minnah,

You really are missing the point. You are not angry at your administration or your board, but you SHOULD be. They are the reason you are being booted out of Stoner. You didn’t lose the co-location because of the controversy surrounding your co-location at Stoner.

There is not a public school activist across the nation that wouldn’t love to believe that a rag tag group of Stoner parents and community members were able to make things happen at LAUSD, but that’s not what happened here. This happened is because of CWC’s negligence.

Actually, Lorena, I’m not angry at all – at my administration, at LAUSD, at Stoner, at anyone. I’m simply saddened by how this situation has been needlessly exploited by people who are putting their politics ahead of the needs of kids – kids who have found a public educational environment where they are developing a deep love of learning and a strong sense of community.

This was our first year as charter parents and at this location. I don’t think it’s fair to expect anything to go perfectly in the first year of what essentially is a new relationship. And now rather than use this as an opportunity to correct the mistakes that have been made and build some bridges between the two communities, the district simply is trying to make us go away. I don’t think that’s a good message to send to anyone out there – especially kids in both communities. That, Lorena, is not anger; it is disappointment.

minnah,

CWCH didn’t have a 62 page letter from the LAUSD that expressly denied all kinds of demands from CWC MarVista, e.g.., LAUSD refused CWC Mar Vista’s repeated request to let Stoner pay for janitorial services, etc.,

Accepting the co-location meant accepting the full terms of the co-location and, in the case of CWC Mar Vista, more than a verbal nod was necessary.

The plight of your families was a case of either accidental or intentional negligence on the part of your board. You should turn your anger towards your board.

You knew that securing space can be difficult when entering a charter school (unless the charter gets its own space). You lose a lot of rights when you are in charter schools. That’s the way it goes.

Regarding CWC MarVista diversity, you can twist the data by saying CWC MarVista is53% non caucasion, but it doesn’t bode well of your notion of diversity when you lump “non caucasians” into one category. CWC MarVista is majority white and affluent.

And 40% FRL? Come on. You are co-located in a school that’s at least 90% FRL (and of that, mostly F, not R). CWC’s notion of diversity is led and managed by the white & affluent.

CWCH missed the deadline, too, but yet they were allowed to stay, so clearly this is not all about a missed deadline – let’s be honest. Displacing 160 kids over a missed deadline goes against what’s best for any of these kids – we all know that. Put your politics aside for a minute and recognize that at the end of the day, Stoner will have empty classrooms again and 250 new and existing CWC kids will be subject to the stress and strain of a new location. And going back to the idea of honesty, “white” people are not the majority at CWCMV, Lorena – look at the stats. This is not some private, white, elitist school that you want to make it out to be. It’s PUBLIC. It’s DIVERSE (53% non-Caucasian, 40% FRL). It’s EXCELLENT. Why not invest more time helping making a successful co-location than fanning the flames of conflict? Let’s work together to help ALL kids get the chance to succeed in different, public, learning environments. What do you say?

Denny Rascal,
I’m a Stoner parent and i will ever teach my kids to be disrespectful or racist in any form…on the contrary my daughter walks by CWC children and says hi and the CWC mother pulls her daught away …really is there need for that? Or maybe the CWC teacher that had her class walk all over my nephews 5th grade backpacks and jackets on the play ground? Is these the future CITIZENS OF THE
WORLD??? So with that said please do not say STONER PARENTS because not all of us are the same. Just like i cant and will not say all charter schools are thesame..For instance ICEF right up the street they are a good school some Stoner kids went there and came back and were welcomed..So sinceyou like Stonerso much why not register yourchild here.We have great things happening….

If you, Lorena, turn out to be the LAUSD employee Lorena who sent that letter to Stoner parents, then I cannot wait for CWC’s lawyers to subpoena your emails and online communications. Two LAUSD employees conspiring to get a charter kicked off campus because go your political animosity toward charters. Cannot wait for this lawsuit.

Stoner is underenrolled and can accept students out if district. It happens all the time.

Yet competition between schools and an unfettered free market approach to schools has only done more damage. This leaves aside entirely the additional problems if charters as unregulated and controlled by elected board members and the even more specifically unique, undemocratic, and dangerously nepotistic no bid system that CWC has as it’s governance structure where your dole corporate member has 100% control of all 5 schools.

