May 24, 2017 School’s out for summer and public education is not dead yet
Summer is almost here and most teachers and kids are counting the school days that remain. Me, too. It’s the end of my first school year as the president of Castelar Elementary’s booster club and I could use a vacation.
I had never thought about leading or even joining a PTA-type group, but Wendy and I got involved last spring when it turned out our experience in design, writing, and independent media–as well as flexible schedules–lent to helping our daughter’s public elementary school fight off co-location by a charter school. How dare a privately run group of outsiders take the resources and kids from Chinatown’s excellent public school, which has provided a safe place and successful learning environment for generations of underserved, immigrant, and English-learning kids?
After a succession of meetings, demonstrations, and actions with assistance from community members and public education activists, the school remained intact but the parent group was left vacant. I thought that whatever visibility I gained during the school’s struggle might be helpful to the group’s cause, and enough other parents agreed to make me president. Luckily, there has been my wife’s vision and a cabinet of friends versed in local politics, community organizing, and finance to support a guy like me with no experience.
This school year started off with some uncertainty when our principal was reassigned and the search for a new one began, but in the meantime we tried to support teachers however we could and make the year as enjoyable as possible for the students. We introduced events like a Math/Science Night, brought back the school’s Halloween maze, and invited a friend to speak to the students. Kim Nguyen’s parents were refugees from Vietnam, but she attended Castelar and went on to be elected judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court. What an inspiring story for local kids to hear!
Principal Wing Fung has turned out to be a supremely qualified, well-connected, and good-humored person who happens to have attended Castelar when he was a kid. I consider ourselves very lucky to have our school’s leadership–and entire staff–be capable in serving the students, teachers, and neighborhood. On top of that they are open-minded to unorthodox fund raising efforts like the Save Music in Chinatown punk rock matinees that my family has been organizing for four years now. Our Assistant Principal Sal Sandoval and his family have attended and helped out at every one.
While we’ve continued to pack the school year with a lot of cool, new activities that have created excitement on campus, engaged Chinatown, raised money for specific causes, and will make the school year memorable for the kids, I’m still no expert. I especially have a lot to learn about leading, communicating, and big-picture stuff. On top of that, there’s a collective of Chinatown activists fighting gentrification that I’ve joined. This is all unplanned, alien, and a little overwhelming for me and Wendy, but it’s very rewarding and a little bit poetic for us to make a difference in the underserved neighborhood where my immigrant grandparents and in-laws and now our daughter have found a home. We’ve been learning and growing at least as much as she has, and I think it’s healthy for her to see us do that as well.
While my tenure as president could end next week, I don’t see an end to our volunteering at school–especially in light of national and local elections, promoting privatizers like Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos and removing public educators like Steve Zimmer, that will result in stripping away funding from public education, specifically targeting low-income, high-need schools like Castelar as well as special needs kids. It’s not like the arts or music will be gaining more funding any time soon, either. (Who’s ready for next year’s Art Night?)
To all the other parents and activists out there, have a great summer and get ready another year of being involved with your neighborhood school, supporting public education, supporting teachers, and building your community. It is perhaps one the humblest forms of activism but also one the purest, with tangible results and benefits to kids, our communities, and the future.