In This Issue:
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LAUSD
SCHOOL BOARD IGNORES BOND COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS; GIVES
SUPERINTENDENT ALL THE iPADS HE THINKS HE NEEDS WHENEVER HE THINKS HE
NEEDS THEM |
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2 stories: CUTS TO ARTS+MUSIC ED PROGRAMS CONTINUE DESPITE LAUSD’s COMMITMENT TO ‘ARTS AT THE CORE’ |
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REVIEW FINDS HUNDREDS OF LA SCHOOL LIBRARIES WITHOUT STAFF, SHUTTERED |
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IN AGE OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, LOCKDOWN IS THE NEW FIRE DRILL |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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“The function of education,” Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. told us, “is to teach one to think intensively and to think
critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true
education.”
Monday is Dr. King's 85th birthday, though he only had 40 of them.
(Actually it was last Wednesday …but take Monday off anyway!)
MLK, Jr. was a complicated man in complicated times, a non-violent man
in violent times. He preached the gospels of the risen Christ and the
fallen Gandhi. He cited and lived the Exodus metaphor: “I have stood on
the mountaintop and seen the Promised Land.” …“I may not get there with
you…” He may have been a prophet; he was not a saint.
He claimed to be a drum major. For Justice. And Peace. And Righteousness.
Those things are Civil Rights he claimed for all people. They were and
are and will forever be unalienable rights – not to be earned or bought
or bargained for. Endowed to us by our Creator – every Man Jack and
Woman Jill of us – Black and White and Brown, Jew and Gentile, Catholic
and Protestant, gay or straight, believer or nonbeliever. Whether our
Creator be YHWH or God the Father or Allah or pre-Olympian Titans or
Vishnu’s Dream or a Spider weaving the Universe or a Cosmic Flash 13.798
± 0.037 billion years ago. Whether we created God in our image or
Him/Her us in Her/His. Dr. King had definite Baptist beliefs on this –
but his belief in Justice and Peace and Righteousness stood alongside
his faith – belief without those things was incomprehensible.
Sometimes we wrap those words in other words. Freedom. Liberty.
Equality. Brother/Sisterhood. Hope. We parse the words: Social Justice.
Economic Justice. Freedom from Fear, or Want or Hunger. Of Religion or
Belief. Freedom to Dream.
King was resolute and righteous: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
“No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice
rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
_______________
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
_________________
ON SATURDAY MORNING we met in the auditorium at Washington Preparatory
High School – In what Dr. McKenna called the Cathedral of The Prep – to
celebrate the life of Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte. Cathedral is an apt
metaphor – it refers to the chair of a bishop. The chair was empty …but
the house and our hearts were full.
The tone was set early on. The fifth grader selected to recite the
pledge of allegiance – the student body president of 54th Street
Elementary – leaned forward at the podium before he begin and said: “I
am one of Ms. LaMotte’s babies.”
And so it was, rising and lifting, building higher and higher – soaring –
a celebration by teachers and administrators and politicians and
boardmembers and neighbors and strangers and students and principals and
musicians and singers. A celebration of love in the communality of hope
– celebrating a giant who was once amongst us and now resides in our
hearts and in her heaven and is quietly, incessantly insisting that we
ceaselessly ignore the baloney and do our best and what’s right for
children.
And that children, her babies/our babies, do their best, too.
One of the speakers said that we are not likely to see the likes of Marguerite LaMotte again.
I think that misses the point of her life.
A Marguerite is a beautiful flower – and in her life she nurtured a
great many seeds. Saturday morning we saw and heard from many of those
progeny. Young and middle aged and some older that she touched in her
long life. Marguerite was the change she wanted to see. I think we
will see many like her – standing upright with deep roots. Memorably
direct. Outspoken. And when necessary: Standing alone on the right
side of things, resolute and strong.
If you were there and weren’t moved by the words+music of love and
promise Saturday morning you are beyond hope. If you weren’t touched by
the Amazing Grace of the Foshay Music Ensemble or the Oh Happy Day! from
the Dorsey Chorus or the Second-Line-Send-Off by the Washington Prep
Alumni Chorus and Band -- if you weren’t in that number when the Saints
Came Marching In …you missed what it is all about.
