now is another form of ‘ism,’ it’s a class issue. It’s a race issue. It’s an economic issue. It’s okay for these people. These people in this community ought not to succeed. As a simple example, and this is personal for me…The movie [about him- bwahaha] was made for the wrong reasons. When a movie is made, it suggests that it’s a surprising event, that it’s not supposed to work. Otherwise, why would the media record it?”
Patt: “What was it called?”
DGM3: “It was called ‘The George McKenna Story’.”
Patt: “Gee, I think I’ve heard of him. He’s sitting right across from me.”
DGM3: “You’re right, but Denzel Washington was the actor. And he got paid a whole lot more to pretend to be me than I ever got. The premise is that WashingtonHigh School, where the Crips gang was started in 1969, just up the street there, was not supposed to work. But when it did, instead of being celebratory when it works, which it’s supposed to do, we should be outraged when it doesn’t. The Superintendent has now expressed his intent. He said, there’s no sense of urgency, let’s restructure. Instead of saying, ‘Let’s gather together to do this,’ some say, ‘Let’s resist’.”
Patt: “After the ‘New Fremont,’…how different the classes are going to be…are you getting more money to make these changes? Can class size be smaller? Will extracurricular activities enter into that?”
DGM3: “Class size, I believe that won’t have a lot to do with it. We know there is no formula to tell us the optimal class size. Class size- for some teachers 35 is fine. For others, 3 is too many. And I’m not necessarily talking about Fremont teachers, I’m talking about all people who are in this profession. There are some magnificent teachers and some that struggle and some that shouldn’t be in the profession at all. But no, uh, there will be an additional stipend for what we call UCTP. So, for additional duties, like tutoring after school and making parent phone calls, we will be paying a stipend per semester…teachers make in other schools.”
Patt: “$1,020 per semester?”
DGM3: “That is correct. That’s part of the plan. But that’s small. The structure is in the regular school days. From 8am to 3pm, what do we do? That’s the core. Not the after school programs. The after school programs with the same children, maybe they should just come after school and not come from 8 to 3 (chuckles). But there’s no guarantee that that will work unless we have the right staff. Who teaches our children is as important as what we teach them.”
Patt: “So how different will a classroom be in the ‘New Fremont.’?”
DGM3: “Well, hopefully, we would teach from bell to bell. It would be project based learning. Students would be engaged at all times. Students would be in attendance. You wouldn’t have a lot of absenteeism. We would be teaching to the standards, on grade level. 9th grade work would look like 9th grade work, etc. along the way. That students would be prepared and ready when they came to class. They’d be engaged. We’d have less confusion in the school, less acts of violence, less truancy, less graffiti.”
Patt: “And you’re doing all of this with no more money?”
DGM3: “You don’t need money to do that. You just need committed people. I mean, if you gave us more money, if you tripled our salaries tomorrow, you wouldn’t triple student achievement outcomes. I don’t need more money, I just need committed people. And sadly, some of the commitment was to resist as opposed to collaborate. They see some enemy somewhere. And if they see me, as the administrator, as an enemy, that’s certainly justifies being a victim.”
OLYNYK: No more money? That sounds familiar. See Day 168 “Somebody Had To Say It”: “We were told that “Fremont” misspent the vast amounts of money that comes to the school, that he did not know how it was misspent (yeah, right), but the implication is there that we did it. Yeah, that’s why I spend $35/month on paper, buy my own pens, pencils and whiteboard markers and even have to lock up the overhead projector because adult school and Saturday school steals my stuff (We won’t discuss how much I’ve spent on armor and costumes and music for use with my lessons…). I don’t like being called a thief, especially when I see fellow teachers spending their own money to make copies and suchlike in their classes, when so many of us DONATE time—before school, after school, weekends (I’m at school 5:30 every damned morning and usually leave sometime around 4:30, and am damned lucky if I can go the faculty cafeteria to forage and even damned luckier if I find food there). Hey, wasn’t an audit being conducted around the time of the bombshell being dropped on Fremont? Interesting timing, that, eh? (Since we’re talking money, hey, anybody remember when we became a “Digital High School” and we had 5 computers in every class, 4 for student use?)
