Day 74 Monday, April 19, 2010: “Us and Them”
Today is Monday, April 19, 2010 and it is Day 74 of my time left at the Mont. I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” C-Track is in serious countdown-mode what with today having been the last regular day of classes. Their finals start tomorrow and they’ll be gone in a few days, which means A-Track flies solo for a week before B-Track returns. Lots of confusion out and about.
Not unlike the confusion in LAUSD. Example imprimus: there are officials who have actually ridiculed the Fremont Community-Led Plan (Ours) without having actually seen it—unless they somehow saw a version of the one we’ve been shopping. Ours is SSC-approved. Hey, Doc, can you say the same? Exactly who voted on that travesty being hawked as a means of seducing the witless and the spineless to apply to the Mont? Who was even allowed to vote on it?
We’ve got thirteen Small Learning Community plans on file with the district. Can you say the same for the six proposed Academies (with their 500-1 student/counselor ratio—except for 300-1 in Magnet and 750-1 in “The School of Law, Justice and Government”) and the three “kinderstalags”—I mean 9th Grade Learning Centers (with their 600-1 student/counselor ratio). Exactly how does our plan suck and LAUSD’s is an improvement? Is this the “Personalization” mentioned in Slide 8 of the District Powerpoint? How can there be “personalization” with even less interaction between student and counselor? What’s up, Doc?
What about a Professional Development Plan? Can you make a claim that yours is vetted by the Local School Leadership Council? Did anybody except your little star chamber approve it after meeting in conclave in some darkened basement at Beaudry? Slide 8 of the LAUSD Powerpoint says “Professional Development: Standards-based instruction, checking for understanding, English Language Development and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Nice and vague, like every PD I’ve ever attended where some member of the Starch Mafia stood before, pontificating, refusing to address our questions. But then, we’ve also heard how the questions and concerns of the parents were addressed, as well, haven’t we?
So what else supposedly sucks in our plan? That we actually do not plan to abandon the English Language Learners which, according to the second slide of the New Fremont HS Powerpoint—you know the one, Doc, the one on line at http://teachinla.com/makeadifference/fremont/new_fremont_sh.pps#347,1,Slide 1, the one being used to recruit folks to take our jobs—which states the ELLs are 37% of the population of the school. How can you, in any sort of good conscience, make a claim that the plan we have is crappy when yours (the District’s plan on-line, which is the only you’ve shown) doesn’t even address the needs of that portion of the population? “Providing comprehensive support for all students, including language-minority students and students of color at risk of failure (Culturally Relevant Pedagogy)”, as shown on Slide 7 of the LAUSD Powerpoint, is certainly measurable and quantitative, eh? Where’s your rubric for that? And how will you address that, and so many of the problems? “Participate in an extra five days of staff development per year. Topics include standards-based instruction, checking for understanding, and improving skills of English language learners, improving reading skills in content areas, improving mathematics skills, and improving critical thinking skills.” The same slide. The same bull. “Additional interventions (Read 180, Reading Electives, Accelerated Reading, High Point, Writers Workshop)”—Slide 21. Maybe I should be quoting another song off “The Dark Side of the Moon”: “Money.” Because companies like Scholastic Books (where have we heard that name before?) will be making money off the “failing schools” like the Mont forced through the charade of reconstitution—no, wait, restructuring—no, wait…
Get it. In teacher talk, we call that “checking for understanding.” I know Eduspeak has some new version of that. We’ll probably have to pay Scholastic for that, too…
And how will you measure this success—or the failures of the staff that remains? Oh, yeah, you’re going to “establish a comprehensive accountability and assessment system”. That means you don’t have it yet. Do you? Is it going to be another cut-and-paste plan culled from some place that played the reconstitution game? Well, you’ve got 74 days to go… if you plan to work tonight… Maybe the song should be “Run Like Hell.”
Do you even want to get into the way the students with special needs are pretty much non-existent in the District’s plan? And just wait, since you’ll be operating the New Fremont (I have to remember to stop doing that, since you’re not allowed to call yourselves the New Fremont because non of the guidelines are being followed… Of course, neither are any of the conditions under NCLB… As my students would say, “I’m just sayin’.”) with fewer counselors, just how many ELL students and students with special needs are going to slip through the cracks on your watch?
Cracks? That’ll be like calling the Grand Canyon a crack! That’ll be like calling the Marianas Trench a crack! The District uses the “Cake Metaphor” for declining enrollment (at least I’ll assume that is the purpose behind its use as Slide 17), with the enrollment at 1,988 freshmen, 1,067 sophomores, 1,012 juniors and 575 seniors in the 2007-2008 school year. Since the students will have far less access to a counselor, maybe you’ll have to switch from the “Cake Metaphor” to the “Pancake Metaphor”—you know, a pancake on the bottom (representing the 9th Grade) and three dwindling pats of butter stacked one upon the other (representing the other grades). Which is a crying shame, because on the District Powerpoint, it states in scholarly, beard-stroking terms that “JohnsHopkinsUniversity research stated that students that complete the 9th grade on time are 85% more likely to graduate from high school.” You can claim “No 9Rs” as was done on the District’s Slide 16, but you could just as easily claim you could take on a UFC fighter—with the same effect. It will be like Frosty the Snowman taking on the Human Torch—at least with this plan.
It is appalling how easily the District has not only written off the faculty and staff of the Mont, but the students it was created to serve. So before you start telling us that the plan we’ve put together sucks, in the words of Ellas McDaniel, who wrote a song Eric Clapton recorded on 1989’s “Journeyman”, although I can’t remember where else I’ve heard it: “Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.”
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Day 77 Saturday, April 17, 2010: “What’s Going On”
Today is Saturday, April 17, 2010 and it is Day 77 of my time left at the Mont. I’m listening to Marvin Gaye’s album, “What’s Going On” while I sit in Elephant Bar and peck away at the keyboard. I know many of you might dispute the number of days, cleverly alluding to the four furlough days in June, but we are all still Pathfinders until June 30th, for on July 1 the new school year begins, as does the launch of the New Fremont (oh yeah, can’t call it that… sorry) and the beginnings of our new assignments—unless you were non-elected or resigned in the face of such intimidation… And, as anybody who really knows me is aware, I have a really wide stubborn streak (after all, in the SCA, I am known as Yaroslav the Persistent—go figure, eh?).
It’s been a remarkably busy week. We hardly saw any administrators most of the week—and the Mont didn’t fall apart, amazingly enough. Wow, I just re-read those words as I sit in my favorite watering hole. We actually functioned without seeing administrators roaming the halls, yelling “All right, all right, all right.” Maybe it was because Mr. Balderas was on vacation and the radios weighed too much to carry up the stairs. For the benefit of the readers, I just shrugged. (It’s sort of like the Jameson’s Irish Whiskey ads: “Jameson eyes the steeds, then his whiskey, then the steeds again and then his whiskey”—which is what I’m doing).
The Mont managed to function and we had a little fun along the way. I learned that Superintendent Cortines wasn’t at the school board meeting because he was enlightening Washington on the state of education (I have to assume), which meant he wasn’t meeting with UTLA to fix this problem; after all the word I’m hearing from Beaudry-land is that our fate at the Mont is sealed. All of our gestures are just that, like the cartoon of the mouse flipping off the swooping eagle, captioned “Last Act of Defiance.”
So why are some of us flipping the bird, if our fates are already sealed? Because we’re not resigned to our fates. You see, I see victories in odd places. When the stats for Fremont get pulled off the LAUSD website and get “zeroed out,” that’s a victory. I remember someone asked me, “In what universe?”; it implies that the facts were there will not support what the Superintendent is doing.