In the end, as Marguerite would have it, we were dancing.
11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing:
thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. Psalm 30:11/KJV
King James’ translators struggled with the Hebrew “simcha”, rendering it
as “gladness”. Simcha is actually a commandment, a mitzvah, of joy.
We will miss Ms. LaMotte – but we learned what she was here to teach us as we move out to our undiscovered ends.
Our modern perspective on Hallelujah! is colored by Leonard Cohen’s dark
ironic lyric. This is and was not that Hallelujah! This one comes from
the Black Church and from the lived and experienced and questioned and
taught and learned and shared experience of who we all are in this
moment. Of simcha.
David’s chord is not secret, it resonates still. And it pleases the Lord. Not a cold and broken, but a joyous Hallelujah!
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD IGNORES BOND COMMITTEE
RECOMMENDATIONS; GIVES SUPERINTENDENT ALL THE iPADS HE THINKS HE NEEDS
WHENEVER HE THINKS HE NEEDS THEM
4 Stories + smf’s 2¢: BOARDMEMBERS GALATZAN AND
ZIMMER WORK OUT AN AMENDMENT “…TO JUST LEAVE IT UP TO THE
SUPERINTENDENT”.
►L.A. SCHOOL BOARD MOVES FORWARD WITH COMPUTER EFFORT
THE BOARD VOTES TO DISTRIBUTE IPADS TO 38 MORE CAMPUSES, START
PURCHASING LAPTOPS FOR SEVEN HIGH SCHOOLS AND BUY AS MANY TABLETS AS
NEEDED FOR STATE TESTING.
By Howard Blume | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1eDk94q
9:42 PM PST, January 14, 2014 :: Continuing its efforts to provide
every student with a computer, the Los Angeles Board of Education on
Tuesday agreed to distribute iPads to 38 more campuses, begin the
process of purchasing laptops for seven high schools and buy as many
tablets as needed for new state tests in the spring.
In doing so, the board adopted the proposal of schools Supt. John Deasy
rather than following the advice of an oversight panel that had
recommended purchasing thousands fewer of the devices.
The goal of the $1-billion effort is to provide a computer to every
student, teacher and administrator in the nation's second-largest school
system.
Board members approved a $115-million proposal that removed entirely a
cap on how many iPads the district could buy for standardized testing
scheduled for the spring. But they insist the number will be well below
the 67,500 tablets the district staff had recommended.
The iPads used for testing will be shared by different classes during the six weeks of testing.
The oversight committee, relying on a district analysis, had recommended purchasing about 38,500 tablets for testing.
Senior L.A. Unified officials, however, decided that schools should have more tablets in the event of unexpected problems.
A majority of the oversight panel decided there was no justification for
the 30,000 additional tablets. Even the lower figure, 38,500, was
likely to be much larger than needed, according to a review by a
consultant for the oversight committee. (Continued: http://bit.ly/1aouIZO)
________________
►LA UNIFIED BOARD OKS MORE IPADS, CARETAKER FOR VACANCY
by Vanessa Romo, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1drS3uE
January 14, 2014 :: The LA Unified School Board made two major
decisions today that will go a long way toward shaping the months ahead.
The six members green-lighted Phase 2 of the iPad plan, ensuring enough
tablets for standardized testing in the Spring, and they approved the
appointment of a non-voting representative to serve District 1 until
later in the year.
In a unanimous vote on the iPads, the board put into action essentially
the same plan that was before them two ago. This next phase will bring
the tablets to 38 new campuses, provide high school students at seven
schools with a laptop, acquire keyboards for Phase 1 and 2 schools and
equip all schools with enough iPads for all students to take the Smarter
Balanced field test in the spring. The cost is estimated to be $115
million.
