Thread: DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM Liberal leaves 'Latino...campus'

http://news.newspress.com/topsports/022 ... 299&tref=1

DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM

2/24/05
By CAMILLA COHEE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Advocate for staying joins fleeing parents

Harding Elementary School PTA President Meredith Brace has led a battle for several years to stop her white neighbors from transferring out of the heavily Latino Westside campus.

Now she's joining them, saying she's not willing to make her son the guinea pig any longer.

The Braces are like hundreds of other local families who, over the years, have sought transfers out of neighborhood schools that are filled with mostly poor Latino children.

"I'm gone," said Mrs. Brace, who on Tuesday requested and was granted a transfer for her first-grade son out of Harding and into the more affluent Hope School, within the nearby Hope Elementary District. "I've just got to the point where, 'Sorry guys, I need what's best for my kids and there's a school that's two miles away that offers all those things I want.' "

About 40 percent of the 462 students at Hope School are there on transfers from the Goleta or Santa Barbara elementary districts.

Some school officials and neighborhood families view Mrs. Brace's departure as a red flag. If someone who has advocated so fiercely against white flight won't stick it out, who will?

A liberal whose father is Superior Court Judge George Eskin and stepmother is former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mrs. Brace had been considered over the years as the Great White Hope for Harding.

"This is a major blow," said Santa Barbara school trustee Bob Noel. "Meredith was kind of like Supermom in terms of doing things for her school. . . . You can read racism into this, but I read more of an issue of social class. People don't want to look and see their kid is in a classroom where most of the students are underachievers and where friendship circle possibilities are very, very small because they don't speak the same language."


Harding is 90 percent Latino, 6 percent white. Hope is 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino. Hope families have raised enough money every year to keep on staff an array of specialists in art, music, computers and science -- all the "extras" Mrs. Brace wants for her son, who is 7, and her 4-year-old daughter.

As PTA president, Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding.

"We made it so affordable, $20 for a six- to eight-week session. We told everybody, 'Come on, do something extra for your kids.' We had so few people sign up, we had to eliminate a lot of the classes," she said. "I've met some very lovely people, but we have nothing in common. Every time my husband and I would go over for an event, my husband would feel like it was his first time. We haven't made any friends."


Harding parent Cristina Hernandez said she's seen the school's racial mix change, but that Mrs. Brace shouldn't give up.

"I've been here 14 years now, and all of a sudden we turned around and all the white parents had gone," she said, speaking in Spanish. "They don't want their children side by side with our children. (Mrs. Brace) shouldn't leave. She should stay and keep fighting."


It was about three years ago, before her son entered kindergarten, that Mrs. Brace started going door to door touting Harding's achievements, trying to convince her neighbors to join her in giving the school a try. She even took on the PTA president post before her son had entered kindergarten.

Once her son started, she remained PTA president, volunteered in the classroom, boosted fund-raising efforts, and continued to hold regular neighborhood meetings to make other white families feel comfortable with the campus. While she said she's not bilingual, she used the Spanish she picked up while living in Costa Rica and Mexico to try to connect with Latino parents.

Some of the white families she had convinced to enroll their kids at Harding later bailed out. She said her son has struggled to make friends.

"He hasn't been invited to a birthday party. There is absolutely no after-school interaction," she said. "For his birthday, he invited four of his classmates. Only one came."

Then she was miffed that her skills -- she's a credentialed librarian -- weren't capitalized on in her son's classroom.

Another Harding mother and friend of the Braces, Brenda McDonald, said she had independently decided to transfer her kindergartner out of the campus. Mrs. McDonald is also considering Hope School, or Washington Elementary, which is still within the Santa Barbara district.

"At Harding, the teachers are wonderful. The principal is great. It's the socioeconomic chasm. It's not a gap, it's a huge difference in the population," said Mrs. McDonald, who described herself as a middle-class professional. "We don't have a lot in common with the other families. At the same time, do I want to drive five days a week now every day for the next six years? Then again, if half of the Westside is going in that direction, maybe we can carpool."


Superintendent of Santa Barbara schools Brian Sarvis granted Mrs. Brace's transfer request it "with regrets."


"It's a big loss to the school," Mr. Sarvis said. "But I see Meredith as a parent making the best choice for their child, and other parents making other choices for their children. I don't think any one parent is that critical, but that's not to take anything away from Meredith. She has been wonderful."


Mrs. Brace says she'll stick with her PTA president post until a replacement is found, even though her son starts at Hope School today. Over the years, she has criticized district officials for maintaining open enrollment as an easy way out. Now it's a policy she is taking advantage of.

"They keep telling me, 'No, Meredith, we've got to keep options open to parents or they'll leave.' It's so plain and simple. It's created such segregation. It's left us with a situation that is almost gotten beyond repair."


She said the policy allowing transfers within the district -- and outside of the district when a parent comes up with a valid reason -- has destroyed many neighborhood schools by exacerbating white flight.

With her 4-year-old daughter getting ready to enter kindergarten, Mrs. Brace had recently been courting a dozen other white families in her neighborhood who have children of the same age.

