Prepping for our meeting with Supt Ramon Cortines

Today Ginger and I meet with Superintendent Ramon Cortines of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It’s exciting.  And, kind of unprecedented. Most “parent groups” that work with the district are really special interest groups. They’re about special needs children, English-learners, economically disadvantaged kids, etc.  All of the interests are important, but the district has learned to hear the term parent group as code for special interest group.  It’s also code for group of angry people who will yell at you and look out for ONLY their own interests.  I’m sure there’s a lot of history that makes this so, but this is what it has evolved to today. I’ve sat in “parent” meetings and can honestly say that I’ve been the only actual unpaid, unaffiliated parent in the room.  Public education is a very complex beast.

 

It is rare, if not unheard of, for the Superintendent to reach out to a grassroots group like MOMS UNITE for a private meeting. Things in the district have reached such a dire state that he is willing to look outside of the same old channels for new ideas.  Fortunately, we are definitely not lacking in ideas.  The challenge is to bring an idea that will work within the very stringent confines of the system. I hope to slowly expand that system, but for now, we must be happy to do what we can within the system to make some changes.

 

We’ve researched, spoken with other parents, teachers, principals and other interested parties to determine what’s truly most important. Naturally, we’ve gotten a ton of different responses, but everyone is in agreement on one thing – class size.  At our school, we’re look at stuffing 36 kids in the 4^th and 5^th grades into a single classroom. Research has repeatedly shown that 17 is the optimal size for learning.  I understand that 17 kids in a class can’t happen in the LAUSD, especially now, but come on! 36?  That’s pretty untenable, even for the most resilient and experienced teacher.

 

I like Dr. Cortines. I’ve spoken with him many times and I’ve heard him speak even more times.  I truly think that he’s doing the best that he can do with a very bad set of circumstances.  UTLA (the teacher’s union) villanizes him and so do a lot of school principals, but if there is one thing I’ve learned in all of this, it’s that everyone has an agenda. 

 

Stay tuned to find out what we present and how it’s received!

 

Victoria