The decision went against the advice of the Bond Oversight Committee,
which recommended that the board limit the number of devices it procures
through the end of the year. (Continued: http://bit.ly/1aouIZO)
________________
►LA SCHOOL BOARD GREEN LIGHTS UP TO 100,000 MORE IPADS
Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1dQeCFS
January 14th, 2014, 8:13pm :: The Los Angeles Unified School Board
voted Tuesday to allow Superintendent John Deasy to decide how many
iPads to purchase for students to take new digital state tests. The
board also affirmed a decision to run a laptop pilot of 19,300 and buy
28,000 more iPads loaded with Pearson learning software.
Deasy said giving students access to technology was "a civil rights issue" in addition to being vital to spring testing.
The district estimates the deal will cost about $127 million dollars. (Continued: http://bit.ly/1aouIZO)
________________
►LAUSD MOVES FORWARD WITH SECOND PHASE OF IPAD ROLLOUT
By Dakota Smith, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1gKhQhG
1/14/14, 8:37 PM PST | Updated 5AM 1/15/2014 :: Amid scrutiny over Los
Angeles Unified School District’s $1 billion iPad program, board
members moved Tuesday to put more devices into the hands of thousands of
students.
The board voted to approve the second phase of its iPad program,
allowing 38 campuses to receive tablets. Supporters said that was needed
so students can take required tests on the devices this spring.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the six board members disagreed on how many
tablets to purchase, and ultimately voted to buy as many devices as
needed for students to test on.
That number wasn’t defined by board members, leaving the final cost of this rollout uncertain.
The iPad program has drawn heat amid reports of the costs of the
program, and concerns about security after students bypassed restriction
measures on the tablets. The selection of Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey-based Pearson Education Inc. to provide the instructional
software has also been criticized.
But in a move that apparently helped sway the board, Superintendent John
Deasy told members that he’d secured a deal with Apple to buy the
tablets at the same price the district purchased its original devices.
The school board paid about $768 per tablet in the first phase.
Deasy backed the purchase of up to 67,500 tablets at Tuesday’s meeting, so students could use the devices through next year.
But that figure drew concern from Stephen English, who chairs the
committee that reviews plans for using construction bond revenue, and
who suggested capping the number at around 38,000 tablets.
“The losses on that could be substantial ... it impacts the integrity of
the entire program,” English told the board members, urging them to buy
a lower number.
Board members Steve Zimmer and Monica Ratliff also questioned purchasing
67,000 tablets, leading the board to agree to only limit the number of
tablets to those needed to test on this spring. (Continued: http://bit.ly/1aouIZO)
______________
●●smf’s 2¢:
1. Apparently the District and Apple have agreed on a price for the testing iPads.
2. Apparently the District will not be ordering all the iPads
auathorized but will begin by ordering only the numbers recommended by
the oversight committee.
3. “Apparently” is no way to conduct oversight by the committee or the trusteeship of public funds by the Board of Education.
4. iPads are not a civil right; that claim cheapens real civil rights.
2 stories: CUTS TO ARTS+MUSIC ED PROGRAMS CONTINUE
DESPITE LAUSD’s COMMITMENT TO ‘ARTS AT THE CORE’
►FATE OF ARTS PROGRAMS REMAINS IN LIMBO: Local public schools are
embracing a push to prepare students for work in creative fields, but
LAUSD has yet to fund it
By Gary Walker in The Argonaut Newspaper [Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey,
Playa Vista, Mar Vista, Del Rey, Westchester, Venice and Santa Monica] http://bit.ly/1cGjDjD
January 15, 2014 :: In 2012, the Los Angeles Unified School District
board voted to make arts education a core subject in its curriculum.
Four months ago, the board gave district officials a Dec. 3 deadline to
produce a budget for the school district’s Arts Education and Creative
Cultural Network Plan, which aims to prepare students for work in
creative and technology-based fields by increasing arts-related course
offerings and increased faculty support.
That deadline, however, came and went without so much as a “the check’s
in the mail”— leaving public school officials and parents to wonder
whether music and arts funding is coming at all.
