MOMS UNITE Wins Over Superintendent Ramon Cortines

Yesterday it finally happened. I really felt like it was one of those things that was going to be on the books forever.  We were registered by a guard, signed in, assigned Visitor Passes and directed to the 24^th floor of the infamous LAUSD headquarters on Beaudry in downtown Los Angeles. It’s referred to simply as Beaudry by those in the know.  Ginger and I had been there before, but only in the board room to participate in the endless weekly board meetings that decide the fate of our children’s education.  And we’d been to the cafeteria. 

 

I feel strongly that in order to be truly successful in creating reform, we need to really understand the entire landscape and how one seemingly small change can be rejected because of the cascading effects it may have throughout the district. With that kind of knowledge, changes can be proposed that will actually be accepted, and work. Simply protesting isn’t enough.  No one is happy with the current state of affairs. We’re at the point where the district must be willing to provide some transparency so that parents and teachers and other stakeholders can understand where the weak spots are and work together to strengthen them.  Teachers and their Union must put education first.  And parents have a responsibility too. And that responsibility is to educate themselves on the issues so that they protest the right things – for the right reasons.

 

Superintendent Cortines himself came to retrieve us from the lobby, which I thought was impressive. He’s a very spirited, very high energy person. You get that right away from him.  I’ve said it before, and I stand by it.  I really like the guy.  There’s something about him that is so inspiring and so invigorating.  He lead us to his sparsely decorated office with a staggeringly beautiful view of downtown and offered us seats on sofas surrounding a low table. 

 

Though he had called the meeting, it became clear rather quickly that he expected us to start.  Fortunately, we were prepared. More than prepared. We spoke of MOMS UNITE’s origins, our successes, our members and our goals.  We explained that it is not our intention to become an adversarial  force and spend our time and energy railing against him, the school board or the district.  Our goals were more in line with being the conduit between his office and the parents – and vice versa.  We told him that we, who understood the specific effects of sweeping changes in the classroom experience, would like a say in what those changes should be and perhaps even how they should be implemented. And we explained the level of misinformation that runs rampant on campuses.  The Superintendent was surprisingly receptive and understands the value of communicating with parents and teachers directly. 

 

We then got down to the nitty-gritty – class size and the 5% of LAUSD schools that do not have Title 1 (based on economic disadvantage) or PHBAO (predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian or Other) status.  These schools will see the worst of the class size increase. These 5% of schools are looking at a class ratio of 36:1 in the 4^th and 5^th grades.  We’ve done our research and were able to present a compelling case to Dr. Cortines. And he agrees with us! While I would love to call  this a victory, we’re not there yet.  But he has agreed to revisit the programs that are based solely on race to see what can be done to create equity across the entire district. I do believe that he is sincere. If this happens, it will have the outcome of reducing class size across the board. I am willing, however, to call it as close to a victory as we’ve gotten so far!

 

We have been invited back to continue the discussion.  More as things unfold!

 

Victoria

Comments

[Laura Laser Galperson]

Great job to our insightful leaders Ginger & Victoria!

[Valerie Henderson]

I would call this a big success. Thanks for all of your hard work!