When Diane Ravitch spoke at UCLA on Monday (and I’m sure she sold a butt-load of her books, with people eagerly waiting to get them autographed) she carried the message that this nightmare of reconstitution she helped to unleash, under the auspices of NCLB WAS AND IS WRONG! Now, if she’ll do more than simply hawk her wares and actually confront the powers-that-be to stop the systematic rape of public education, well… that would be better. But she is in the public eye right now, and who better to say this is evil than the person who helped to create it, eh? So, there’s another victory.
The school board meeting on Tuesday was a victory. Did the school board actually do anything? Nah. Did you really expect any action without the Superintendent there? But we got to air our views in a public forum, and they nodded politely as the cameras rolled. Mr. Johnson spoke eloquently, as did a number of teachers, students and alumni, others having signed up, like some sort of forlorn hope, only to yield our spots to others (although I was told I displayed “attitude” during my brief introduction of Terra Bennett—ah well, to quote one of my SCA buddies, Lord Hagar Stromburg Blackrune, “Wow, we sure pissed somebody off—let’s find out what we did and do it some more.”). Will anything come of the board meeting? Who knows? But it’s like the scene in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” when McMurphy tries to lift the sink; his hands bloody, out of breath, he gasps out, “At least I tried, damn it!” That’s what we’re doing. Maybe the Chief Bromden among us—which is all of us—will lift that sink and bust out the bars in the window.
The kids have been gathering letters, evidence to bring before Superintendent Cortines that this plan for the Mont is going to be a freakin’ disaster of Biblical proportions. Having all the remaining rehire interviews cancelled can certainly imply that the Mont has all the teachers it needs to run the place—but I don’t think so. I think there’s going to be a lot of long-term subs filling the slots of those teachers who left. Never mind the new student-to-counselor ratios have increased from 400/1 to 500/1 in the “Academies” (although someone’s math is on the mouth-breather level because on C-Track, the Magnet Academy will have 300, while supposedly “The School of Law, Justice and Government” will have 500 students, but in reality, according to one of the counselors, will have about 750. SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY. With One. Lone. Counselor. Can anyone think of Kevin Bacon in “Animal House? “Remain calm! All is well!” No wonder so many Magnet students are reversing polarities and looking for other Magnets which are more… attractive.
We’ve been having other meetings, which are victories.
And the way Dr. McKenna waffled about meeting with UTLA and then canceled, in a manner worthy of getting on as a celebrity on “Dancing With the Stars” (or “Dancing Around the Truth”, eh) was also a victory, especially when Superintendent Cortines appeared that same day on campus. (No doubt, the lesson I was teaching, which I’ve taught for years—fighting WWI, showing art by soldiers, reading poetry about it—and the way it was taught, I’m sure, either was garbage or improved only because of the threats of reconstitution/restructuring/re-something…) When you’ve got to do bait-and-switch, when you can’t just stand up and tell the truth, you’re building on a foundation of sand.
I had the word passed to me that, “Some of those writers on the Save Fremont website need to tone it down. They’re trying to destroy the school.”
WRONG. We’re trying to stop this madness. We’re not counting on others to do it. What? Do you think we’re going to hold our collective breaths for Diane Ravitch to brandish her book, wave a magic wand and the powers-that-be will stop posturing and pull their heads out of dark places? No, I doubt that the perpetrators of this travesty will do little except read the back cover. I also believe Ms. Ravitch, when she told Fremont teachers who stood there with copies of her book in their hands that she was unaware of what was happening to the Mont was… well… I hope you sell a lot of books. I also hope you trade your “historian” hat for an “activist” beret.
Do I really think that speaking to Arne Duncan might sway him (which is why Anthony Cody talked me into Facebook, which got me involved in the “Teachers’ Letters to Obama”, good stuff, but now I’m discovering just how many people seem to not have anything to do in their lives except be on Facebook)? I don’t know, but, like Randall McMurphy, I have to try. Just show me where that sink is and where the window is. I’ve bled before and I’ve failed before. The trick is, when you fail, to get back up.
We’ve gained some allies in this struggle—and Anthony, I can’t thank you enough even though you suckered me into Facebook ;)—but it will be about the teachers, the parents (notice I did NOT say community, because the parents will not treat their own children like pawns for political gains) and the kids who ultimately will either stop this madness or show the district and those in support of reconstitution for the frauds they are. It is up to us. Pathfinders For Life, eh? It is not about the ethnicity of the parents—it is about BEING parents, and any normal parent wants for their children to surpass them. If you can’t understand that, then get the hell out of the way and let the parents who have been signing our petitions, the kids, and the teachers save the Mont. (Listening to Bill Withers now…)
So we dance around each other. Just flashed on the coach, played by Gene Hackman, in “The Replacements”: “You have no future. For you, there is no tomorrow. And that makes you very dangerous men.”
What to dance?
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Day 80 Tuesday, April 13, 2010: “Questions”
Today is Tuesday, April 13, 2010 and is Day 80 (pending School Board today) of my time left at the Mont. Saturday’s posting, “Superman’s Song” got me to looking at the District’s Powerpoint on the New Fremont (oh yeah, we’re not supposed to call it that unless blah blah blah…).
You see, I’ve been staring at political cartoons my students were assigned to create (had to explain it as the difference between telling a joke you got out of a book and doing stand-up comedy—these days my students are my captive audience). I’ve also been cringing a lot. I told them the art could be simple, as long as a message got conveyed. While there have been a number of awesome ones (it also gives the kids who really don’t write to strut their stuff), there have also been cartoons which carried no message.
Much like the slides on the Powerpoint LAUSD put up at http://teachinla.com/makeadifference/fremont/new_fremont_sh.pps#347,1,Slide 1
By the way, we’re also looking at propaganda, its uses and the techniques involved, so you see the way my mind started connecting dots…
In Day 83, we looked at “Exhibit A”, which is just a re-done version of Slide #9 “Fremont HS Organizational Structures” with some names filled in. I guess once names were filled in, my brain was able to get around the plan to have one counselor for SIX HUNDRED STUDENTS in the 9th Grade Centers(By the way, I’m staring at my Communism and Fascism posters around the room and the copy of “1984” on my desk). This got me really looking at the other slides. At first I thought they were laughable, then I started to think—I do that sometimes.
If you. As a teacher, were presented student work like this, how would you grade it? Could you even give a passing grade?
 Lets look at Slide#11 “Fremont HS Academy Organizational Chart”. Is the hierarchy the Assistant Principal, then the Lead Teacher (didn’t even realize that such a position would exist—why?), then the Counselor? What is the purpose behind showing the organization as an inverted pyramid? Is this to imply that the students, the largest group, come first? If you can figure it out, let me know…And one more tiny little question-- WHERE THE HELL ARE THE TEACHERS ON THIS CHART? Are we to contribute nothing to this "New Fremont"? Are we such a small part of the equation to the success of the students?
 Slide #14 is labeled “Fremont HS Academies”: Does Academy 1 feed into Academy 2? If not, then why diagram it that way? Does Academy 5 feed into the 9th GradeCenters and they, in turn feed into the Magnet? The Magnet then feeds into Academy 1? How is this “Seamless, Unifying, Rigorous and Accountable”? Is this about “The Lion King” and this is supposed to be the Circle of Life? Or is this merely symbolic? I know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but LAUSD is playing with the lives of students and their education. What kind of a grade would you give this for clarity, for delivering the message? Can we have a rubric out there?