“I see this as an absolute conflict between two opposing views on what
public education should look like: Those who want to see arts as a core
subject, and those who are only concerned about test scores and offering
students a limited education,” said Karen Wolfe, a Venice Neighborhood
Council Education Committee member whose daughter attends Marina Del Rey
Middle School.
Last year the school hired a ballet teacher and began requiring all of
its students to take dance classes, said Marina Del Rey Middle School
Performing Arts Coordinator Nancy Pierandozzi.
Venice High School, Mark Twain Middle School and Grand View Boulevard
and Broadway elementary schools have also begun integrating performing
arts content into English/language arts classes.
That combination has for some students resulted in a drastic turnaround
in attendance and academic achievement, said LAUSD board member Steve
Zimmer, whose district includes schools in Mar Vista, Westchester, Del
Rey and Venice.
Author of the September resolution calling for an arts budget, Zimmer
has pledged to push Supt. John Deasy for answers when school is back in
session later this month.
Deasy could not be reached.
After years of funding cuts that threatened arts programs, Gov. Jerry
Brown’s local control funding formula is gradually rebuilding the school
district’s budget with annual increases of up to $188 million per year,
plus another $113 million over the next two years to implement new
Common Core standards.
But LAUSD, which recently spent $1 billion in school construction bond
money to purchase Apple iPads for each of its 600,000-plus students,
also has many needs for that cash — restoring teaching positions cut by
layoffs and smaller class sizes among them.
Zimmer has voiced support for adding more teachers and seeing teachers
get raises eventually, but he said the immediate priority is making
certain that LAUSD students have a well-rounded curriculum.
“While they are all priorities, I would have to choose a long-term
solution to a short-term investment,” Zimmer said. “It’s very hard to
prioritize between a school library and the arts.”
For Wolfe, arts education is essential to a robust curriculum. She
contends that that reduced arts programming puts public schools at a
competitive disadvantage against charters and other special magnet
programs that compete for student enrollment, the largest factor in
state funding for schools.
“In order to be competitive with these specialty schools, you have to
offer a well-rounded education,” Wolfe said. “You need more that just
the [current core subjects].”
Supporters of arts education say it helps kids learn the kinds of
critical thinking skills that upcoming Common Core testing will measure.
“The Common Core Standards bus is leaving the station and we need to be
on that bus,” California Arts Council Director Craig Watson said. “Arts
should be considered on equal footing on a school district’s priority
list.”
Watson pointed to a study by UCLA professor Dr. James Catteral that
low-income students who were highly engaged in performing arts at their
middle or high school did better in college, tended to be more satisfied
with their chosen fields and participated more in the political process
than the group that did not have a strong arts background.
Pierandozzi also views music, dance and other art forms as not just a
supplement to a student’s education, but a tool for engagement.
“There’s a cultural component to art that appeals to kids,” she said.
“There’s a magical, transformative quality to the arts. It really speaks
to the soul.”
Zimmer is calling for Deasy to produce a written report on budget priorities that includes plans for music and arts spending.
“I don’t know where it will be [in that report],” Zimmer said of arts education plans, “but I expect it to be there.”
_______________
►WILSHIRE CREST AMONG 20 SCHOOLS THAT LOST ARTS+MUSIC TEACHERS DURING
WINTER BREAK DESPITE LAUSD’s COMMITTMENT TO ‘GRADUALLY INCREASE’ ARTS ED
Mary Plummer | kpcc 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1mbbXuZ
January 17th, 2014, 6:01am :: The music program at his school Wilshire
Crest Elementary was cut due to low enrollment numbers. His music
teacher was transferred to Avalon Gardens Elementary School in South LA,
which had increased enrollment.
As the first day of spring semester kicked off Monday, Jocelyn Duarte,
of mid-city Los Angeles, was back to the hustle of getting her kids out
the door to Wilshire Crest Elementary School.
She juggled backpacks, lunch pails and winter break homework
assignments. The paint on her son Julian's diorama book project was
still wet from the finishing touches he'd just added.
But one thing was missing: Julian's snare drum.
"What's going to be different is that we're going to go to school and we're not going to have our music program," Duarte said.
