A journal:
A quick tour of the playground, a concrete strip of landing-field proportions. Kids running, doing calisthenics, playing volleyball. Typical American scene except hardly anyone speaks English.
The bell rings. Kids scatter to class. First item of business: Fabian Serrano, 9, returns after a three-day suspension for scrawling graffiti on a wall. Mother, sister and aunt come into my office, concerned and apologetic. “You must respect your school as much as your home,” intones vice principal Peter Riddal. Somebody translates. The relatives nod. Fabian smirks.
Beatriz S., fresh from Guatemala, registers her three girls, 6,7 and 9. None has ever attended school. (Miles has kids from every country in Central America, more than half of them here illegally.)
The cafeteria. Myrna Foster and her staff of 13 will serve 2,400 meals today, nearly all paid for with federal free-lunch vouchers. What’ for breakfast? “Hot dog.” Lunch? “Hot dog.”
Lucille Niki’s second grade. Kids’ drawings and teaching aids taped on the walls: WHAT TIME IS IT? ?QUE HORA ES? Half her 36 kids are quietly playing or drawing; the others sit at her feet for their daily reading lesson. There’s no time for catch-up, no individual attention. " Kids who need special help get left behind," says Niki. Her frustration pours out. “I’m a good teacher, yet many of my kids will end up illiterate.”
Police detective Ray Martin takes charge of a parent-teachers’ meeting on violence in the schools. “Gangs begin recruiting as early as age 8.” Miles is pretty safe; but next door, at the junior high, kids pack guns. “By the time they’re 12,” Martin tells me, “some of these children will be terrorists. "
At district headquarters, the annual “Enrollment Road Show.” Principals and administrators meet to divvy up students and teachers. Two thirds of L.A.’s schools are “maxed out,” says administrator Grant Lansan. “In two or three years, there won’t be any more space.” Then you’ll get 40 or even 50 kids to a class.
Meeting with Terri Rogers, Los Angeles Department of Childrens Services. A fifth grader, 14, is allegedly molesting his two sisters, 6 and 10. The parents deny everything, partly because they are illegal aliens and fear deportation. “I’m afraid of my brother,” the 6-year-old had told Rogers. “It hurts.”
An abstract discussion with staff over lunch. Is America a “melting pot” or a “salad bowl”? Says one teacher: “We must cherish ethnic uniqueness, not ‘melt’ everyone together.” It occurs to me that either way, L.A. isn’t coping very well.
Nurse Angelina Nicolas has seen more than 50 kids today, mostly for lice, eye and ear infections and other hygiene problems. “This is often the only medical attention these kids ever get,” she says. Miles is lucky: many L.A. schools have no nurse.
At last, something more heartening. Kids enthusiastically working in a dazzling computer lab, donated by Apple and IBM. A talk with “CrossAge Tutors,” older kids who take younger children in hand, helping them with sports or classwork and instilling a new sense of self-esteem.
School’s out. Thousands of kids return to the playground, where many stay until evening without supervision. Elizabeth Lamori, a second-grade teacher, prepares crayon and paint boxes for the morning. Not standard school issue; she bought them herself. “This is a battlefield,” she says. “But we’re surviving, and the children are happy.” Are they also learning? A pause. “Most are,” she finally answers.
A conversation with Betty Morin, the real principal. She hasn’t given me genuine responsibility; the job is too important to fool around. Miles is not just a school, nor are its teachers merely teachers. " We are social workers, family counselors, day-care providers and stand-in parents,” Morin tells me. It’s demanding work, and increasingly thankless. “Everyone says the schools are a mess. That teachers have to do better. But we’re on overload. Our budget was chopped 15 percent last year, and 20 percent the year before. Where is public support for education?”
Miles works wonders with what it has, I’ve discovered. Betty Morin runs the place with military efficiency. But the real problem is moneynot enough money for schools and teachers, not enough for the children. Miles spends about $4,000 per student each year, well below the national average and about half the amount spent by New York. I think about that, driving home to West Los Angeles, where palm trees blow in ocean breezes and every house seems to cost a million dollars.
‘The most important job in the world’: One-day principle and pupils (LESTER SLOAN)
