At 9:20 a.m. on Nov. 15, the 300-plus marchers started off from the parking lot of St. Joseph Church south of downtown with wild cheers, plastic horns blaring and chants of "Small schools now!"
There were cohorts of high school students in red, green and black T-shirts, supporters from Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, Hispanic Clergy Council of South Central Los Angeles and other community groups, along with members of St. Vincent and St. Odilia parishes. Plus a sprinkling of politicians.
But it was the Hispanic mothers pushing strollers with toddlers in tow who stood out the most in the first annual "March of the Parents."
For over an hour, they walked up 11th Street, down Flower, north to 8th Street across the Harbor Freeway to Bixel, down 4th Street to Boylston before making a sharp turn to 333 S. Beaudry Ave - headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
"We are not here to point fingers at people," shouted Steve Barr through a bullhorn. He stood on the top front step of the stone and tinted glass skyscraper. His three-month-old daughter was in a baby carrier strapped to his chest. "We are here to bring hope, to bring a model that works - to make Jefferson High School the best high school in the city."
The parents and students had marched two miles to the LAUSD's offices to deliver more than 10,000 signatures supporting the break up of troubled Jefferson High School into six independent charter schools that would eventually share the South Los Angeles campus.
Barr is the founder of Green Dot Public Schools, operator of five small charter schools in the Los Angeles area. Green Dot wants to take over control of Jefferson, which broke out in racial violence last April.
The high school is one of the 727,000-student district's lowest performing institutions. From 2001 to 2004, 62 percent of incoming freshmen didn't graduate and only 19 percent of graduates met the minimum entrance requirements for a California State University or University of California campus.
The proposed charter schools, publicly funded but not under LAUSD's direct control, would operate by half a dozen tenets that are generally recognized as hallmarks of successful schools. Each would enroll only 500 students or less, and every student would take a college preparatory curriculum.
Principals, teachers, parents and students would make key decisions concerning budgets, curriculum and hiring. More dollars would go to classrooms, and teachers' pay would significantly increase. An emphasis would be placed on parent participation. And the new charter schools would stay open later for community use.
"We share your urgency," school board President Marlene Canter told the boisterous crowd.
But LAUSD Supt. Roy Romer, who is opposed to relinquishing control of Jefferson, announced his own plan to cut the all-year-around high school's number of students from 3,800 to about 3,000 next fall. It would then return to a traditional two-semester calendar and be divided into six "small learning communities."
Green Dot's Barr said he would continue to advocate for six charter schools. "But it's going to take a total effort," he declared. "We've all got to pull together." |