Days before the kids went off on break in December, Duarte and other
parents at the school found out they would lose their music teacher -
who had been coming once a week since school started. Students had to
hand their instruments back on Dec. 17. They'd been expecting to play
all year.
"Everything was so short notice," she said.
Wilshire Crest is one of 20 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School
District losing a day of arts instruction for second semester because
student enrollment numbers dropped.
Other schools in the district benefited from enrollment changes: 40
received an additional day of arts instruction for second semester,
according to the district's arts branch.
Four new arts teachers were hired to accommodate the change in student
enrollment - two visual arts teachers, a dance teacher and a theater
teacher, according to Steven McCarthy, the district's K-12 arts
coordinator.
The mid-year flip-flop is a symptom of the district's larger problem: it
does not have enough arts teachers to go around. Thousands of students
get no arts instruction at all.
"I don't know what other kids were thinking, but I was pretty sad," said
Julian Cea, Duarte's son, remembering the moment he learned he was
losing his music teacher. "I think it's a bad thing."
Traditionally, elementary orchestra programs like the one at Wilshire
Crest have always been year long programs. Schools would have to commit
to an entire year to participate.
McCarthy said this was the first year his department had been asked to
look at the "norm numbers" - a one-day enrollment picture all districts
take about six weeks into the school year. Teachers are assigned to
schools based on enrollment data.
"This is essential to maintain equity across the district," McCarthy
said. He said schools should expect the same process next year.
The school district's arts efforts are coming back from years of harsh
budget cuts - over the summer it released its new arts plan, which
called for a "gradual increase" over the next four years of traveling
art teachers. But many details of the plan's implementation still remain
unclear. The district has yet to release a budget, which is more than
six months overdue.
McCarthy said he believed schools were notified of the mid-year arts
changes in late November, and that art teachers were notified
immediately thereafter.
"There was ample time for planning," he said. "But of course it would be
our wish that every school would get more arts so there'd be an
increase across the board."
Several teachers said they received notice during the second and third week of December - classes let out Dec. 20.
Karen Einstein, a traveling visual arts teacher, said she was notified
by the district Dec. 9 that two of her schools would be changing. She
had to give up plans for a community art show, among other things.
"I was just amazed," she said. "Emotionally it was really difficult. It felt so hard to see it severed like that."
Einstein estimated that she's taught at more than 70 LA Unified schools
since she was hired in 2003. She said a mid-year change makes it hard to
build momentum and help students build sequential skills.
Ginny Atherton, the former orchestra teacher at Wilshire Crest, said
anything less than a full year of orchestra instruction for students is a
fraud.
"Even if you do a whole year it's only a taste," said Atherton, who's
also a traveling teacher. "It's just devastating to everybody."
Atherton started at her new school, Avalon Gardens Elementary School, in South Los Angeles, on Tuesday.
She said everyone was warm and welcoming at the new school, but she
can't stop thinking about the kids she left behind at Wilshire Crest.
"In my heart, I still hope for a miracle," she said.
Duarte, Julian's mother who is PTA president at Wilshire Crest, was so
upset, she started a personal campaign to get music instruction back to
the school.
After dozens of calls, and help from the district's arts branch, she's
made a connection with Adopt the Arts, a non-profit music program that
partners with the school district.
She's crossing her fingers that the group will fill the music void starting next month - but she has no guarantees.
McCarthy said some nonprofits are using their own funding to help bring
arts back to some of the schools that have lost teachers.
●●smf’s 2¢: LAUSD is spreading not-enough Arts+Music Education thinner and thinner.
An arts education teacher has contacted 4LAKids to refute the numbers
quoted by Arts Administrator McCarthy – which already puts the
District’s commitment to Arts+Music Ed in a questionable light. The
claim is that the “new” teachers hired replace other teachers lost
through resignation, attrition and retirement. There is a great
semantic disparity between “new” and “additional”.
REVIEW FINDS HUNDREDS OF LA SCHOOL LIBRARIES WITHOUT STAFF, SHUTTERED
Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1j1ZA4F
January 16th, 2014, 6:02am :: Libraries across L.A. Unified are closing their doors.