"Every single one of them is going somewhere else, and they had all looked at Harding," she said. "I said to myself, this is not getting any better, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is not the teacher's fault, or the principal's fault. They're wonderful."


At Harding on Wednesday, mom Amy Voss and her son, second-grader Eric Voss, said they're pleased with the school and planning on staying.

"I like Harding a lot," Eric said. "They got good friends, good teachers. Mrs. Schwyzer is the best."


Teacher Carol Schwyzer has been at Harding since 1991. She described Mrs. Brace as heroic for even taking on the challenge.

"It's sad to see Meredith go. She had such wonderful energy. But is it OK? Yes, we are OK," she said. "We are doing the best we can with who comes through the door. We love our students."


At the same time, Mrs. Schwyzer isn't pleased that Harding has gone from the diverse school it was when she first arrived to the racially isolated campus it is today.

"It's not OK, but it would take a major shake-up on a more systemic level to fix things now," she said. "That balance has tipped too far.

"You see what Meredith was fighting against. She had a vision of how things should be, and she didn't see why she couldn't bring other people along. We have to be sad that it didn't work out."

e-mail: ccohee@newspress.com

STEVE MALONE / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS

Meredith Brace picks up paperwork on Tuesday to transfer her son out of Harding School.

http://news.newspress.com/topsports/022 ... 299&tref=1

DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM

2/24/05
By CAMILLA COHEE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Advocate for staying joins fleeing parents

Harding Elementary School PTA President Meredith Brace has led a battle for several years to stop her white neighbors from transferring out of the heavily Latino Westside campus.

Now she's joining them, saying she's not willing to make her son the guinea pig any longer.

The Braces are like hundreds of other local families who, over the years, have sought transfers out of neighborhood schools that are filled with mostly poor Latino children.

"I'm gone," said Mrs. Brace, who on Tuesday requested and was granted a transfer for her first-grade son out of Harding and into the more affluent Hope School, within the nearby Hope Elementary District. "I've just got to the point where, 'Sorry guys, I need what's best for my kids and there's a school that's two miles away that offers all those things I want.' "

About 40 percent of the 462 students at Hope School are there on transfers from the Goleta or Santa Barbara elementary districts.

Some school officials and neighborhood families view Mrs. Brace's departure as a red flag. If someone who has advocated so fiercely against white flight won't stick it out, who will?

A liberal whose father is Superior Court Judge George Eskin and stepmother is former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mrs. Brace had been considered over the years as the Great White Hope for Harding.

"This is a major blow," said Santa Barbara school trustee Bob Noel. "Meredith was kind of like Supermom in terms of doing things for her school. . . . You can read racism into this, but I read more of an issue of social class. People don't want to look and see their kid is in a classroom where most of the students are underachievers and where friendship circle possibilities are very, very small because they don't speak the same language."


Harding is 90 percent Latino, 6 percent white. Hope is 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino. Hope families have raised enough money every year to keep on staff an array of specialists in art, music, computers and science -- all the "extras" Mrs. Brace wants for her son, who is 7, and her 4-year-old daughter.

As PTA president, Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding.

"We made it so affordable, $20 for a six- to eight-week session. We told everybody, 'Come on, do something extra for your kids.' We had so few people sign up, we had to eliminate a lot of the classes," she said. "I've met some very lovely people, but we have nothing in common. Every time my husband and I would go over for an event, my husband would feel like it was his first time. We haven't made any friends."


Harding parent Cristina Hernandez said she's seen the school's racial mix change, but that Mrs. Brace shouldn't give up.

"I've been here 14 years now, and all of a sudden we turned around and all the white parents had gone," she said, speaking in Spanish. "They don't want their children side by side with our children. (Mrs. Brace) shouldn't leave. She should stay and keep fighting."


It was about three years ago, before her son entered kindergarten, that Mrs. Brace started going door to door touting Harding's achievements, trying to convince her neighbors to join her in giving the school a try. She even took on the PTA president post before her son had entered kindergarten.

Once her son started, she remained PTA president, volunteered in the classroom, boosted fund-raising efforts, and continued to hold regular neighborhood meetings to make other white families feel comfortable with the campus. While she said she's not bilingual, she used the Spanish she picked up while living in Costa Rica and Mexico to try to connect with Latino parents.

Some of the white families she had convinced to enroll their kids at Harding later bailed out. She said her son has struggled to make friends.

"He hasn't been invited to a birthday party. There is absolutely no after-school interaction," she said. "For his birthday, he invited four of his classmates. Only one came."

Then she was miffed that her skills -- she's a credentialed librarian -- weren't capitalized on in her son's classroom.

Another Harding mother and friend of the Braces, Brenda McDonald, said she had independently decided to transfer her kindergartner out of the campus. Mrs. McDonald is also considering Hope School, or Washington Elementary, which is still within the Santa Barbara district.

"At Harding, the teachers are wonderful. The principal is great. It's the socioeconomic chasm. It's not a gap, it's a huge difference in the population," said Mrs. McDonald, who described herself as a middle-class professional. "We don't have a lot in common with the other families. At the same time, do I want to drive five days a week now every day for the next six years? Then again, if half of the Westside is going in that direction, maybe we can carpool."