 Slide#20 bears the title, “Fremont HS 9th Grade Centers”: Why is this graphically illustrated as a bunch of pyramids? Are they intended to convey some sort of hierarchy? How will they interact? How do they each support each other? What mechanisms hold them together? Is there any particular reasoning as to where the names (and which names) were placed amongst the many pyramids? Is this a bar trick I’m not aware of? Here’s another trick: how did LAUSD make all the teachers disappear? Oh yeah, reconstitution... Or is that resturcturing? Or redux?
 Slide# 30 is “Fremont HS Support Structures”: What we have here is a little circle labeled “FHS” and a bunch of arrows leaving it. Are these arrows symbolic of our students ditching? Or are they the Magnet students transferring out because their parents know how screwed up this place is going to be if LAUSD follows this lame half-baked “plan”? Or are they the staff of Old Fremont who have not reapplied being scattered across the district? In the same slide, we also see a bunch of circles with various “support personnel”. Certainly, to my eye, there is no hierarchy evident—just titles and numbers. Maybe they are intended to block the escape routes.
Since the School Board is going to sit in judgment of FremontHigh School, maybe they ought to take a look past the pretty pictures and REALLY THINK about what these slides on the Powerpoint for the New Fremont, which was done to recruit teachers to take our jobs and teach our kids, really means for those students left behind.
Is this really a passing grade? Or is this the status quo Dr. Cortines says is no longer acceptable?
Have a nice day.
Video clips of April 13th School Board Meeting: http://www.utla.net/node/2668
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 Day 83 Saturday, April 10, 2010: “Superman’s Song”
Today is Saturday, April 10, 2010 and I have 83 days left at the Mont. It’s kind of dark, which why I was listening to this song by the Crash Test Dummies; it was played in the movie pilot for “Due South” when Fraser sits alone in a diner, reading from his dead father’s journals. The rollercoaster continues, the guessing-game of “Who’s In? Who’s Out?” gets more intense. Some of those who talked a game of fighting back now seem to be bothered that we bring up the campaign, saying it is never to late to join or rejoin the fight. Snide comments in the face of sincerity about the good coming from our community walks tell enough. Others give looks of pity. “Why don’t they just give up? Curriculum is going to be scripted EVERYWHERE.” It makes you wonder: do you actually feel different when you sell your soul? Or do you just sell pieces of it? When does it become easy to do that? When do you realize there’s nothing left?
Yet we keep slugging away. Even when those of us pledging not to return stand up in the faculty meeting I would have sworn would never be held. It reminded me of the final scene in “Dead Poets Society,” standing on the desks, only not near those proportions. One of us should have said, “O Captain, My Captain,” or, at least, “I’m Spartacus.” “Nil desperandum,” wrote Horace. “Never say die,” eh? Too many comic books, I guess—Wolverine and Green Arrow. You think that having a phoenix on my coat of arms in the Society for Creative Anachronism has anything to do with it? By the way, in battles from medieval times to the days of early muskets, a forlorn hope was a band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the leading part in a military operation, such as an assault on a defended position, where the risk of casualties was high; pretty likely that most members of the forlorn hope would be killed or wounded, some surviving long enough to seize a foothold that could be reinforced, or at least buy time for a second wave, while the defenders were reloading or engaged in mopping up the remnants of the first wave. Maybe we’re a forlorn hope. I guess it would be safer to take a knee and bend your neck to receive a collar.
We were supposed to give up at that point. Someone told a friend who was not reapplying, “You’re just hurting yourself.” Getting sick, losing my voice and finding out I had to give a damned periodic assessment instead of teaching—one of those damned dipstick tests designed by a dipstick so somebody can be paid to deal with it by a district facing a budget deficit—does not make my day better. People stay out of the way of the growling bear. I don’t blame them. I tell myself that I want others to care as much as I do, then realize I sound like Rambo in “First Blood”: “All I want is for my country to love my as much as I love my country!” God help me, I just quoted a Sly Stallone movie, which shames me, and then I wonder if my attitude is unrealistic. Should other people want to save the Mont, save the Mont from having the SLCs gutted, save the Mont from scripted curriculum, save the school from the fate of being an RTI school—the slang for it being “Reining Teachers In,” surrender of the classroom to radio-carriers—where teachers are held accountable if less than 80% of the students they teach do well on the frequent assessments required. I wonder how much Judy Elliot is making off of having all the principals buy her book? Hey, guys, can you sell it back when the course is over?
Then it comes back to me. I don’t know if it came from talking about the periodic assessment with my students (both of the WWs and totalitarian governments, which for every student who has ever had me is their most memorable time in my class) and seeing their faces when I speak of my family history in that era and the fight against darkness that time represents to me. Maybe it was about hanging out with a few of my co-conspirators during lunch and my conference period and we look at the growing support for these underdogs—and the leadership students, some of whom were favorite kids when I had them. Or it might have been the meeting we held Wednesday after school, the same meeting we invited the naysayers to (no shows, on that count), that re-stoked the fire inside me. Or was it stumbling across “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley in a book I knocked off my desk at home; in spite of my American literature teacher at Pomona High, Mr. Richards, ranting about the poem, or that it was quoted as the last words of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, the poems still speaks to me. Bloodied, but unbowed:
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
“In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
Maybe it was watching “Blade Runner” Thursday night, and hearing Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) say: “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.”
We still have plans. We still have plenty of arrows to shoot in the siege at the Mont. I wear my black shirt for Black Thursday and high-five in the hallways, even doing a passable parody of a useless radio-carrier who walks the halls and can’t actually deal with problems without feeling threatened. People are laughing again. I overhear someone say, “He’s back.” Yeah, guess it’s kind of like a Rocky movie—you can pretty much miss the first two-thirds of any Rocky movie and you get it the important stuff: training with dramatic music, then the Big Match.
I also have questions. Lots. Of. Questions.
I’m posting, along with my questions, a couple of documents someone found after a meeting held April 5th, I would presume based upon a date printed. One document is entitled “Fremont HS Organizational Structure.” It shows “5 Academies – 3 Grade 9 Centers – 1 Magnet”. On Track A will be “The Humanitas Academy of Visual and Performing Arts” (Isn’t LAEP going to take issue with the bastardization of that name?), consisting of 500 students, with the administrator and counselor named. Also on A-Track will be “The Academy of Environmental and Social Justice,” also with 500 students; there will also be a “9th Grade Center A,” serving the needs of 600 students with its single counselor. On Track be will be “The School of Communications, Media, and Technology” and “The School of Health, Science and Agriculture,” with 500 students each and one counselor each; there will also be a “9th Grade Center B” with its 600 students served by a single counselor. C-Track will have “The School of Law, Justice and Government,” at 500 students with a single counselor, and the “The Mathematics, Science and Technology Magnet” with 300 students, and overseen by our very own Kildare Salazar (“All right, all right, all right”) and a single counselor to deal with half the caseload of the counselor assigned to “9th Grade Center C”.
We all realize that 9th and 10th grades are the critical years for dropping out of school. Why would anyone decrease counseling services to students by upping the caseloads the SLC counselors have from 400 students to 500 in the “Academies”, which supplant the SLCs? Are not some students going to be “left behind” in our “race to the top”? Should we just abandon the slow ones who can’t keep up with the race, move them out of Fremont before year’s end so that they won’t affect our graduation rate? Or maybe before CSTs so the scores go up?