Figures out this week show only half of L.A. Unified school libraries
have even part-time staff and far fewer have a credentialed librarian.
In a district of 768 schools libraries, there are only 98 librarians to
teach students how to find information, select a text or coordinate
reading programs. Even adding library aides to the mix, 332 school
libraries do not have staff.
Without librarians or library aides, many principals have been forced to
keep libraries locked or run them illegally with parent volunteers or
other school site staff. California law does not allow fill-ins for
trained library staff.
School board member Monica Ratliff said she had heard from parents about
closures at their schools, but it took her office months to get data
showing the scope of library cuts.
"Basically we just kept hounding and hounding the district staff until we got the information," she said.
Now with data in hand, Ratliff and school board president Richard
Vladovic want to create a "modern libraries task force" to not just
outline the current state of libraries and funding sources - but also to
explore potential collaborations with outside organizations – such as
the city library - and alternative ways to get high-need students access
to library books.
"I want us to start addressing this publicly," Ratliff said.
"Unfortunately, not much attention has been paid to these libraries and
basically what's a lack of access to resources. These libraries already
exist and they are filled with books that students can't access."
Members of the task force would likely include both a librarian and
library aide as well as people from the Los Angeles Public Library
System, UCLA and literacy focused non-profits. The task force would
submit recommendations to the school board before the creation of the
2014-2015 district budget.
Earlier records provided by the district to KPCC showed fewer shuttered libraries.
Those figures showed cuts hit middle schools the hardest — 83 percent of them are without a librarian.
Several parent groups across the Los Angeles area are digging into their
own pockets to bring back their children's libraries. A parent
fundraiser for Wonderland Avenue Elementary, in Canyon Hills, raised
$40,000 to bring in a library aide - a cheaper option than the fully
certified librarian.
IN AGE OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, LOCKDOWN IS THE NEW FIRE DRILL
By JACK HEALY, New York Times | http://nyti.ms/1aA6ls6
JAN. 17, 2014 :: The bomb threat was just a hoax, but officials at
Hebron High School near Dallas took no chances: School officials called
the police and locked down the school this week. Separately, a middle
school 2,000 miles away in Washington State went on lockdown after a
student brought a toy gun to class.
But the threat and the gun were real at Berrendo Middle School in
Roswell, N.M., where a seventh grader with a sawed-off shotgun walked
into the gymnasium and opened fire on his classmates on Tuesday,
wounding two of them. School officials and teachers, who had long
prepared for such a moment, locked down the school as police officers
and parents rushed to the scene.
For students across the country, lockdowns have become a fixture of the
school day, the duck-and-cover drills for a generation growing up in the
shadow of Columbine High School in Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Connecticut. Kindergartners learn to hide quietly behind
bookshelves. Teachers warn high school students that the glow of their
cellphones could make them targets. And parents get regular text
messages from school officials alerting them to lockdowns.
School administrators across the country have worked with police
departments in recent years to create detailed plans to secure their
schools, an effort that was redoubled after the December 2012 shootings
in Newtown, Conn. At the whiff of a threat, teachers are now instructed
to snap off the lights, lock their doors and usher their students into
corners and closets. School officials call the police. Students huddle
in their classrooms for minutes or hours, texting one another, playing
cards and board games, or just waiting until they get the all clear.
“They kept saying, ‘Lock your doors and keep everyone away from the
windows,’ ” said Rebecca Grossman, a 10th grader at Watertown High
School, outside Boston, where students have been forced to “shelter in
place” three times this school year, a less serious version of a full
lockdown.
The lockdowns were more disruptive than scary, Rebecca said, like the
time last month when a bullet was discovered in a classroom, and she and
her classmates had to stay in place for four hours. She said the litany
of false alarms was desensitizing students, who have come to see the
responses as “just an annoyance.”
The lockdowns are part of a constellation of new security measures
deployed by schools over the last decade, a complement to closed-circuit
cameras, doors that lock automatically and police officers in the
building. Most states have passed laws requiring schools to devise
safety plans, and several states, including Michigan, Kentucky and North
Dakota, specifically require lockdown drills.