“Why not find out who signed off on how the money was spent? Someone had to sign off, and that someone had a supervisor who had to approve it. Blame them, not the ones spending their own dwindling money while looking at a 12% pay cut and investing their time. Stop implying that we are thieves feeding at the public trough, when it is others stealing from the future—our students.”
You might also look at Day 99 “Money”: “In early December, there was supposed to be an independent audit of Fremont High School, actually Stage One. Stage Two was supposed to roll out in mid-February. However, the person working with the budget went away in November… moving on to bigger and better things? (I remembered seeing this person around that date at 5:30 a.m., which was pretty unusual) Did the desktop computer that was carried out of an office move on, as well?
“Then December 9th came—in the middle of the week the independent audit was supposed to be going on. We were told that “Fremont” misspent the vast amounts of money that comes to the school. Superintendent Cortines, late of Scholastic Books, which sells a load of materials to LAUSD (but there is no conflict of interest) said that that he did not know how it was misspent, but the implication was we did it.. And what with the frenzy over the “reconstitution” under NCLB (which LAUSD is not following legally)—or is that “restructuring”?—the entire matter of the audit disappeared off the radar faster than me after a bad date.”
And now the New Fremont is up for a huge grant—the money problems and audit forgotten. Fremont will be awash in money next year—as long as half of us are gone. Will merit pay ensue? Teach only to the test and get a bonus of, let’s say, $5000 if your kids show improvement and if the attendance rate improves and the grades in classes improve? Does anyone else see the problem I’m looking at?
And yet we still don’t hear about the money and the audit, the results of which were supposed to have been revealed TWO MONTHS AGO?
Patt: “How are the parents and the students handling this, because you develop relationships with your teachers over a period of years. Parents do, students do.”
DGM3: “I can tell you that, despite some statements to the contrary, not one parent has told me, either in writing, personally, in meetings, personally, that we’re doing the wrong thing. As a matter of fact, they’re celebrating. I hold a monthly meeting, every month with representatives from all the schools in this district including Fremont…it’s called the parent community advisory council. There’s bilingual council, there’s all kinds of people, over 100 people in it, over 200 people. They’ve been apprised of it every month, and in some meetings, and they’re all supportive. Other groups are saying, we have parents that don’t like it. Well, they’re trying to keep the parents confused. Some parents are being confused, they’re being told they should be voting on this. This is not a choice process. It’s not like the schools we were bidding on. You don’t have a choice in this matter. This is the Superintendent’s decision, and the Board members concurred with him. There was some resistance, and we understand that. There is always the politics of education, along with the pedagogy and the finances.”
OLYNYK: Then why do we keep finding parents in our community walks who were not informed? Or are they just the ignorant ones? Or just not worth of being addressed by the District? Why do I find almost none of my students have received any information from LAUSD on these huge changes? Why, Dr. McKenna, why?
Patt: Supt outro… “FHS, which is being restructured under NCLB in the LAUSD. We’ll be spending a lot of time in the weeks to come, talking to all the stakeholders at Fremont about what’s going on at the school, and we’ll hear more from Superintendent McKenna.”
You all will be hearing from me. Keep fighting, eh?
Day 62 Saturday, May 1, 2010: “Little Lies”
Transcript of the interview with Dr. George McKenna III on April 26, 2010 on “The Patt Morrison Show” KPCC
http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2010/04/26/fremont-high/
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Day 66 Tuesday April 27, 2010: One Headlight
Today is Tuesday, April 27, 2010, and it is Day 66 on my time left at the Mont. I saw a memo Barbara Stam has already written about and others discussed it, regarding the acts of vandalism which occurred at 11;25 on Sunday night, April 25. I wonder how one is able to, from surveillance tape, determine the ages of those committing the crime to be “18 to 24 years of age.” When I was involved in reporting an incident to the Montclair P.D., and I was asked for a description, I made a guess as to the ages of those involved and the officers told me that if I couldn’t see their faces, my guess about ages couldn’t hold up.