Now what about the freshmen? One counselor for SIX HUNDRED STUDENTS who have come from middle school, have never been held accountable for their grades which is why 50% of my students are 9+’s—oops, the new Eduspeak refers to them as 9Rs, sorry must write a note to myself, find a way to remember… 9Rs, like “Niners,” yeah, that’ll do it… And now they’’ be given even less attention by a counselor, not because the counselors are lazy or incompetent. Just look at the numbers. You all know the bigger your classes, the more difficult to reach the kids. I remember after Columbine, an ex-girlfriend ranted at me, saying that “Our Schools” can’t prevent something like this from happening. “Do you know if any of your students is troubled?” she asked in an accusatorial tone. “I try. I talk to my kids, but no, I can’t know all of them.” And I was dealing with about only 200.
So my example might be extreme, but how many of you have a student who has basically a three-day-work-week. Students with poor attendance? Now make us an RTI school. How many of those SIX HUNDRED STUDENTS are we going to lose along the way? Will Dr. Cortines stage another of his media-engorged door-to-door campaigns to get kids back in school? A quick media-covered fix?
 The Other document is entitled “New Fremont High School Timelines.” According to it, on April 8th, articulation occurred with Bethune, Drew and Edison, and this week B and C-Track 9th grade students will be programmed into their Centers. Those becoming 10th, 11th and 12th graders will have to select their Academies by May 15th. Coincidentally, since non-returning staff will be notified on May 21 (at least according to the timeline they are supposed to be, even the ones who reapplied but didn’t make the cut), I find it interesting that ONLY AT FREMONT have the CSTs been moved to have the final day of CST testing be on May 20th, the day before. Do the Starch Mafia at D7 think we are really going to mess with the CSTs? Why would we want to? It would benefit the New Fremont (which is a term I believe is not allowed to be used because we—oops, it—will still have the same code and address) to have the scores be really crappy, proving we suck as teachers. Yeah, Doc, we never saw that coming… Have fun with the New Fremont, or whatever you’re going to call it.
By the way, here’s how little time you have to build the New Fremont:
On June 1, 36 days before Tracks B and C begin class, selected staff will be notified of their assignments. On June 28-July 2, there will be PD from 8:00-3:00 to get ready to deal with the new Academies (except Magnet, of course—no, wait a minute… Magnet’s 9th graders are no longer in Magnet, but in the “9th Grade Center C” and a bunch of the Magnet teachers will be gone, as will a bunch of the seniors who are getting out to go to other Magnets; there is an opportunity for a quick line about polarities, but my laughter is more along the lines of gallows humor today). By the way, there’ll be a new schedule, right? Prepare a school to be ready for a new schedule in 83 days? I believe research shows that JUST to make a major schedule change requires at least a year of preparation—if those behind the reconstitution (which WAS the word used by Dr. Cortines on December 9th and never formally rescinded) really do plan this to improve student achievement. Those who remain at the Mont will have 35 hours of training, a crash course, to make this work.
I just had a thought. You might recall I mentioned a member of the Starch Mafia, one of the “empty suits” who told us that this was the type of change Fremont needed, because he worked with us for years and never really made any progress? How is that change going to take place in 35 hours?
And I thought I was doing a countdown. Looks like LAUSD is, also.
This week, educators who are on the “Teachers’ Letters to Obama” through Anthony Cody on Facebook will be engaging in a conversation with Arne Duncan. Those of you interested in following that ought to go check out Anthony’s blogsite. (By the way, Anthony, thanks for reaching out to us, and holding my shield.) Fremont ought to be represented. Will some of you speak up?
We also have a major school board meeting on Tuesday, the ominously numbered 13th. The Committee to Save Fremont will still be slugging away.
And in two weeks, our own indomitable Terra Bennett, will be pushing for a larger Community Walk on April 24/25. We’re hoping for assistance from some other schools.
Nil desperandum. Or, to quote “Babylon 5”
"What is there left for Narn if all of creation falls around us? There's nothing. No hope, no dream, no future, no life. Unless we turn from the cycle of death toward something greater. If we are a dying people, then let us die with honor, by helping the others as no-one else can."
"I can't understand."
"Because you have let them distract you. Blind you with hate. You cannot see the battle for what it is. We are fighting to save one another, we must realize we are not alone. We rise and fall together. And some of us must be sacrificed if all are to be saved. Because, if we fail in this, then none of us will be saved. And the Narn will be only a memory."
Narn Image and G'Kar, Dust to Dust
Have a good weekend.
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Day 90 Saturday, April 3, 2010: “Wonderful World (Don’t Know Much)”
Today is April 3, 2010 and I have 90 days left at the Mont—and even fewer if teachers agree to the proposed furlough days.
The situation is driven home in ways I did not expect. Monday, in teaching about imperialism. I spoke about people being patronizing when they talked to students; besides frustration, I heard the same names of teachers—coincidentally of teachers who reapplied. “She says, ‘We’re not ready to learn.’
Most folk don’t get this about me. They think because I do historical reenactment for a hobby, I make excuses to dress up in costume, and that all I really care about is the Middle Ages. How wrong they are. I can, like any real history teacher, wallow in any time period.
But the ideas I like to talk about with the kids are about cultural diversity—and the flip side, prejudice. Maybe it is because I can relate: the son of Ukrainian immigrants who moved to Canada and had me.
And Thursday we talked about face (dealing with China) and will do so again on Monday (Japan). I explained the concept of face in a number of ways, but it was those same students “who are not ready to learn” who were able to apply the concept of face to my
reasons not to reapply. So much for not being ready to learn, eh?
I watch men on campus who normally do not wear suits do so, and women dressing up more, as if they knew administrators were going to come observe them. Are they doing it for the “sweet, young faces” they look into? Or maybe they are going to interviews? Clearly people are nervous about what is happening and want so desperately to keep teaching at Fremont. I understand that feeling. I’ve had some tell me they’ll miss me (and I’ll miss them) and others tell me they are not reapplying. No one knows for sure. Not the office, with their bloated numbers. Not the Committee to Save Fremont (CSF, which I privately refer to as the Rebel Alliance—oops, not so private now), with their/our counterclaims.
In the mean time, I watch teachers like Terra Bennett, who’s career is just beginning, resign rather than subject herself to the intimidation to reapply or be bounced from the district. She out right now, as I write this, doing a community walk, to save the Fremont she’s not even going to BE AT NEXT YEAR! By the way, her story got re-posted, without my pompous blathering at: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/03/terra_bennets_story_why_tenure.html
Others are returning to grad school, being driven out of the profession.
