This is a school located in Los Angeles that I have been talking about for the the last couple of weeks. This is a high school with a high percentage of Black kids with parents and teachers who have been fed up with the lack of concern given to the current overall poor state of this school. Parents and teachers wanted to take the charter route but was rejected by the local district and teacher unions who cared more about loosing state money than the kids themselves. The following is from one of the teachers who wanted to take the charter route.
(LA Times) I AM ONE OF THE LEADERS of the teacher revolt at Locke High School. Locke was, for many years, the ashcan of the Los Angeles Unified School District, mismanaged in every way. Things have improved here, but not enough, and efforts to do more have been frustrated by district interference.
Now, after a majority of teachers expressed a desire to break away from the LAUSD, the district has revealed to everyone how little regard it has for teachers, majority rule or state law.
Conflict, controversy, despondency — all are present in full measure these days at Locke, a 2,500-student campus in Watts, as we wrestle with the future of the school. Green Dot Public Schools, the most prominent charter school operator in Southern California, negotiated with the district for months about the fate of Locke. But then, on April 13, the Los Angeles Board of Education — showing little concern for our current students and teachers — approved eight Green Dot start-up schools for the surrounding neighborhood, which would certainly bleed Locke dry.
But another option emerged a couple of weeks later: Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School. This would keep the charters on our campus but under a Green Dot umbrella, funded directly by the state. Founder Steve Barr and Green Dot fully realize what many teachers here have long known: The only satisfactory solution is to save Locke but remove it from LAUSD control.
To that end, I and other teachers last month circulated a petition that documented our support for the new Green Dot plan. A majority of our tenured teachers — 41 out of 73 — signed it. On May 8, the day we finished collecting signatures, Principal Frank Wells was escorted off campus by an LAUSD official. Three days later, when the petition was filed with the district, I was relieved of all my non-teaching duties (coordinating assessments and writing our school improvement plan) and was assigned to supervising our legion of rebellious, tardy students. I lost my summer employment too, and thousands of dollars in pay.
[...]
When the LAUSD threw out our charter petition, district officials, including Supt. David L. Brewer, insisted that no one was pressured or coerced. This simply strains credulity.
The LAUSD has proved again and again that it can’t manage urban high schools. Test scores are low. Student attendance is low and declining. Parents have no confidence that they’re sending their kids to safe campuses. There’s massive teacher and administrative turnover, so improvement plans are drawn from scratch year after year. (read the rest)
So once again I am asking the same question: “Who is in charge here in these districts and what have they done to fully address this issue?” Does this also qualify as a “quiet riot”?
Related: “Congressional Black Caucus on school vouchers”
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