Denny, this kind if things happens in a lot schools- kids getting sick all over themselves and parents/guatdians unable to pick the child up. Generally a nurse takes care of the child and they don’t hose him/her down outside naked. I

And, again,I don’t think Stoner has even the slightest issue with white affluent families attending Stoner. I think the issue is creating a separate elementary school designed to make white affluent families feel comfortable inside the same building.

sufficiently meet the needs of such a complex and diverse district as LA.

Scapegoating our school and twisting the truth (ie. the poor kid who got sick that day and then was turned into a perverted talking point by Adam Benitez) is craven. We have a wonderful community, motivated parents from all around the Del Rey and surrounding neighborhoods. We are proud of our work and our continual efforts to make bridges with the majority of the community who are rational and sane. the real problem are people like you who cannot see the issue outside of your myopic viewpoint. In doing so you have become the real dividers and segregators. And I find that sad.

the TRUTH is that CWC is a community far more diverse that Stoner. There are people from all different ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic levels. I personally am white but I am not affluent. Both of my parents spent their entire lives in california public schools, my father as a teacher and my mother as an administrator. I attended CA public schools and received an incredible education. The hard fact is that those schools don’t exist anymore. Charters aren’t to blame. Demographic shifts and Prop Tax advocates are a big part of it. Also antiquated union rules (and believe me, I support unions… i’m a member of two unions myself and my parents are living off their CTA pension, so I totally support teachers but we all must admit the system is broken. The real issues are far deeper and systemic than just a bunch of “white affluent” people swooping in on public school resources to create publicly funded private schools (as you continually profess). CWC and other charter schools and magnets are about giving parents choice, providing alternate educational models and challenging the status quo in a broken and failing school district that is too big and too spread out to…

he didn’t just poop his pants. he was sick with a stomach virus and the diareah was all over his body and all of his clothing. the administrators at CWC contatcted the parents of the child who said they could not make it to the school to pick up the child for at least over an hour due to commitments at work. the administrators then walked the parent through the steps they were going to take to help clean the child and put him in dry clothing because he was extremely upset and feeling very ill. the parent agreed to every step CWC admin took and it was all done by the books with respect and dignity. the fact that activists who hate charters and specifically our community are twisting this event to try and distort the culture at CWC merely shows how depraved and desperate you are to make your point. people like you and Adam Benitez have stooped to any level to try and spin every single action at CWC in order to bolster your argument and foment hate, mistrust and division between our two schools. by doing this YOU are the ones who segregate and divide our city. You are driven by fear that your schools and community might have to be shared by “affluent” and “white” people…

What makes it a disaster, Denny? Not to mention such a disaster that rather than help the school. Which has been done numerous times before in LA, other cities, and across the country?

how can we attend Stoner if we don’t live in that district? my neightborhood school is a disaster. there’s no amount of “sleeve rolling” that’s going to save it… certainly not in my lifetime.

You’re argument doesn’t hold a lot of water, Denny. The Stoner parents wouldn’t have had an issue at all with CWC parents attending Stoner. But CWC put a majority white and wealthy elementary school in a school that’s overwhelmingly low-income parents of color.

Denny, I did not raise the issue of when CWC publicly hosed down a naked child. But, now that you mention it, I do think that matter could have been handled more privately. Not every kid who poops their pants gets hosed down outside.

The point of this entire issue is that the LAUSD had a deadline, CWC missed it, and now CWC wants to believe that deadlines don’t matter for them.

Whether or not LAUSD is or isn’t bending the prop39 rules to allow CWC MarVista to stay at Stoner is irrelevant to the contract law. The fact remains that CWC gave LAUSD the reason to deny them Stoner by not filling out the forms.

You can be as puerile as you need to be, but that doesn’t move the deadline. That’s how the real world really works.

I may not have communicated well, so I’ll clarify. Amy Held may have said that CWC wants to stay (with conditions), except Held saying that is not enough. They must fill out the paperwork which discusses full terms. And deadlines are deadlines.

Finally, Held doesn’t have the final say. The CWC LA board does. And even then, it’s really only the sole corporate member, CWCS. Somehow, CWC managed to complete the paperwork for CWC Hollywood and CWC Silverlake.

Contract is tricky, but sometimes it’s simple too. Even the lawyer concedes that CWC concedes that as they say that they’ll take anything close, except you’re not in a position to bargain.

sorry, Lorena… I missed most of what you said cause the bubbling in your bong was so loud. could you please repeat? something about deadlines and getting married and businesses giving mixed race people messages?