In the mean time, I watch teachers I greatly respected being forced to retire rather than watch the bastardization of Fremont. I think of Mary, who single-handedly transformed the library, the library we fought long and hard for ten years ago, which will not have her sister Claudia, an AP English teacher, take up the torch, but rather a classified worker, be in there; the library will become just a room with books. I think of Sam, who we used to joke whenever we saw each other, “Hey, you still work here?” A couple of months ago, we looked at each other and just couldn’t say it, because right now it isn’t very damned funny. I think of Rita Moraca, Humanimama, telling us at the SLC meeting she is being forced to retire, while we are discussing the twentieth anniversary of Humanitas on campus. We’ll be having the Twentieth Reception—and the Final Reception—sometime in June; a large group of alumni were planning to attend, anyway; now it’s a wake. Yes, she is being pushed out the door, but what she’ll see left at Fremont won’t be the Humanitas program she built over twenty years; there will be a Humanitas Academy (if they learn to spell it right), but it will resemble nothing we built, merely using the name. I think about Claudia, Joel, Frank, Matt, Rick and Riley and the many other fine Magnet teachers who will also be leaving; the Magnet program will be gutted. As has been observed, the MagnetAcademy will continue. In name only. What will be left of Humanitas and Magnet (remember the other SLCs are gone as of July 1) will be shadows. Mockeries. To think in terms of Star Trek TNG, the Borg will assimilate them: human shapes, but not human. What we built will not be there. Something masquerading as what we started will be there. And the other SLCs? A.O.T.T, which some people want to remain for? Gone. Not even the name remaining. Pathways, which Erica Hamilton got started and which became a really solid program? Gone. Earth? Gone. A.I.R.? Gone Enrichment, which grew out of the 9th grade house (which returns, even though nobody seemed to learn the lessons of why it did not work as intended)? Gone. The C.A.L.A.s, A and B? Gone. Those who remain talk about doing for the kids, but they won’t have those students. Will they be the mentors to the new teachers? Aren’t they compromised by being part of the Old Fremont, the same Old Fremont that was so bad (but not the worst school in LAUSD) it led to the dismissal of the entire staff because of the “culture of failure” we created? The War on Ignorance is producing a lot of casualties…
I am not a monster. I am not hell-bent upon obstruction to reform and the destruction of Fremont. I’m the one who used to dub teachers who used movies in the classroom every week “Captain Video” in an effort to move them away from that practice. I’m the one who shares everything I have ever digitalized with every teacher in my field, hoping we can build up resources together. But I cannot follow others into those interviews.
First, to participate in the so-called “transparent and fair” process is to lend it legitimacy it does not possess. If you’ll forgive the history analogies I subject you to (occupational hazard), to involve oneself in the process is like participating in hearings before the HUAC. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was an investigative committee in the United States House of Representatives which was meant to look into suspected cases of subversion and disloyalty to the United States government. The committee's anti-communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had no direct involvement with this House committeeand was the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. These were those folks who brought you the “Hollywood Ten” who were blacklisted by the entertainment industry (although their numbers swelled to more than 300 artists—including directors, radio commentators, actors and particularly screenwriters). By merely answering questions, one became a participant in the process.
From what I am hearing from some who have interviewed, as well as student who is involved as interviewers. The panel for the “fair and transparent process” has students and parents who have read questions from a script (hey, are you guys staying at Fremont going to be teaching like that?). Minor problem: no teachers on the panel—and no administrators are even present. Does this mean that your fates are being decided by notes taken by a student based upon your answers to a couple of questions (I have confirmation of situations where only two questions were asked). Then those notes or a verbal analysis of those notes will go to Mr. Balderas, who, with his access to “confidential information” (see Magnet Chronicles) will decide who stays and who goes? Is this what you are basing the future of your career on? A side note: how do those students feel? How were they selected? Was this based on grades? Was this based upon ethnicity? Gender? How was the “data” sliced and examined to determine which students would be interviewers? One of my students who is an interviewer gets very uncomfortable whnever the topic comes up.
Is this the “process” that we were told about in January? No.
At that time, we were told we would have to bring “evidence” of CST scores for several years, periodic assessments (where applicable), attendance rates, previous Stull evaluations, and even evidence of “volunteerism,” whatever that is supposed to mean. We were supposed to jump through flaming hoops and stand on one leg while teaching all of humanity’s accumulated wisdom, all the while connecting this to the appropriate standard and engaging in “meaningful dialog”.
But we are not doing that, are we?
Certainly such a process would “weed out” a number of teachers, or “cut them from the herd,” or feel free to insert whatever Educational Darwinism lingo you care to. It all amounts to the same thing.
Then the unexpected happened. Some people chose not to reapply. Some chose not to play that game. It led to a petition (I still call it The Pledge), rallies outside the Mont, actually engaging the community (which was not allowed to meet on campus February 11 and had to meet at Praises of Zion Church), this bully pulpit some of us have been using. It has led to Anthony Cody, reposting several of my musings and writing articles on reconstitution (http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/02/reconstitution_there_has_got_t.html) and Susan Ohanian doing likewise
(http://susanohanian.org/commentaries.php) and the story being carried in Education Notes Online (http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/). Scott Banks, a former Pathfinder who has gone on to much success at Marshall, wrote in our defense, reported by Anthony (http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/03/a_letter_from_los_angeles_how.html). A few “troublemakers,” the “group of teachers who always obstruct change” no longer are “a few”. We also helped to spread the word to the community when Open House was held Thursday, our B-Track brethren coming down to man the tables and pass out surveys. We’re fighting to save the Mont.
Maybe the administration—or whoever is actually in charge of this whole cluster(*)—felt they need to change the rules. To make it easier. To dumb it down.
When students perform badly on learning material, the easy way out is to “dumb it down.” But what have we gone through for years? We’ve been taught NOT to dumb it down. We’ve been taught to look at what we are doing and reassess. I have changed my teaching over the years. I remember teaching my kids, having them “take notes,” then to my horror discovering they weren’t born with the knowledge to do so, that they couldn’t pull the information out of the notes that they needed, that maybe some of them required visuals or other ways of learning…
But the reapplication process has been inexplicably “dumbed down.” It that to make it easier for the teachers to reapply and fill those vacancies which can be so easily filled with the snap of a finger? If the vacancies are easy to fill, why make the application process easier. Why are the interviews a joke? There are applicants who walk out angry, ranting that they felt as though they had been slapped in the face. At least one person I know of walked out when he realized what the process was.
So why has this “fair and transparent process” changed?
Maybe what we need to do at the faculty meeting Tuesday is to take some time and just have every teacher who will not return July 1 simply… stand and be counted. Just stand. Maybe then we can at least see the faces of those who will not be returning. Maybe the B-Trackers can make the trip just to do that. Stand and be counted.
In honor of “dumbing down”, how about a little Sam Cooke? (My God, I have turned into the Count from “Pirate Radio”… Or is that Johnny Fever, from “WKRP in Cincinnati”?)
Wonderful World (Don’t Know Much)—Sam Cooke
“Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
”But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be
”Don't know much about geography
”Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
”Don't know what a slide rule is for
”But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be
”now I don't claim to be an "A" student
But I'm trying to be
for Maybe my being an "A" student baby
I can win your love for me
”Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
”But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be
(tralalala)
”but I do know that I love you
and I know that if you love me too
what a wonderful world this would be”
Have a good weekend.
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 Day 96, Sunday, March 28, 2010: “The Royal Scam”
Today is Sunday, March 28, 2010, Day 96 of time left at the Mont.
Not just for me. Terra Bennett, who teaches on C-Track, has even less time than me. She goes off-track in less than a month. Only, for her, this isn’t about being placed elsewhere in LAUSD bloated system. It means goodbye.
Because she resigned. Here’s the 411:
Chuck,
Here's how I resigned. I was never too worried about getting another job because of my credential, all my good evaluations, and my reputation.
I am a special education teacher, a Probationary One teacher because I have my credential, but I've had it for just under one year. I've actually been working at FremontHigh School for nearly three years as an SDC teacher, primarily for Social Studies (U.S. History, World History, Economics/Government). This year, I added CAHSEE Prep and Reading Development classes to my schedule for preps. I started teaching on a University Intern Credential through the Teach for America program.
When the Superintendent made a surprise announcement about all of us being "fired, but welcome to reapply for our jobs," I thought to myself, wow, this man doesn't have many people skills. However, I thought maybe it'd be a good process and a good plan for the school. There are, after all, several awful teachers I know about at the school. Little did I know, LAUSD doesn't know much about good process or good plans...