Let me be clear. I am not a fan of the Good Doctor’s actions. I feel that what he is doing in the name of NCLB is loathsome. What he and the District will say and do to get Federal grant money disgusts me, just as I watch the changes in people I know. And, fear not, I’ll wax prolific on that topic later. But, no, I do not condone vandalism, even though every teacher at the Mont is forced to endure it on a daily basis. That doesn’t make it right, but it is a part of our lives at the Mont. Maybe there won’t be any at the new school I’m shipped to. Yeah, I didn’t buy that one, either.
I do understand the administration’s venom directed toward the graffiti. As quoted in the third paragraph of Mr. Balderas’ memo, dated April 27, “As reminder, acts of vandalism on school property are prosecutable by the fullest extent of the law with a minimum of a $1000 fine or up to 60 days in jail.” I am confused about this being an “act of violence,” as stated in the same paragraph, but then I am only a teacher and can easily be replaced. If this was an “act of violence,” then we all live with violence every single day at the Mont. We are trapped in an abusive relationship, for I see tagging every day in every room; there is tagging in my room, on chairs, desks, furniture I built. There is tagging in the stairwells and in the hallways.
In the fourth paragraph, Mr. Balderas writes, “This act of cowardness is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” Alas, if only such a reaction came forth for the other graffiti which appears with depressing regularity on this embattled campus. Is it the graffiti (I didn’t see any of the tagging on the north side of the main building, the quad nor on the fountain) or the subject which makes it unacceptable?
I wonder, when the Academy of Environmental and Social Justice opens in July (actually in late August), will the idea of “situational justice” be discussed?
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Day 69 Saturday April 24, 2010: Don’t Look Back
Today is Saturday, April 24, 2010 and Day 69 of my time left at the Mont. Yesterday I had some C-Trackers making their goodbyes, continuing the process more or less begun Thursday, Earthday, the last day of C-Track finals at the Old Fremont. It was a time of looking back, speculation as to our fates. Sometimes it feels like the scene in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” as the Enterprise limps away from the Genesis planet, and Sulu shakes is head, saying, “We’re not going to make it, are we?” Maybe this is our Kobayashi Moru test—the no-win scenario, where there will be casualties no matter what we do.
And Downtown jumps at it. Why, with 70 days to go?
There’s a lot of braying from D7 and Beaudry, a lot of posturing, which affects us all in different ways. No one is immune to it. Yet, to quote Bones in another Star Trek, “Dagger of the Mind,” “Jim, that doesn’t quite ring true.”
For example, a growing number of those who reapplied voice a lot of discontent. Maybe it’s to “fit in,” like some of the barflies from a place I got “86-ed” from, who would visit me from time to time in my new haunts; maybe there was some sort of “cool-factor” I’m not aware of. One could argue, “Yeah, there just hanging out with the ‘bad boys and girls’ for a few minutes. Then they’ll go back to their accustomed haunts.”
“Jim, that doesn’t quite ring true.”
Discontent is being voiced. When teachers and counselors have to take it upon themselves to go “clean up Dodge City” and go out to the P.E. area—and administrators find amusement in it, there is a problem. It shows a lack of initiative and responsibility on the part of the administrative team to go clean up an area where most of the students ditch on campus. When you find humor in it for several days straight, it shows a lack of respect for the staff that had to go out and do SEJ (somebody else’s job). Do you think you are going to keep a staff when you do that?
I’m also hearing about a number of folks who reapplied, but who are now actively searching for other spots in the District—or just withdrawing their applications—or is that reapplications? Why would that be? Trouble in the paradise that is the New Fremont?
It might go to how we as a faculty have been treated. Let’s look back in time. Gary Page found this gem while cleaning out his classroom. It’s a memo from Rafael L. Balderas, dated July 22, 2009 and the subject was “FIRST TWO WEEKS AT FREMONT HIGH SCHOOL.” Please bear in mind, it may read a little differently in light of recent events—okay, the past four months eh? It’s sort of like finding one of those cards from an ex who wrote something like, “Our love is forever.” To quote Bender in “The Breakfast Club,” “I feel all hollow and broken inside.”
