I Need to Vent.. Public School Systems

Parent Cafe
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<p><a href=“FOX 11 Los Angeles”>FOX 11 Los Angeles;
<a href=“http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2890724,00.html[/url]”>http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2890724,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>One of the schools mentioned is ** MY ** school. We had a lockdown today, cops swarmed the campus and forced the school to shut down. Although I’m on vacation, I work as an assistant to my guidance counselor and he’s out this week, and next, so I run the office while doing my ROTC work as well.</p>

<p>It’s a stressful job as it is. I was visiting one of the AP teachers to coordinate the fee payment (some category 3 students have yet to pay their $$… grr…). I was in the hallways when I was swept in by an administrator and well… stuck in a room. Luckily, I know the AP teacher very well, and since it’s the last few days of school, everything is sort of lax. People were playing games, that sort of thing, but it was still too long of a lockdown.</p>

<p>What happened? Five girls decided to assault one girl and beat her up incredibly bad. I didn’t see the wounds, but the friends of the one assaulted girl came into the office that I was working in (the outer office) and was crying to tears. </p>

<p>After the situation was over, the administrators formed a human blockade, forcing students to leave campus, essentially clearing the entire campus. I, on the other hand, needed to get something from the ROTC complex, which is at the other end of campus… that became a problem. I had to go get clearance from the local director of high schools for our district, and then go through all the way.</p>

<p>This is getting ridiculous. The tensions that triggered this incident are only going to get worse. There was recent news coverage on it, and you think that’d help ease the situation and trigger efforts for reconciliation but nooo… things are getting worse. It is bittersweet to be leaving my high school, but the fighting is something that I will definitely not miss.</p>

<p>Needed to vent.</p>

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<p>Is it a public school vent or the sorrows of the lower classes vent?</p>

<p>Soooo sorry you had to go through suchan experience, tlaktan. </p>

<p>Put it in your memory bank and let it be part of what informs your education at SFS. I’m starting to think those Jebbies have an uncanny selection sense…</p>

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<p>I’m sorry, Tlaktan- lockdowns are truly awful… last year we had about five bomb threats in three days, and spent hours out in the stadium while the police searched the school. They never did find the person who called them in.
Where did the students go? Were they bussed out or what? I know that here, if all the students were forced off campus and told to disperse, there’d be a horde of angry parents descending on the administration for letting their kids out unsupervised…</p>

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<p>This is awful, and I feel for you. I think I live pretty close to your school (is there a small library across the street?). Do you think this is spreading just as a copycat thing because so many other L.A. schools got publicity in the last couple weeks, or do you believe there is genuine intercultural/interracial strife growing among the kids? </p>

<p>I hope you can get through these last few days or weeks unscathed by all this.</p>

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<p>A couple years ago, right after the anthrax scare, my son’s HS went into lockdown mode because a suspicious powder was found in the school. At the time, my son was outside in gym class (we don’t have sports fields near the school, so they were walking around the town green across from the school). As the Hazmat people were suiting up in contamination-proof suits to go inside, the gym class was marched by them into the school for the lockdown!!!</p>

<p>We wanted to tell our son to never obey such dangerously absurd instructions again, except with the mindsets these days, he’d probably be thrown in jail as a terrorist if he didn’t go in!</p>

<p>So glad we’re done with the public school system.</p>

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<p>I know most public schools aren’t like this. However, the lower-half of the LAUSD is starting to disintegrate thanks to racial tensions. Episodes like this one only exacerbate the situation at hand.</p>

<p>TaraMom, yes there is a library right across the street. I worked as a volunteer there since I was like, 8… helping with circulation, etc., Although I don’t do it anymore, I have a long history with that library.</p>

<p>I think TaraMom can vouch for the fact that the high school itself isn’t in such a bad neighborhood. I don’t even live in the neighborhood (I live within a 2 mile radius) but I know for a fact that things aren’t bad. However, a lot of students bus in, are opportunity transferred (basically sent from one school to another due to disciplinary purposes), or don’t like the environment at their home school so they decide to come here. </p>

<p>I opt to stay at my high school because I volunteer to help and such. Our magnet coordinator (also my GC) is out for the next two weeks, so I’m losing my sanity trying to keep the office intact with new magnet student orientation, parents calling about their student schedules, etc., but at the same time, everyone outside goes nuts. </p>