The opaque presentations from administrators to faculty proceeded throughout January and February. We never learned much about how the school might be restructured and how the hiring/not hiring process would work. One day, I met with my supervisor, the AP over Special Education, and we discussed what he thought the school should improve over the next year. He told me he had no idea whatsoever about the changes being decided. Five minutes after I left the meeting, my friend sent me a text explaining that a Powerpoint about the New Fremont H.S. was available to the public in English through LAUSD's website. I walked up to my AP and mentioned it. He wouldn't look me in the eye.
From that moment, I learned that all research pointed to the destructive and failed propositions in that Powerpoint: 4 by 4 scheduling with almost zero time to plan, erasure of current Small Learning Communities with almost no planning or resources to support the beginning of new ones, no involvement of the school's community in the planning, and absolutely no indication that this plan would address any of the important needs that teachers and staff have in order to improve in their work and improve the school for students to better succeed. Lastly, the school will undergo two enormous shifts as the new high schools open over the next 2-4 years. The District will never know if their "reconstitution" succeeds or fails. Thus, the District does not care to know whether this plan succeeds or fails.
I noticed since the beginning of January that my many supervisors were deliberately not answering questions, lying directly about what they knew, and creating a fearful environment. In our faculty meetings and staff meetings, the principal would say that there would be little chance of acquiring a job elsewhere. He said that non-permanent teachers would have a "RIF-proof fence" and would only be safe at Fremont H.S. My AP and Principal specifically stopped me and told me those things, too. The AP told me on many occasions that I would definitely be rehired if I chose to reapply.
At this point, I had basically decided that it would be unethical for me to participate in the destruction of the successful programs at the school as well as the community disenfranchisement. [Later, I realized the negative impact that union-busting would have on our students.] Around this time, I found that my UTLA representative had misinformed me. He'd told me I was permanent, and I found out that I was not. I had been vocal about my opposition after he'd told me I was protected by the contract. I was appalled to find that I still was not protected by the teacher's union contract, and I wouldn't be for over another year! My principal basically wouldn't have to give any reason for "non-electing" me at the end of this school year. I didn't know what to do- could I do what I felt was morally right and still take care of my career? It seemed perhaps I couldn't. I considered reapplication so as not to risk getting "non-elected" and ruining my career (so other teachers told me) by opposing the new plan. I was told that even if the Principal signed my transfer papers, he could still non-elect me before I transferred, if he felt like it. I had grown to distrust him by this time anyway...
I was helping a group of permanent teachers and others to fight the reconstitution. I thought I could step back in the shadows and help without really being seen by my supervisors. Other teachers I respected told me I could do this, and it was partially for their sakes that I wanted to help fight against the reconstitution.
It all came to a head one Friday morning. We had called a press conference, and we had many journalists show up to listen to our protest of the reconstitution. I went to check on it and was asked by the other teachers/students/alums/staff to stay. Then, I was pushed to the front of our group. Then, I was pushed before cameras and asked to speak and represent our group. It became apparent that one of the most important roles the rest of my resistance group needed me to play was a public role, speaking for them sometimes. Uh oh.
I ran back to class, and during my breaks I made long phone calls to UTLA and to the California Commission on Teacher Credentials. I found out from the union that the latest news on non-permanent teachers at Fremont H.S. was that they would have to reapply or be automatically non-elected. "Those pieces of #$%^ didn't even tell us," I thought about my supervisors. I checked with him about resigning from the District, if that would help me avoid that situation. He said it would. I checked with the CCTC about making sure I could still file for my clear credential in a year if I resigned after this year. She told me I basically could still do it. I sent in my resignation by fax that afternoon. It is effective at the end of the day, June 30th.
-Terra Bennett
So this reconstitution—wait, restructuring—wait, it’s something else now—is about improving the school?
If so, why do administrators feel the need to intimidate? Reapply or non-re-elect? Justify that one! How can any attempt to “improve” a school—which is already on the road to improvement—explain those actions
Those of you who sat through the sham of an interview where students or parents ask one or two questions which don’t even relate to your subject area, where—according to many who have gone through it—an administrator is not even present, THINK!
Terra Bennett has character. She’s got guts. Instead of allowing those who lied to her and attempted to pressure to dictate her actions, she rendered their weapons impotent.
Will any of you who face that threat, any of you who reapplied and interviewed do the same.
Last night I saw another “sign”. A license plate I took a picture of and sent around to a number of you folks. I think it belongs with Terra’s story.
Day 96, Sunday, March 28, 2010: “The Royal Scam”
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/03/terra_bennets_story_why_tenure.html#comments
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 Day 97 Saturday, March 27, 2010: “Signs”
Today is Saturday, March 27, 2010, Day 97 of my time left at the Mont. No sign of my rat, which remains at large. Actually kind of rooting for him now that others are reporting hearing rustlings in the ceilings, a “The Hunt For Red October” sort of thing. I’m sure I’m going to have different feelings if I actually run into the rat again, but then again my feelings have been all over the map anyway. I’m feeling my way along, just like the students were on Thursday when the lights were off in the hallways ten minutes after the bell rang for students to go to class.
After dropping off lesson plans and that bit of help I give students before school (as well as reminding them I wouldn’t be around), it was off to UTLA, realizing I was bone-tired, the kind of tired that gets into your soul. To quote “Jeremiah Johnson”:
BearClaw (Will Geer): “Ya come far, pilgrim.”
Johnson (Robert Redford): “Feels like far.”
It was a day of recharging, even though we were reminded that those of us involved in trying to save the Mont probably have targets hung on our backs. But, on the trip home, fighting my way out of L.A.,, when I was forced on to surface streets, I saw something. A sign, quite literally, hung on an intermediate school on Whittier Blvd. It was when I saw this sign that this song came on the radio. I drove back there this morning after cleaning the church just to get a picture of it.
“Signs”
The 5 Man Electrical Band (some fellow Frostbacks from Ottawa)
lyrics as recorded by The Five Man Electrical Band in 1971 and included on
the 1990 compilation album "Made In Canada - Volume Three 1965-1974"
“And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"
Whoa-oh-oh
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
“And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you
the
right?"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in"
"If God was here he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner"
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
“Now, hey you, mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!
------ lead guitar ------
“And the sign said, "Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray"
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a
penny to pay
“So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me. I'm alive and doin' fine."
Wooo!
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Sign
Sign, sign”
© 1970, 2002 Five Man Electrical Band
With that, here’s our own little signs along the road to ruin—or reconstitution—or rebellion:
Overview of Save Fremont Events
October-December 2010 LAEP Vote and Fremont Single Plan Development
The Fremont faculty vote to collaborate with the Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) to strengthen the SLCs and improve instruction and support for students. At the same time, Fremont finally develops a Single Plan created by teachers, parents and students. This was the first time that teachers wrote the single plan document rather than an administrator. It was the first time that the parent advisory councils at Fremont wrote out their recommendations and these were embedded in the single plan. The plan called for clear action steps to address the key focus areas such as ELA, Math, Graduation, Parent Engagement, and Attendance.
December 9, 2009 Reconstitution Announcement
Cortines announced to the Fremont faculty on A and B track in an emergency meeting afterschool that he would dismiss them and staff and create a new plan for the school. He said that because of low test scores, the teachers were not doing their jobs and all other efforts to save the school had been exhausted. He stated that he felt the teachers did not have a sense of urgency about improving test scores. All staff would have to reapply except for the principal. This was one week before first semester finals and two weeks before Christmas.