Some drills are as simple as a principal making an announcement and
students sitting quietly in a darkened classroom. At other schools,
police officers and school officials playact a shooting, stalking
through the halls like gunmen and testing whether doors have been
locked.
School officials and security experts say that the lockdowns are a
modest and sensible effort to guard against the unthinkable, and that
they have helped keep students safe, calm and organized during shootings
and emergencies. And dozens of times every month, the drills become
reality.
Last month, when an 18-year-old student walked into his high school in
suburban Denver and fatally shot a classmate in the head, students
huddled in their classrooms behind locked doors as police commandos
swept the building. They were evacuated classroom by classroom, hands
over their heads, onto the snowy playing fields, all according to a plan
school officials had put in place to prepare for just such an
emergency.
“The staff and students knew how to safely lock down and then evacuate
the school,” Scott Murphy, the district schools superintendent, wrote to
parents after the shooting at Arapahoe High School in Colorado,
praising what he called a well-coordinated response. “They acted
quickly, appropriately, and bravely.”
Even without a direct threat, schools will default to a lockdown. A high
school in the San Francisco Bay Area was locked down last week as the
police in the area hunted for a carjacking suspect.
Some parents wonder whether the trend has laid a backdrop of fear and paranoia across their children’s education.
The North Carolina elementary school where Jackson Green, 5, counts to
100 and delights in celebrating classmates’ birthdays has gone into
lockdown twice this school year, once for a drill and once for real,
sending Jackson and his classmates to huddle quietly in a hidden corner
of the classroom until their teacher says everything is O.K.
On Oct. 11, the school was locked down for part of the morning after a
fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school who turned
out to be a parent. The school, which locks doors during the school day
and has cameras at entrances, alerted parents and called the police
“It speaks to the psychological conditions of these children, that
they’re alert, they’re on the lookout, that this danger is always
present for them,” Jackson’s mother, Sarah Green, said in an interview.
“It’s constantly on their minds.”
Though Jackson is still too young to understand the broader threats
behind the drills, he has absorbed their lessons so well that he has
started playing lockdown at home, Ms. Green said. “Attention everyone,
this is a lockdown!” he announces in the playroom. “Turn off the
lights!”
“For Jackson, it’s just normal,” Ms. Green said in an email. “Quite
frankly, it is horrifying that my son imposes lockdowns on his little
brother in the same way that he pretends to announce the lunch menu.”
In Louisville, Ky., the school where Rachel Hurd Anger’s daughter, Ella,
attends second grade was locked down after a man with five BB guns
walked onto the campus. A few days later, Ms. Hurd Anger said her
daughter drew a red-and-yellow emergency button and taped it to her
bedroom wall. When she presses it, she and her 4-year-old brother run to
the basement to hide. “It’s kind of like a security blanket,” Ms. Hurd
Anger said. “She doesn’t want to take it down.”
Even the preparatory drills can leave an imprint on the youngest
children. In Manhattan, Kan., Tina Steffensmeier said her first-grade
son had to hide in his classroom cubby during a drill while police
officers walked through the hallways and into classrooms, practicing how
they would ensure that the children were tucked out of a gunman’s
sight. That night, she said, he had a nightmare that a “bad guy” shot
him at school.
“He’s a sensitive kid, and it really affected him,” Ms. Steffensmeier
said. “How sad it is that our kids have to deal with this.”