I actually want to jump ahead to the third paragraph, wherein Mr. Balderas stated (yeah, past tense, the Good Old Days), “… Based on my observations, it is my professional opinion that the staff of Fremont High School has worked hard to develop many instructional programs that correlate to my vision [from the second paragraph, “My current vision for Fremont High School is to develop an environment where students, staff and parents work together to enhance student achievement and develop a thriving educational center within the community.”] For starters, FremontHigh School has personalized instruction through the Small Learning Communities (SLCs), where the needs of the students are met.”
Quite a different cant these days. Within five months came the announcement that the thirteen SLCs (and let’s name them, just to make the point: Aesthetics, A.I.R., A.O.T.T., Earth, CALAs A and B, Enrichment, Humanitas A, B and C, Pathways, P3 and Magnet) were to be dismantled and merged into five Fremont Academies, The Magnet Academy and three 9th Grade Centers. They are gone
In the fourth paragraph, Mr. Balderas stated, “This year in an effort to continue our academic objectives, the State grant SB1133 has been granted to our school. The primary objective of this grant is to reduce class sizes in the core subject areas (English, Math, Science, and History), as well as to reduce the counselor to student norm. The main objective of the grant is to help continue to increase our graduation rate. With the additional funds the school has ambitiously embarked on hiring 29 additional teaching positions and five counselors … As a professional learning community we will continue with our shared vision, collaboration, and our dialogue on what matters most for students… We have momentum on our side…”
Not here. Not now.
On Thursday, Earthday, it was C-Track’s last day of finals, a minimum day, wherein under most administrators, after the students leave the gates remain open; staff drift out the gates. It is also the norm at just about every school I’ve worked at. For example, when we have Open House/Back To School Night/Parent Conference Night (I call it “the Impressive Child-Beating Ceremony”—sort of an homage to Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and its “Impressive Fainting Ceremony”), where in most of us put in a more than twelve-hour day, the next day is a minimum day, the students leaving at 12:29; the adults follow suit.
Not here. Not now.
This is about destroying the morale of one’s coworkers. That is something apparently forgotten by the current authoritarian regime at the Mont. We are coworkers in this profession. But that has changed.
Not here. Not now.
Well, the class sizes increased—and sometimes not uniformly. I know of at least one social studies teacher who keeps getting students added to his classes, one in particular, driving that class up to 42 students. And next year, the counselor to student ratio will increase from 1-400 to 1-500 in the Academies and 1-600 in the 9th Grade Centers. If the main objective was to increase the graduation rate, I fail (and so will many students at the New Fremont) to see how this will be achieved. And the “momentum on our side” is about to be derailed.
Not here. Not now.
With the morale so low, do you really think the kids don’t pick up on that? If the Mont was really under control, would the fire have been set on Tuesday? If things were really under control, would the hallways look like passing period all day long? Wouldn’t you think the administration would be upstairs or around the campus, ASSISTING THE CHARLIES, instead of declaring that “there’s going to be a tardy sweep” DURING FINALS (and do what to the guilty, pray tell?) and playing music over the P.A. with questionable lyrics—as in yesterday?
Yet the administration has things under control. They can put little red dots on our timecards, whether we are absent or not (like on mine when I went to the school board meeting April 13—see Day 80 “Questions”), for not signing out (hard to do that when the books aren’t out, eh?), declare SLC meetings on PD days for SLCs that will no longer exist in two months, and be told over the P.A. during the tardy sweeps that teachers need to post an agenda and to be ready to teach when the bell rings—as well as all the other assumptions that we are barely trainable and slide through the day not doing our jobs.
Just so I can put it on record: on Thursday and Friday, the two minimum days which were also furlough days for us, days where LAUSD would stop paying us after 12:29, but Mr. Balderas announced we would have to remain until 1:15—on those days I was in at 5:20 a.m. and left at 2:30 p.m.