December 10, 2010 Student Sit-In at Fremont
The students organized a sit-in at Fremont to protest the dismissal of their teachers and the staff. They congregated in the quad and on a microphone shared their views.
December 15, 2010 Faculty Meeting with McKenna
George McKenna, LD 7 Superintendent basically told the faculty that they were not doing their job. This faculty meeting turned into a preaching session. Out in the front of the school at the same time, a press conference was made by a few of the Fremont teachers to bring up the issue to the public from the teacher’s perspective.
January 14, 2010 Save Fremont Meeting
Group of teachers met at the UTLA building to discuss the reconstitution and decide whether to protest the Superintendent’s decision. The meeting resulted in these teachers taking an oath to not reapply in protest of the reconstitution and take action through petition, demonstrations, etc. This was the founding of the Save Fremont Committee. This same day, this group called a meeting with the Fremont faculty after school to inform them that there were going to be efforts to stop the reconstitution. The teachers began a teacher/staff petition to show the principal and superintendent that the faculty disagreed with the decision. The Save Fremont Committee also establishes the savefremont.org blog site.
January 26, 2010 Faculty Meeting with McKenna part 2
This meeting was a continuation of the January 7th meeting, with McKenna describing how Fremont teachers were inept at teaching. McKenna provided the faculty on track a general timeline of the reapplication process as well as a teacher expectations sheet. This was the first time that the C track teachers were directly notified of the reconstitution. It resulted in most of the faculty walking out and even one theater teaching opera singing in protest.
January 27, 2010 Board Member LaMotte Stakeholder’s Meeting
Two teachers met with Marguerite LaMotte’s staff (LaMotte was not present due to illness). The teachers made it clear that there was a movement to stop the Fremont reconstitution. They invited LaMotte to the February 11th community meeting.
February 11, 2010 1st Fremont Community Forum
The Fremont teachers met with parents and community members to discuss the reconstitution. The meeting was originally set to take place at FremontHigh School. However the Superintendent revoked the permit causing the teachers to find another venue to meet with parents. They met at Praises of Zion Church several blocks down the street from Fremont. From this meeting it was obvious that the community was not fully informed about the restructuring. Many parents thought that Fremont was going to be a charter school or that it was going to be closed down. Many parents were angry that they could not meet with the teachers on campus. Most of the parents stayed after the meeting to sign a parent petition to stop the reconstitution and organize for future protest events.
February 16, 2010 “The New Fremont” PowerPoint posted online by the district
This PowerPoint laid out the general plan for next year, including the dismissal of all the small learning communities (SLCs) except Magnet and Humanitas. The PowerPoint described a 9th grade house in the next year 2010-11 even though five years before, it did not work at Fremont. The PowerPoint also described a 4 x 4 schedule that would allow students to take 8 classes per year instead of 6 classes. The problem with this plan was that it was created by the district, LD7 and the administration, but had no buy in or vote from the parents, current teachers or students. At the same time across the city, other communities were voting on a new plan for their schools in a process called the Public Schools Choice. Fremont was not included in this process because they in fact had improved their API score in 2009.
February 24, 2010 Board Member LaMotte Stakeholders Meeting
Several teachers and a student met with LaMotte, her staff and guests to discuss the reconstitution of Fremont. She commented that she was not familiar with the details since she was sick for the past few weeks. She heard from the teachers and a community member who was present at the meeting who was in favor of the reconstitution. LaMotte stated that she would research the subject and in a few weeks would come out with where she stood on the issue.
February 26, 2010Fremont Press Conference
Save Fremont Committee called a press conference in front of the school to update the public on the protest of the reconstitution at Fremont. It was successful in that numerous TV stations, newspapers and online media were there to get information. Parents, teachers and students spoke in the press conference about why the reconstitution was wrong. One teacher spoke on the radio on the Pat Morrison show (89.3 FM) and participated with George McKenna and A.J. Duffy, UTLA President regarding the restructuring.
March 2, 2010 Morning Faculty Meeting
Save Fremont Committee called a morning meeting before school in the library to talk to the A Track teachers who had been on vacation in January and February. They were updated on February’s events and many signed the teacher petition.
March 6-7, 2010
Parents, teachers and students begin doing community walks around Fremont to inform parents about the reconstitution and to gather petition signatures. They plan to do this every Saturday and Sunday.
March 8, 2010LocalSchool Leadership (LSLC) Vote
The LSLC voted down the 4 x 4 schedule proposed by the principal, McKenna and Cortines. This council felt that it was being undermined as an elected body of teachers, parents and students to do its job in having oversight over the school schedule. The council called for a meeting in two weeks to have discussion with the principal on the pros and cons of the 4 x 4 schedule. Since Fremont would not legally be considered a new school in 2010-11 (because then it would lose its Title I and QEIA funds), the LSLC empowered themselves to make decisions for the upcoming year.
March 10, 2010 Faculty Survey on the Reconstitution
The faculty was surveyed on whether they believed the reconstitution would improve the school. Based on the survey results, the faculty overwhelmingly disagreed with reconstitution.
March 11, 2010 Teacher Day of Silence
In solidarity, teachers and students wore all black to school to protest the reconstitution. Many teachers took a vow of silence for the day to symbolize their dismissal from Fremont.
March 11, 2010 SLC Lead Teacher Team Meeting Vote
The SLC Lead Teacher Team consists of teachers elected by their SLCs. The SLC Lead teachers voted to maintain the current SLCs and not to accept the academies proposed by the principal and Superintendent.
March 11 8am and 5:30pm 2nd Community Forums
Teachers, parents and students met together again at Praises of Zion Church to discuss the reconstitution and take further action. This time the meeting was led by a parent. There was a discussion of the District plan for Fremont versus the Community Led Plan. Parents sat down and participated in writing letters and postcards to send to LaMotte and Cortines to show their disapproval of the reconstitution.
March 16, 2010 Reapplication Deadline
After two months of threats by the administration to reapply, many teachers at Fremont do reapply for the following reasons: 1) not feeling they are supported by UTLA 2) The principal has gone around to many teachers and basically threatens them with not having a job in the next year or having to face an assignment at a middle school. One teacher is asked by the principal, “will UTLA pay your mortgage…then you need to reapply.” 3) Some teachers are informally offered certain coordinator positions if they reapply 4) Provisional teachers are promised a “riff-free” zone at Fremont, meaning that even though they are probationary, if they reapply to Fremont then they are guaranteed a teaching position. 5) Some teachers are just indifferent and believe that whatever protest they take will be futile and not worth the time and effort.
March 17, 2010Fremont Demonstration
Teachers, parents and students held a demonstration in front of the school. The parents and students expressed their views of the reconstitution. It was covered by the media, discussed on ABC 7 news and in the LA Times.
March 20, 2010 Cortines and AJ Duffy on ABC 7 News Show
The host of the ABC news show asked Cortines about Fremont teachers reapplying. He stated that ¾ of the teachers had reapplied, implying that there was nothing to worry about. His statement wrongly suggests that the teachers who reapplied support the reconstitution of Fremont.
It isn’t over yet. We started in resignation is December, the week the audit was supposed to be conducted, the mysteriously mute audit, but this sign says something to me.
I’m not ready to yield yet. How about you? Got courage?
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Day 99 Thursday, March 25, 2010: “Money”
Today is Thursday, March 25, 2010, a big day if you’re into significant numbers: Day 99 of my time left at the Mont. Now it feels like a real countdown since we hit double-digits.
