"Don't get discouraged, don't be afraid, we can Make it through another day Make it worth the price we pay" - Triumph
Last week, parents across Los Angeles sent their children off for their first day of school, but for the first time in 23 years, I was not one of them. Last month, two of our triplets completed their last extended school-year session and joined their three siblings as LAUSD alumni. Instead of boarding a school bus this morning, they will begin a new program found with the help of one of their former LAUSD teachers and funded through the Regional Center.
My family started our LAUSD journey reluctantly. Just before my oldest daughter was set to begin kindergarten, the Daily News ran a story that listed Cohasset Street, our neighborhood elementary school, as one of the hundred worst schools in Los Angeles. My ex-wife and I gave into the fear that this article was meant to produce and scraped together the money to enroll her in the Valley School, a private school in Van Nuys.
We were active in this school and even served as co-treasurers of the parent organization. However, we soon found out that a private school experience was not all it was supposed to be. For example, the administration turned down requests from parents to sanitize the children's desks during flu season because of a "lack of funds." There was also an incident towards the end of our first year where my wife found my daughter playing with a group of friends unsupervised in the lunch room. It was time to move on.
Still hesitant to trust the "failing" neighborhood school, we enrolled our daughter in a Pinecrest School in North Hollywood. The first couple of years went well and her brother started their pre-school program. However, as my daughter started the third grade, our views of the school rapidly changed.
The teacher that year was brand new and it quickly became apparent that he was not getting the support he needed to be successful. I visited the classroom one day and found that he had the class practicing for standardized tests that were months away. When we discussed our concerns with the principal, she said that she did not see a problem with this concentration on preparing for the tests.
Later on in the year, I received a phone call from the teacher who wanted to let me know that he was concerned about my daughter's lack of progress in his class. He was very specific in telling me that she was the only student in the class who was having these problems, which greatly heightened my concern. However, when speaking with other parents at a birthday party the next weekend, I found out the others had received the exact same message from the teacher. When we approached the principal with these new concerns, we were again met with resistance instead of cooperation.
Having had another private school fail our family, we decided to take another look at our neighborhood public school. We met with the principal and told her about our concerns. Her response was that she was very proud of her school and that we could trust them to provide an excellent education.
Before we enrolled our children, the principal met personally with our daughter and put together a plan to help her get over the trauma of the previous year. This plan was well executed and before long my daughter was looking forward to going to school in the morning. Both children also participated in the Beyond the Bell after-school program and this is where my daughter first became aware of her athletic abilities.
More proof that my faith in this school was well founded came when my ex and I separated. On the first day of school, I pulled my son's new teacher aside and updated her on the storm raging in our family. She kept an eye on him and made sure to keep us updated about how he was handling the situation. I will be forever grateful for her help as he navigated his way through this transition.
When I met my current wife, Nicole, I had the opportunity to see the LAUSD from a different perspective. My blended family now included a set of triplet daughters, two of whom are on the autism spectrum. As I got to know their teachers and other staff in the classroom, I admired their patience and dedication. It was also apparent that some of them had been burned out by the system, a situation that was completely understandable.
As I gained experience with the IEP process where individualized plans for each child are agreed upon, I began to gain confidence in advocating for my children. However, it did not take long for me to learn that the real decision-making authority did not lie with the IEP team but with the faceless Beaudry Bureaucrats who set the rules. The teachers and other local staff feared the consequences of going beyond the boundaries that these staffers downtown had set.
On two different occasions, I was pulled aside by members of the IEP team who told me that they agreed with my requests but that it was against "district policy" to write them into the plan. While they suggested ways to confront the system, they also begged me not to mention their names during the process fearing they would face retaliation for not towing the company line. This was not a system designed to put "Kids First."
Fighting the system was not easy and we found ourselves needing to hire a lawyer to help our efforts. This resulted in a two-day mediation session downtown. It was during these meetings that I decided to take my first shot at running for a seat on the school board.
While it was special education that turned me into a public school warrior, the experiences of my three "typical" children added a new dimension to my fight - ensuring accountability for privately-run, publicly-financed charter schools.
My current wife, Nicole, and I blended our families together just as my oldest daughter was beginning high school. We moved into Nicole's house where the neighborhood school is Granada Hills High School, the same school that Nicole had attended. However, in the time since she was a student, the school had separated itself from the district and become a charter school. We did not give that much thought as we enrolled our eldest in the school since we really did not know what the consequences of her attending a charter school would be.
The first few years in the school went well. My daughter earned decent grades and excelled at sports. She was even named captain of the JV softball team. However, in our daughter's senior year, things went south as we became concerned about the inappropriate influence of a member of the staff. When I expressed concern to the school, they circled the wagons and the situation became a repeat of what had happened at Pinecrest. That this could happen should not have been a surprise as the school is privately run with limited public accountability.
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