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
SPECIAL ELECTION COULD TIP BALANCE ON L.A. SCHOOL
BOARD + smf’s 2¢: A vigorous and strategic successor to Marg... http://bit.ly/Kl8fDk
HANDING OUT iPADS TO STUDENTS ISN’T ENOUGH: Schools need to focus on what makes computers work, not just on ho... http://bit.ly/Kl7Ws6
HUNDREDS HONOR LAUSD’s LAMOTTE FOR DEDICATION TO EDUCATION: By Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News | http://b... http://bit.ly/LpITEA
STATE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS AND THE MESSY BUSINESS OF POLITICS: How elections in 2014 could shape education p... http://bit.ly/1h2den3
DUNCAN: ●"Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that happened to the
schools of New Orleans"; ●Opposition to Common Core comes from "white
suburban mothers who discovered that their kids aren't that smart" &
●"most teachers come from the bottom of the academic barrel" http://bit.ly/1je1dPs
IN AGE OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, LOCKDOWN IS THE NEW FIRE DRILL: By JACK HEALY, New York Times | http://nyti.ms/ ... http://bit.ly/1jflUbe
RESEARCHERS QUESTION TEACH FOR AMERICA’S STANDING: by Tom Chorneau | SI&A Cabinet Report | http://bit.ly/1eU ... http://bit.ly/1cGrwp4
A COOL MAP SHOWS SOME UGLY TRUTHS ABOUT CALIFORNIA EDUCATION: by LA School Report | http://bit.ly/19DiL4l ... http://bit.ly/1bhJJxk
FATE OF ARTS PROGRAMS REMAINS IN LIMBO: Local public schools are embracing a push to prepare students for work... http://bit.ly/1mmLbTq
WILSHIRE CREST AMONG 20 SCHOOLS THAT LOST ARTS+MUSIC TEACHERS DURING WINTER BREAK DESPITE LAUSD’s COMMITTMENT ... http://bit.ly/1j9sLTv
342 WORDS IN ONE MINUTE? transcript of Supt. Deasy’s remarks to State Bd of Ed re: LCFF/LCAP | http://bit.ly/1kGYrno
UTLA ASKS FOR PAY RAISE, RETURN OF LOST JOBS: 2 stories L.A. teachers union calls for 17... http://bit.ly/1mh075k
GOV. BROWN ADDRESSES STATE BOARD OF ED IN RARE APPEARANCE. All boardmembers are his direct appointees; they do... http://bit.ly/1mfTuQW
Deasy: “Trust me” - AFTER HEARING 300+ SPEAKERS STATE BOARD OF ED APPROVES DRAFT TEMPORARY/EMERGENCY LCFF/LCAP... http://bit.ly/K9MaaI
REVIEW FINDS HUNDREDS OF LA SCHOOL LIBRARIES WITHOUT STAFF, SHUTTERED: Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 ... http://bit.ly/1aQyc7T
National Education Policy Center’s 8th ANNUAL BUNKUM AWARDS: Recognizing the Lowlights in Educational Research... http://bit.ly/1aLhAyq
RETWEETED: Mónica Garcia [@Monica4LAUSD] was thrown off the LA County
Democratic Central Committee yesterday for not showing up to the
meetings.
UNREPORTED IN LAUSD BOARD MTG COVERAGE: Apple DOES NOT permit Pearson to present iPad curriculum content to Bo... http://bit.ly/K2uuxK
iPADS IN #LAUSD?: Boardmembers Galatzan+Zimmer work out an amendment “…to just leave it up to the superintendent” | http://bit.ly/1aouIZO
LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD IGNORES BOND COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS; GIVES SUPERITENDENT ALL THE iPADS HE THINKS HE NEED... http://bit.ly/1gKlt7k
L.A. UNIFIED NEEDS ENOUGH iPADS FOR THE TESTS: The school board should approve the purchase of more of the dev... http://bit.ly/L0Gjol
L.A. UNIFIED SURVEYS PRICES OTHERS PAY FOR iPADS, SIMILAR DEVICES: By Howard Blume. Los Angeles Times | http:/... http://bit.ly/1dhvMja
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
333 South Beaudry Avenue, Board Room
9:30 a.m., Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Public Comment
Introduction of two Board Resolutions
1. Mr. Kayser - Creating Equitable Classrooms
(For Action at the February 11, 2014 Regular Board Meeting)
2, Mr. Kayser - Extending Transparency to All Schools
(For Action at the February 11, 2014 Regular Board Meeting)
No Action Items
Recess into Closed Session
Agenda: http://bit.ly/1icBWF2
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
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