There was a lot of significance today, not that I was asking for it: the administration had their propaganda up—pink sheets of paper in numerous places, extolling “301 Certificated applications, 214 Classified,” or some such. The numbers grow by leaps and bounds, like college students describing their… parts. And we all know that when you hear someone talking about size or numbers… Well, you know…
Interesting that these seem to be the only numbers LAUSD, D7 or our administration seem to be interested in discussing. Remember when all this started? In early December, there was supposed to be an independent audit of FremontHigh 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.
HAS ANYBODY HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT AUDIT? EITHER THE DECEMBER PART OR THE FEBRUARY PART?
Interesting timing, that, eh? Discover a crisis and be immune from answering any uncomfortable questions.
I guess if you create a crisis, people forget about questions like “What happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars?” Reminds me of a scene in “All the President’s Men.” No one answers the question when it is asked; instead I hear crickets, see a tumbleweed blowing through, hear a coyote in the distance. And I quote Ben Braddock, the publisher of the Washington Post, played by Jason Robards, “When is somebody going to go on the record in the goddamn story?”
SO WHERE IS THE MONEY? HOW MUCH IS UNACCOUNTED FOR?
So the numbers game continues. Their side says they’ve met with parents. We find out the numbers are pretty small. Our side, prevented from a parent/community, held one and we got real numbers—I’m honest enough to admit I don’t have them in front of me and was taught not to lie by my parents.
We say our number who have signed the pledge not to reapply (but some were classified and some who signed crossed the line); their side sounds like Carl Sagan in “Cosmos”: “Billions and billions have applied…”
But no one talks about the money.
HOW MUCH MONEY WENT MISSING?
Instead, we have Superintendent Cortines, late of Scholastic Books—who resigned but said he didn’t do anything wrong, but was resigning anyway—complaining about “Charlies” driving golf carts at school and that they wouldn’t do that anymore. Too expensive?
But no one talks about the audit.
So where did that money go, the money the Fremont faculty was accused of “mis-spending” along with our other thoughtcrimes and not meeting the needs of our students?
A penny for your thoughts, eh?
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Day 101 Tuesday, March 23, 2010: “Stand and Be Counted”
Today is Day 101 of my time left at the Mont. Administrative interviews are underway, and for those who reapplied, your time is coming. Some don't make eye contact. Others chatter as if nothing unusual is happening and speak in terms of "Next year."
I often use music in my classroom, related to lessons. I run off lyrics for the students and have them follow along. At this dark time, there's one by David Crosby which seemed most appropriate:
STAND AND BE COUNTED by David Crosby / James Raymond
"There was a peace of a song I heard the other day
Some words I heard this singer say
Something in me loved the way that it sounded
When he said how he wanted to stand
Stand and be counted
"Now, sometimes I talk to myself in the early dawn
Before all the fragments of my dreams are gone
Things you don't know why your mind held on to
Or else sometimes you know more than you want to
"Stand an be counted, stand on the truth
Stand on your honor, stand and be counted
"And I wonder who that kid was standing brave and trim
And I hear myself breathe and I know that I was him
Defender of the poor and those who cannot speak
I thought I'd be standing by the dam trying to stop the leak
"So concerned with matters of the heart
And knowing the millenium was just about to start
And knowing that somehow we could make a difference
"I want to stand alone in front of the world and that oncoming tank
Like that Chinese boy that we all have to thank
He showed us in a picture that I have mounted
Exactly what it means to stand and be counted ."
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 Today is Saturday, March 20, 2010, the first day of Spring, Day 104 of my time left at the Mont. In the mornings, I often have people pass by my open door and we shout greetings to one another, the old joke we use so often that it has grown shiny has been “Another day in Paradise, eh?” Mornings are a mixed bag around here. One speculates just how long before someone hits a nerve, or just what can suck the life out of you.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s always good here. I’m in by 5:20 most days. The coffee is brewing, I have rock and roll or jazz going real loud, lesson plans are readied for launch. Yeah, I have to move tables and chairs, clean up after adult school, wonder if there’s going to be toilet paper or even a toilet seat in the men’s room, but there’s music, good coffee, a really spectacular view from my window of downtown, especially as the sun reflects off of the US Bank and the other tall buildings.
Then, I revisit reality.
The Great Rat Incident of the Ides of March (otherwise known as Day 109: King Rat) reminded me of the conditions we work under here at the Mont, conditions we take for granted. Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed, especially if he sees that all those around him live the same way,” So here’s what we have grown accustomed to working at Fremont, besides a new principal every 23 months (unless you have one staying whose as useful as udders on a boar), new APs., new teachers because Fremont is just plain hard on folk, looking for a place to make copies, buying your own paper, hiding an overhead projector from adult school, wondering what adult school did to the computer the night before…
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 There’s the vermin. The picture I’ve put up on the site is what greeted me Thursday morning at the foot of the stairs; it didn’t even move as I put the penny down for scale. Yeah, we’re used to the roaches, and after playing Dances With Rats on Monday and Tuesday, the roaches don’t seem so bad, unless they’re the size of my thumb, or unless you are sitting in the men’s room and one is crawling on the wall beside you…
 There’s the tagging. We have somebody who works full time painting the hallways and stairwells every day, like using a broom to sweep the beach clean of sand. And if paint or markers won’t do the job, the stickers appear everywhere…
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.  The broken P.A. speakers and phones. The phone pictured is in the men’s room on the second floor. It has been like this for years. Of course, one wonders why there is a phone in a men’s restroom to begin with…
 Speaking of the men’s room, there are signs urging you to wash your hands. Of course that would mean there would have to be soap available… and maybe hot water… Toilet paper would be nice, too, because those seat covers sure aren’t very good. Ask yourself how many times a week you might have to use a few of those? Students have also complained that they might walk past a boy’s restroom and be able to smell the urine. I guess everyone needs a hobby.
 How many of us have enough desks or tables? How many have a pile of broken tables in a classroom? How many of us get to play The Hunt for Red October every morning and look for the chairs that went away the night before?
 For that matter, how many of us have adult school file cabinets in our rooms (this is my first semester—and my last, I reckon—where I don’t have any)? How many of us have BOXES of stuff on top of our cabinets? How many of my fellow teachers at Fremont do not even have a cabinet or a file cabinet or one of those rolling cabinets available to them?
 I’ll wager you all have a broom, though. Maybe the teachers will be issued mops, as well, as part of their new duties. If you wonder why a mop, take a real look at most of the floors. Hallway floors get cleaned. Classrooms which are occupied from 7:30-3:04 and then from 3:30-9:30 during weekdays, and then on Saturdays from 8:00-noon don’t get cleaned very often.
How many of you have monitors which have been “scribed” up? How many of you have a working printer? With toner? How many of you have a pile of “dead” computers and/or printers in your rooms?
How many of you have no room to move in your class, the area where you have the computer feeling like a turret?
How many of you think this is normal? Is this normal at most schools?
We're we responsible for this? Will all this change with the metamorphosis into the New Fremont? We might be well on our way. I think that might have been Kafka's Gregor Samsa I met Thursday morning.
You know… there are pictures of the rat droppings, too.
Comment:
Speaking of droppings… check out the following link from Decent Schools for California:
http://www.decentschools.org/school_casedocs.php?school=19
It contains depositions and testimony from 2001, while Fremont was being… led by Margaret Rowland. Particularly amusing (in a sad way) are the recorded statements as to the state of the school in 2001, the lack of books and resources, the physical state of the campus. Read Margaret Rowland’s depositions to see how to actually avoid answering a direct question. Maybe we should pass this on so that folk can get ready for the depositions to come.
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