"There is a moral question that needs to be asked; is it right for Citizens of the World to be given the ability to harm their host school students?"
"- Angie Romo
In her contribution to the Voices From The Community series, Francine Matthews-Flores shared her experience of having Hollywood money used to take space from public school students for the benefit of the Citizens of the World (COTW) nationwide chain of charter schools. Having been successful with their efforts at Shirley Avenue Elementary School, COTW then requested space at Bassett Street Elementary School, a campus that is just a few miles to the east of Shirley.
Angie Romo has taught at Bassett for the past 28 years and has a deep connection to the school. In this latest installment of Voices From The Community, Romo shares her observations as her students face an invasion from a charter school. She begins by detailing the underhanded methods that COTW used to plan their conquest:
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The community at Bassett Street Elementary School was excited when two people showed up at our campus last fall and presented themselves as location scouts for some kind of movie or TV show. When you are a Title I school like Bassett, funding is always in short supply. A fee from a production company can give students opportunities that they would not otherwise have. This money can be used to buy new computers that will allow students to edit video projects. It can expand their horizons by paying for new book titles in our library. Our Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) classes can be enhanced with supplies not covered by the district.
With a map of our school in their hands, these location scouts asked our principal to show them the Bassett campus. The principal jumped at the chance to show off the school because it seemed like a good opportunity for the students. As he opened up rooms and buildings, the scouts took careful notes.
No movie or TV show was ever filmed at Bassett as a result of the tour. In fact, those being shown around the school were not even location scouts. They were instead operatives from the Citizens of the World (COTW) national chain of charter schools. This network of publicly funded, privately managed schools were scouting Bassett to see which classrooms they could take for their use.
The map that the COTW operatives carried around our campus showed them what they could take from Bassett. The map above tells a powerful story of previous conquests. It shows the LAUSD and charter schools in the area of the San Fernando Valley where I have lived most of my adult life. Near the center is Bassett which is circled in blue. The red dots are independent charters, the red squares are public schools converted into independent charters and the yellow highlights are independent charters who are co-located on public school campuses. Co-locations are when independent charters take classrooms from public neighborhood schools for their own privately run program that has little public oversight.
Adding a yellow highlight to a public school hurts the students who attend that school by eliminating space for academic programs, special education services, and after-school services. Having already conquered Shirley Avenue Elementary School to the east of our campus, COTW has now set its sights on Bassett. If they have their way, Bassett will join its neighboring schools by being highlighted in yellow as a conquered public school campus.
PROP-39 is the law in California that allows COTW and other charter schools the ability to invade public school campuses, but there is a moral question that needs to be asked; is it right for COTW to be given the ability to harm their host school students? Is it acceptable for COTW to take the classroom where Special Ed students receive focused specialized instruction? Should Bassett students lose the rooms where they experience hands-on discovery through STEAM lessons, build the robots where Bassett students have won a statewide competition, or the computer room where fourth and fifth graders research and create digital presentations? PROP-39 may be legal in California but it is undermining the greater good in the valley.
In the area directly around Bassett, the map makes it clear that our neighborhood is saturated with charters. This means that students are being cannibalized from public schools which harms the funding streams for their students. In short, dollars follow students who leave forcing those left behind to cover fixed costs. It is also impacting other charter students forcing COTW to engage in aggressive and ethically challenged recruiting practices when they can not find legitimate customers.
Pull back on the map and it becomes apparent that students who are in more affluent areas are not subject to this same influx of charter schools on their campuses. These schools do not have fake location scouts spying on their campuses looking for which space is the best to invade. They also do not feel the pressure to hand over their classrooms to investor-driven schools like COTW. Instead, it is economically disadvantaged BIPOC students at the schools surrounding Bassett that are paying the price as charter schools resegregate our schools.
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Carl Petersen is a parent, an advocate for students with special education needs, an elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council, a member of the LAUSD's CAC, and was a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race. During the campaign, the Network for Public Education (NPE) Action endorsed him, and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a "strong supporter of public schools." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.