<p>The ironic thing is… they held a multicultural event at my school that provided the opportunity for this attack. The multicultural event was for the purpose of promoting ethnic tolerance… yet… … you get the picture.</p>

<p>5th period was originally from 2:00 to 2:30. They locked down the school and extended 5th period to our dismissal time, around 3. </p>

<p>I do believe this is a copycat, and I do believe the situation was exacerbated by the overflow of news media around these school/racial tensions. More fuel for the fire, I guess.</p>

<p>From what I hear, the students were suspended, but not much else.</p>

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<p>tlaktan, I am sorry to hear about the incidents at your school. I live in a middle class suburban area (not lower class or inner city) and yesterday students set a fire in the stairwell of a neighboring high school which could have resulted in death or serious injury. The school, of course, was evacuated for hours. Additionally, there have been anonymous threats to harm people attending our prom, so it will be held under high security with students searched with “wands” by police as they enter. In the past, we have had bomb threats resulting in students standing in the stadium for several hours. I feel so bad for kids trying to learn and/or have a nice time (in the case of the prom) having it ruined by malicious troublemakers.</p>

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<p>In LA, it is a public school vent. It is becomming a lower class vent because anyone who possibly can get their children out of these schools is doing so. I know Jewish families sending their kids to Catholic schools because it’s the only non publics they can afford.</p>

<p>Something must be done.</p>

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<p>Quite true about the neighborhood, in fact you can’t touch most of the homes for less than $500k. Having lived nearby for 18 years it always seemed to me to be a quite harmonious mixture of Hispanic, African American and Korean residents. But your explanation of where most students come from makes sense. And actually a lot of the homeowners are old-timers, with no kids. As the more advantaged students are able to select out of the public schools, those left behind must compete for dwindling resources.</p>

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<p>Even though I don’t live in a huge city like Los Angeles, my high school (my home school, not the magnet school that I also attend-nothing serious ever happens there) has a fight or two once in a while. I was walking down the hall to my second block a few weeks ago when one girl just started hitting and cursing at another girl-practically right next to me! The other girl was yelling that she wasn’t going to fight her, but I’m curious as to what incidents provoked it in the first place. Luckily two teachers were on the two girls within seconds so nothing got out of hand. A guy who was walking down the hall right behind me said it best. He said, “That was the dumbest thing that I’ve ever seen. There’s ten days right there. Nothing is worth that.” I personally think that nothing is worth fighting over, and I agree with tlaktan that it’s distressing whenever it does happen.</p>

<p>Also, my school has had lockdown drills as well to simulate what we should do if a gunman ever broke into the school. I have to admit that the one that I dealt with last fall was a little freaky but was extremely long when it didn’t need to be!</p>

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<p>They are trying to solve things through dialogue. At this point, Dialogue will hurt more than it will help. We’ve been doing dialogue ever since the media has inflated it out of proportion and yet… no progress.</p>

<p>Yes! Something must be done.</p>

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<p>I wonder if these multicultural events and dialogues have the paradoxical effect of heightening student’s awareness of their differences.</p>

<p>Plus I wonder if the students are being positively reinforced by the extra attention they are being given. They see their school, their friends and their parents on TV and in the paper (now, how often would that happen?) They get the satisfaction of seeing the police come responding in swarms. They read how they’ve had an impact like “locking down” the campus or made other students afraid to come. And then the administration gives them more attention then they normally ever would give by holding these dialogues and putting on these events. I think all this is giving the troublemaking students a feeling of satisfaction and power, and is the wrong approach.</p>

<p>The only way to reduce or eliminate bad behavior is to ignore it or institute negative consequences. You give attention to and reward good behavior. I think that as long as the students keep getting rewarded, they’ll keep pulling the lever.</p>

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<p>I agree. We need to institute negative consequences. Instead of having dialogue, have a zero-tolerance policy. </p>

<p>I’m a firm believer of education for all – I truly believe no student should be left behind, but… if a student chooses not to accept the education given to them and instead chooses to disrupt the education of others by instigating events such as this, then every student will be left behind.</p>

<p>When the school is locked down, a teacher can’t teach that one last geometry equation, or finish the lecture on World War II. Think of all the instructional disruption. Sure, it might be fun for the students, seeing as how they get a few minutes off from their long school day – but c’mon. </p>

<p>What I heard (through the grapevine) is that two of the students responsible are still … well, unknown, and that the third has been suspended/will be expelled.</p>