I attended the School Board meeting on June 8th. That
was a trip into the realm of the surreal. I couldn't
resist it. I wrote up an email to Huizar, the board
president. Here is a copy of it.
Mr. Huizar:
I'm an English teacher at Huntington Park High
School. That "illustrious" institution is located in
district "J."
As I sat through the board meeting last night, I
felt amazed, even flabbergasted at the degree to which
parents from this minidistrict have apparently been
"hood-winked" into believing they have more input and
that their children are receiving a better education
simply because of the existence of district "J." I
lost an incredible amount of faith in the local public
officials from Bell, Cudahy, HP, and South Gate who
sounded off at the meeting without knowing what they
were talking about.
I cannot express this strongly enough. Things are
NOT getting better in district "J." Things are getting
worse. Class sizes are out of control. Equipment and
materials are destroyed and never replaced or
repaired. Time is wasted with meaningless in-services
and Tuesday PDS nonsense. Student behavior and
motivation are at abysmal levels. Teacher morale
couldn't be lower without a full scale rebellion of
the pitch fork and tar and feather variety.
Our administration at HPHS has informed teachers
that too many students have failed classes in the past
and that therefore we must change the way that we have
done grades - i.e. pass more of them regardless of any
mastery or lack of mastery in requisite skills or
knowledge. I know of one math teacher who was forced
to begin passing freshmen in Algebra who had scored 20
or 30% on cumulative tests. This is what is being held
up to our parents in district "J" as "success." Our
parents are largely uneducated themselves and fall for
it.
Teacher morale is bottoming out. Our administration
has taken on a decidedly antagonistic demeanor. They
regard teachers as the problem at the school and not
the necessary ingredient for any solution. With
subtlety, yet deliberate effort, teachers are excluded
from the decision making process at HPHS. The last
English teacher who was hired was done so by a
committee that had NO teachers on it whatsoever.
I know for a fact that due to Mickey Mouse
intersession classes and questionable adult school
enrollment, we are graduating seniors who are
functionally illiterate. This could easily come back
to haunt the district in the form of costly lawsuits.
This is success??
Last year I taught three senior level English
classes with between 40 and 45 in each class. The
classroom was constructed for 25, not counting the
useless broken down computers purchased at great
expense to create a "digital" high school. These
machines now occupy space and do nothing more than
that. The kids were sitting on the floor against the
wall.
Scaling down the minidistricts from 11 to 8 was a
step in the right direction, but only a small one.
Sincerely,
Philip R. Keller
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