Superintendent of Santa Barbara schools Brian Sarvis granted Mrs. Brace's transfer request it "with regrets."


"It's a big loss to the school," Mr. Sarvis said. "But I see Meredith as a parent making the best choice for their child, and other parents making other choices for their children. I don't think any one parent is that critical, but that's not to take anything away from Meredith. She has been wonderful."


Mrs. Brace says she'll stick with her PTA president post until a replacement is found, even though her son starts at Hope School today. Over the years, she has criticized district officials for maintaining open enrollment as an easy way out. Now it's a policy she is taking advantage of.

"They keep telling me, 'No, Meredith, we've got to keep options open to parents or they'll leave.' It's so plain and simple. It's created such segregation. It's left us with a situation that is almost gotten beyond repair."


She said the policy allowing transfers within the district -- and outside of the district when a parent comes up with a valid reason -- has destroyed many neighborhood schools by exacerbating white flight.

With her 4-year-old daughter getting ready to enter kindergarten, Mrs. Brace had recently been courting a dozen other white families in her neighborhood who have children of the same age.

"Every single one of them is going somewhere else, and they had all looked at Harding," she said. "I said to myself, this is not getting any better, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is not the teacher's fault, or the principal's fault. They're wonderful."


At Harding on Wednesday, mom Amy Voss and her son, second-grader Eric Voss, said they're pleased with the school and planning on staying.

"I like Harding a lot," Eric said. "They got good friends, good teachers. Mrs. Schwyzer is the best."


Teacher Carol Schwyzer has been at Harding since 1991. She described Mrs. Brace as heroic for even taking on the challenge.

"It's sad to see Meredith go. She had such wonderful energy. But is it OK? Yes, we are OK," she said. "We are doing the best we can with who comes through the door. We love our students."


At the same time, Mrs. Schwyzer isn't pleased that Harding has gone from the diverse school it was when she first arrived to the racially isolated campus it is today.

"It's not OK, but it would take a major shake-up on a more systemic level to fix things now," she said. "That balance has tipped too far.

"You see what Meredith was fighting against. She had a vision of how things should be, and she didn't see why she couldn't bring other people along. We have to be sad that it didn't work out."

e-mail: ccohee@newspress.com

STEVE MALONE / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS

Meredith Brace picks up paperwork on Tuesday to transfer her son out of Harding School.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351404/posts

And there's more:

"I've got the same problem, to a lesser degree. I live in posh Montgomery County, Maryland, which is one of the collar counties of Washington DC. The liberal government here decided, some years ago, to inflict upon the residents a social experiment: they mandated that any development with more than 65 housing units had to have "moderate income" housing. For "moderate-income" read "welfare recipients." This means that our subdivision, which has both middle-income and doctor-lawyer neighborhoods, also has many residents who are crackheads or are too drunk to send their children to the neighborhood school in the morning.
More and more white families are trying to send their kids to private schools instead of the fine new community school, but there really aren't many private schools around here--it's a bloody long commute to a private school in the morning, even if you can afford it. If you can't come up with an extra $50,000 per year to send two children to private school, like me, your kids will not have many friends in the public school.

My son, now finishing fifth grade in an increasingly dark neighborhood school, adores the school and his teachers but hasn't made many friends. The friends he's made have been black, not Hispanic. The black kids are Americans and share our values and interests. The Hispanic kids try to beat him up because his hair is blonde and his eyes are blue. Some of the kids are very nice, but again, as in the article, we just don't have much in common. My kid rides horses and does historic reenacting for a hobby and lives in a house full of antiques; his parents are an editor and a scientist. What's he going to have in common with these unfortunate children, some of whom live in shocking filth? They resent him, and I don't blame them. When we try to reach out to them they steal from us."

--

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351404/posts

And there's more:

"I've got the same problem, to a lesser degree. I live in posh Montgomery County, Maryland, which is one of the collar counties of Washington DC. The liberal government here decided, some years ago, to inflict upon the residents a social experiment: they mandated that any development with more than 65 housing units had to have "moderate income" housing. For "moderate-income" read "welfare recipients." This means that our subdivision, which has both middle-income and doctor-lawyer neighborhoods, also has many residents who are crackheads or are too drunk to send their children to the neighborhood school in the morning.
More and more white families are trying to send their kids to private schools instead of the fine new community school, but there really aren't many private schools around here--it's a bloody long commute to a private school in the morning, even if you can afford it. If you can't come up with an extra $50,000 per year to send two children to private school, like me, your kids will not have many friends in the public school.

My son, now finishing fifth grade in an increasingly dark neighborhood school, adores the school and his teachers but hasn't made many friends. The friends he's made have been black, not Hispanic. The black kids are Americans and share our values and interests. The Hispanic kids try to beat him up because his hair is blonde and his eyes are blue. Some of the kids are very nice, but again, as in the article, we just don't have much in common. My kid rides horses and does historic reenacting for a hobby and lives in a house full of antiques; his parents are an editor and a scientist. What's he going to have in common with these unfortunate children, some of whom live in shocking filth? They resent him, and I don't blame them. When we try to reach out to them they steal from us."

--