Consider this a continuation of “our dialogue on what matters most for students…” and on “collaboration” at the Mont. As to momentum, and having momentum on your side—be careful. When you have chased out so many of the teachers from the Mont, you may be seeing a lot of others leaving who had reapplied, but are now reconsidering what they see. So, many of us can look forward to being placed in the sub pool. Punish the teachers, eh? But what about developing “an environment where students, staff and parents work together to enhance student achievement and develop a thriving educational center within the community”?
I guess that’s not as important as ego, eh?
I've got a community walk to go to. That a "dialogue." Try it some time.
Have a good weekend.
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Day 72 Wednesday April 21, 2010: Burning Down the House
Today is Wednesday, April 21, 2010 and this is Day 72 of my time left at the Mont. C-Track finals are on, so the madness of the end of the year has swept the students, including A-Track. So we are having the year-end fires. Yesterday, as Day 73 ended and we being shuttled off to meetings, sprinklers went off on the third floor at the east end of the main building, leading to a waterfall cascading down the stairs. The FD showed and there was a frenzy of mopping. About 45 minutes later comes the announcement to clear the main building. Duh. The Mont has its own pace, evidently.
The Mont will evidently be adjusting that pace next year. I had to shut down showing “All Quiet on the Western Front” in order for a counselor to program students for next year—during what should have been mid-terms. She explained that students would be taking eight classes a day next year, which led to some freaking out. They were also told that the Beyond the Bell program, which aids in credit recovery, will most likely be gone.
So I’d gather this was the first time they had heard of this. Since my fifth period is mostly made up of students from the Humanitas SLC (which I’ve been a team member of since 1995), although I’ve also got a fair number from Aesthetics, the students were told that if they were in Humanitas already, they would probably be in the “The Humanitas Academy of Visual and Performing Arts”. She did not know about the others, except that on A-Track, the other Academy would be “The Academy of Environmental and Social Justice,” which was said to be replacing P3. (I mentioned this in set up in Day 83 “Superman’s Song”, but now the students are being told there is a direct correlation between these soon-to-be-defunct SLCs and the new Academies.)
Questions, again: Will the students from Humanitas B and C be placed in “The Humanitas Academy of Visual and Performing Arts”? If so, then we’re going to have a lot of students transferring and I don’t believe that this single Academy will be able to house them all. Oh, wait—if they’re not allowed to transfer, what’s all this about the idea of choice? After all, according to the document “New Fremont High School Timelines”, Academy selection from the students is due May 15. The thing is, the entire class of students in my fifth period (near forty of them) told me in no uncertain or vague terms that their parents had not been notified about any of this. While the “New Fremont High School Timelines” states that student compacts and New Fremont HS academy description (tri-folds) would be mailed out the week of April 19 (that’s this week). No students said they or their parents had received any information on the changes, even though according to the “Timelines” document, the “New Fremont HS Informational Brochure” was supposed to have been mailed out April 5-9.
The appearance here is the parents are being informed after the fact, once everything is being put in place. So here’s another question? Are my students liars? Is this some conspiracy by my students to lie and say that none of their parents have been informed? How can a class of nearly forty students have not one single student informed of the changes when the brochures were mailed out April 5-9? When a counselor tells students which Academy they’ll most likely be in, does that sound like choice is available?
So what’s going to happen on the other Tracks? How will selection be done on C-Track? Will the “The Mathematics, Science and Technology Magnet” cherry-pick its 300 students and the “The School of Law, Justice and Government,” the only other game in town, take the leftovers? That will make the “Leftover” Academy about 750 students—not at all what is being sold. How will B-Track be affected? Who will go into “The School of Communications, Media, and Technology”? Will all of the English Language Learners from CALA B (and maybe A) end up in “The School of Health, Science and Agriculture”?
Welcome to the Apartheid of Education.
If you feel this is an injustice, if you feel that the students are going to be hurt by this, I urge you to attend the community walks the Save Fremont Committee has planned for this Saturday and Sunday, April 24-25. The interested parties will meet in front of the school at 9 a.m.—unless our spunky Terra Bennett says otherwise. We’ll also be asking for aid from other schools throughout LAUSD in this particular fight. We need to reach out to the real community even more, to get signatures. We need to expose this process of the District involving the “community” for the sham it truly is.
Will you be there?
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