About Me
My name is Chuck Olynyk, a Social Studies teacher since 1983. My first few years were in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, then I arrived in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1987. For seven years I taught at Edison Junior High, which later became known as Edison Middle School. In 1994, when the schools in our part of South Central Los Angeles reconfigured, the 9th grade was added to Fremont and it went year-round on the Concept 6 calendar, all in the same day.
In the sixteen years which followed, I saw eight different principals come and go, LAUSD reshape itself from Regions to Clusters to Learning Districts to fewer Learning Districts and numerous magic bullets fired at fixing the Mont. For fifteen of those years, I had the good fortune to be part of the Humanitas program, an interdisciplinary approach to teaching which, I believe, grew out of Cleveland High School in the San Fernando Valley. I then watched as other Small Learning Communities (SLCs) sprang up until the school was wall-to-wall SLCs. During that time, I used my skills gained from involvement in historical reenactment groups (mostly with the Society for Creative Aanachronism or the SCA) to refine my approach to teaching, and was recognized in 1999 by the Los Angeles Excellence in Education Awards.
Then came December 9th—and nothing at the Mont would remain the same.
Currently, I teach Social Studies over at Roosevelt High School and am still involved in the Humanitas program there. I am also involved in Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook, and continue to blog away on reconstitution and issues in education at Remember Fremont as rememberfremont.webs.com.
As I wrote on the Homepage, perhaps what went on for those six months will provide insights to those facing the process. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes. As tempting as it is to edit (and there is writing I cringe at now), I’m choosing to post these as they went up, warts and all. That means you’ll have to endure my quirky writing style as you sift through the experiences we had in trying to save the Mont. I wish you luck.
In the sixteen years which followed, I saw eight different principals come and go, LAUSD reshape itself from Regions to Clusters to Learning Districts to fewer Learning Districts and numerous magic bullets fired at fixing the Mont. For fifteen of those years, I had the good fortune to be part of the Humanitas program, an interdisciplinary approach to teaching which, I believe, grew out of Cleveland High School in the San Fernando Valley. I then watched as other Small Learning Communities (SLCs) sprang up until the school was wall-to-wall SLCs. During that time, I used my skills gained from involvement in historical reenactment groups (mostly with the Society for Creative Aanachronism or the SCA) to refine my approach to teaching, and was recognized in 1999 by the Los Angeles Excellence in Education Awards.
Then came December 9th—and nothing at the Mont would remain the same.
Currently, I teach Social Studies over at Roosevelt High School and am still involved in the Humanitas program there. I am also involved in Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook, and continue to blog away on reconstitution and issues in education at Remember Fremont as rememberfremont.webs.com.
As I wrote on the Homepage, perhaps what went on for those six months will provide insights to those facing the process. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes. As tempting as it is to edit (and there is writing I cringe at now), I’m choosing to post these as they went up, warts and all. That means you’ll have to endure my quirky writing style as you sift through the experiences we had in trying to save the Mont. I wish you luck.
