Bottom Line: Turmoil rocks South L.A. school named for Obama by Betty Pleasant

By Betty Pleasant
July 6, 2011

There was a time when teachers and the public school system were next to God and the church in the population’s admiration and enjoyed the unwavering support of parents and the childless alike. But not anymore. And certainly not in South Los Angeles where the public school system is coming under fire like it’s public enemy number one. Cases in point: The Los Angeles Unified School District Board’s high-handed turn-over of the public Henry Clay Middle School to the Green Dot education company last Friday, coupled with what the community views as another atrocity — the removal Tuesday of the principal of the brand new, 10-month-old and highly ballyhooed Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy.

What the school board did to Clay had already aroused so much antipathy among South L.A. residents that they organized to fight the school board, but the inner-city’s response to the school district’s action in regard to the Obama Academy has, as they say, gone viral. It seems that the Southland’s educational power brokers — John Deasy, the new LAUSD superintendent, and George McKenna, the Local District 7 superintendent — decided last week to, first, fire Veronique Wills as principal of Obama, but later chose to transfer her to the continuation school at Fremont High School, to which she reported Tuesday. Wills’ removal, for reasons the district would only tell me is “a personnel matter,” has enraged the school’s parents, teachers and community volunteers who have worked closely with Wills since the school opened in September, and they’ve been meeting and planning protests since the Fourth of July.

A middle school, the Obama Academy, located on the corner of 46th Street and Western Avenue, was hailed as a wonderful thing when it opened last Sept. 13 with 1,300 students. It was billed as a site that would relieve the overcrowding at Foshay, Mann and Muir middle schools and provide a new age student-centered, college preparatory and career readiness curriculum emphasizing math, science, technology, world languages, diplomacy and the social and economic systems of other nations. Oh, everybody just loved it: the educators, the politicians, the parents. So, what went wrong during the academy’s 10-month existence?
According to the teachers and the parents — everything, from day one.

“The Obama Academy was under-resourced all year long,” declared Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi of the MA’AT Institute for Community Change, a group which has worked closely with the school. “All this school ever got from the school district were a lot of fancy words and ideas and nothing to bring them about. They were operating on a shoe-string budget and had to cut staff to get the place open.

“We volunteered to help keep the school clean because they didn’t even have enough janitors. Ms. Wills worked very hard to bring the basic resources to the school which the district did not provide. And even if she did have the resources, she would have needed more than 10 months to make a school work,” Jitahidi said.

One of the leaders of the protesting Obama teachers said: “The school opened in September and we didn’t even get textbooks in the classrooms until November. And when the district finally gave us some, they came without codes and we — the teachers, staff and volunteers — had to code every single textbook by hand before the students could use them.” Another teacher complained that while the school opened in September, it received no Title I money until January or February; that despite its 1,300 student enrollment, it was given no campus aides, had only two office technicians and a plant management staff of five people, including only two custodians.

“If we wanted a clean classroom, we had to clean it ourselves — and we did,” the teacher said. “We had parents and community people who would help us sometimes, but it was a hard year and we had a difficult time getting our school going because we never received what we needed to operate. “But Ms. Wills was our leader and she worked tirelessly against formidable challenges. In fact, Ms. Wills, acknowledging the importance of constant parental interaction, often stayed at the school late — until 6 and 7 p.m. — to accommodate working parents who wanted to confer about their children,” the teacher said.

Another Obama teacher is quite depressed over the turn of events. “We worked hard developing the plan for this school and the district didn’t support us in carrying it. I don’t think I want to be a teacher anymore,” she said. Many of the teachers speak of a meeting McKenna had with the Obama faculty two weeks ago at which Julie Elliot, an LAUSD associate superintendent, apologized to the faculty for the problems the staff had during its first year and pointedly apologized for the district’s failure to provide the necessary resources when the school opened. She said the district will make sure nothing like that ever happens to a new school again. Elliot is also reported to have told the 30 or so teachers present at the meeting that she found no fault with the academy and that no “corrections” would be dispensed. “Imagine our shock to learn after Elliot’s speech that Ms. Wills — our principal, our leader — was being fired,” another teacher said. “They just keep playing us and blaming us. What do they want us to do? I believe we were set up to fail,” she added.

McKenna did not return my calls for an interview; Deasy was out of town, and LAUSD board member Marguerite LaMotte said: “While I’ve heard a great deal about this matter this week, I do not know the facts surrounding it. I have to investigate and ask questions of both sides to determine what has been done and why and whether it was fair to the people involved and in the best interest of the school.”

As far as Jitahidi is concerned, everything about this stinks. “Nobody knows anything, yet inner-city schools and their personnel are under assault. We’re all scratching our heads about this. Decisions are being made by unknown people for hidden reasons without input from the people. Coupled with Clay, this business at Obama is part of a continuing pattern of disrespect by the school district that targets and adversely impacts Black schools,” Jitahidi concluded.


Article found on:
http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/Bottom-Line-Turmoil-rocks-South-LA-school-named-for-Obama-125117229.html

Los Angeles Unified School District Has South Los Angeles Community Smoking Hot

By Janet Kelly
July 10, 2011

It is smoking hot in South Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, it is not the weather.  It is the parents, teachers, and community members who are enraged over the recent removal of Principal Veronique Wills at Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy on 46^th and Western Ave; and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) calculated move to hinder community involvement  in the decision making process of its local schools as part of its reform efforts.

When I say “smoking mad”, the community is at odds with LAUSD and its handling of schools in the area and think that socio-economic status have a lot to do with it. The community is blaming LAUSD Superintendent, John Deasy and Local District 7, George McKenna of circumventing plans and processes and under resourcing South Los Angeles public schools intentionally to turn them over to independent charter school operators.The community is not holding down.  It is barging forward with a full force assault on the District and its leadership.

First, let’s start with Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy.  From inception to the opening of its doors in September 2010, the school has been a hot bed of controversy.  Through eminent domain, hundreds of local homeowners were displaced so that it could be built to relieve overcrowding from nearby Horace Mann, John Muir, and Foshay middle schools.  There was an attempt from powers-that-be to push Barack Obama into Public School Choice, which would have given charter school operators and district stakeholders control over the campus.  The South Los Angeles community through its own grassroots efforts thwarted this attempt by developing a school management plan that was accepted and approved by the LAUSD Board.
Principal Veronique Wills, who was appointed by George McKenna’s predecessor, had been leading the school and engaging the community.  For some reason, her ousting from Barack Obama has many in the community screaming foul play and demanding her return as principal.

The community is making a strong case for Ms. Wills.  From the beginning of the school year, LAUSD failed to provide the necessary operating capital for this new school leaving it gravely under resourced.  The result of their sluggish funding efforts caused students to go without textbooks for two months; teachers to double as custodians; and parents and community members to fill resource gaps. It is quite evident that the approved plan by LAUSD didn’t come with money for implementation.  Therefore, Ms. Wills can’t be held accountable for the District’s failure.

South Los Angeles community member Koyaki  Kwa Jitahidi shared,   “If the Superintendent genuinely believed that Ms. Wills was struggling as principal of Obama Academy, she deserved the opportunity to have at least another year, with at least the basic resources at her disposal, to improve. However, her transfer after a mere 10 months, when she seemed to fight so hard to bring help to the school, begs one to question if there is another agenda at play. Is Obama being prepped to become a charter school? One can only speculate at this point.”

In addition to the return of Ms. Wills to Barack Obama and Mr. Jitahidi’s questioning of LAUSD’s motives, the South Los Angeles community is arduously requesting LAUSD to reinstate the stakeholder vote for Public School Choice and its usage for all other key LAUSD reform efforts.   There is an underpinning notion that LAUSD is reorganizing to hijack South Los Angeles public schools for charter school conversion and pilot schools.  Removing the stakeholder vote will make it easy for LAUSD to move towards centralized leadership and decrease community involved decision making.

One thing is for sure, South Los Angeles supporters of Principal Wills and reinstating the Public Choice stakeholder vote are not ready to cool down.  They are inviting the community and public officials to join them in solidarity at the LAUSD School Board meeting on July 12, 2011 at 1 pm to address these matters.

Article found on:
http://jdkellyenterprises.org/2011/07/10/los-angeles-unified-school-district-has-south-los-angeles-community-smoking-hot/

Reform Means Respect: A Progressive Perspective on Obama Global Preparation Academy

From its beginnings, Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy struggled in a manner not befitting of its namesake. The property on which the school sits was acquired through the controversial method of eminent domain – displacing hundreds of local homeowners in the process. Opened in September 2010 to relieve crowding from nearby middle schools, Obama Academy was immediately pushed through LAUSD’s Public School Choice process, which created a battle between charter operators like Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF) and District stakeholders over control for the campus. Despite the lobbying efforts of outside charter school groups, local parents and teachers were able to develop a school management plan that was eventually accepted and approved by the LAUSD School Board.

The leading figure behind Obama Academy’s early development was Veronique Wills. As the former principal of Foshay Learning Center, Ms. Wills had a reputation for setting high standards, supporting her staff and fighting for her students. She displayed a rare willingness to build genuine relationships between the school and community-based organizations. When the MTA began building a rail line dangerously close to Foshay, Ms. Wills joined activists to express concerns about student safety. All of these qualities were on display from the moment she was picked to be the first principal of Obama Academy.

For Ms. Wills and the staff at Obama, the beginning of the 2010 school year failed to produce any of the early optimism typical at new schools. Textbooks did not arrive until November. No campus aides. Teachers doubled as custodial staff. To compensate for the lack of support, Ms. Wills responded by working longer hours and inspiring her staff to go above and beyond to serve Obama’s 1,300 students. She built relationships with local groups like the area neighborhood council to help keep the school functioning. Despite the fact the school was set up to fail, she provided the courageous leadership expected from school principals. This is why the premeditated, politically motivated removal of Ms. Wills from Obama Academy has struck a deep chord within the hearts of school staff and community residents.

However, as the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Public Education, we will not sit idly by and allow effective leaders, like Ms. Wills, be unjustly removed from our schools. While we recognize she was not perfect, Ms. Wills did a tremendous job as principal of Obama Academy. Real school reform means that the District respects all members of the school community. That is why we are demanding the following:

1.    The immediate return of Ms. Wills as principal of Obama Academy

2.    The reinstatement of the stakeholder vote for Public School Choice and its usage for all other major reform efforts