Adam Benitez is a parent in Los Angeles who writes a blog about the “folly of errors” that accompany charter school co-location.
I confess that I had not seen his blog before, but now I know about it.
It seems that one of our readers (Allie Wall) wrote a comment on the post called “Stupid in Florida” and linked to one of the posts on Adam’s blog.
Adam suddenly saw a surge in readers and checked to see why.
They were readers of this blog checking out his blog.
I went skimming through his previous posts and found them to be a valuable parents’ view of co-location and the damage that co-locations do to authentic communities.
Go and look for yourself.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve been huge fan of Adam’s blog since it started.
His / his fellow parents’ story is that of middle- and lower-income
community who banded together and successfully protested and
pushed out a big-money charter chain—Citizens of the World (CWC)—
that had invaded his kids’ traditional public school
Stoner Elementary School’s campus, in the process wreaking
utter havoc, both on campus, and in the surrounding
neighborhood.
From CWC’s moving-in on, this created havoc for Stoner
community during its first and only school year
2013-2014.
The story has a the traditional “underdog” hero’s journey story arc,
with setback after setback, ending in an ultimate triumph.
(CWC is run at the national level by Eric Grannis,
the husband of Eva Moskowitz.)
After CWC left just one-year into its co-location
(2013-2014), leaving in June 2013, Adam
had the following encounter:
“You Weren’t Supposed to Win.”
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/06/del-rey-style-2-st-gs-carnival-you.html
Adam ran into a Stoner teacher’s aide at a summer
festival She was impressed with outcome,
as Stoner administration had reluctanly told
the Stoner staff that, like it or not CWC was here
to stay.:
“You weren’t supposed to win.”
After going the 2014-2015 year charter-free,
LAUSD’s Jose Cole-Guttierez, perhaps in
retaliation against Adam’s successfully defeating
the big money charter world, is now putting another
high-powered charter (ICEF) on its campus.
… so the struggle goes on. Trouble has already started.
If the ICEF co-location story is one-tenth as entertaining as the CWC co-location story, then pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show.
Here’s some more details about the anti-co-location blog by Stoner Elementary parent Adam Benitez:
Parent activist Adam Benitez chronicled in detail CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s one-year invasion of Stoner Elementary in the Mar Vista Neighborhood in this highly entertaining blog here:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/
Note, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s co-location at Benitez’ kid’s public school Stoner lasted but one year—2013-2014—before its officials outrageous conduct and the parent activism opposing CITIZENS OF THE WORLD drove them out. Benitez is reportedly writing a book about this horrific year, adapting his blog entries.
—————-
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 2013-2014 BATTLE AGAINST THE
Citizens of the World CO-LOCATION:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/05/cwc-parent-caught-vandalizing.html
— “The Stolen Yard Signs” — A pro-CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parent grabbed all the anti-CITIZENS OF THE WORLD yard signs that neighbors had posted on their lawns. Benitez and his wife found the signs in the backseat of this parent’s car. When confronted, the vandalizing thief-of-a-parent claimed “that the wind blew them there.” He’s being prosecuted.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/04/flashback-cwc-admin-meets-with-stoner.html
— “Combination Lock”—instead of hiring a security guard to sit and watch the fence entrance to the campus—that serves as entry to both CITIZENS OF THE WORLD and Stoner campuses—CITIZENS OF THE WORLD officials cheaped out, and gave out the combination to the lock to all of its parents…. thereby putting the safety of both schools’ students at risk… as now hundreds of people now had the combo, and can get onto the campus whenever one of them felt like it.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/07/flashback-cwc-karma-tickets.html
— “Karma Tickets”—the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD morning drop-off was a street-clogging disaster, greatly inconveniencing the neighbors (some Stoner parents, some not), who then called L.A. Parking Enforcement on CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parents’ illegally parking their cars while dropping their kids off, resulting in parking fines.
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD responded by handing the neighbors packets of newly-created “Karma Tickets” that the neighbors could put on the parents’ cars’ windshields instead. The design and font resembled actual L.A. parking tickets.
As Benitez said, that’s like having your dogs dump all over the neighborhood, then handing out plastic bags to the neighbors for THEM to all those dumps up.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2015/03/bombshell-cwc-docs-released-follow-up-4.html
— “The Naked Student Hose Down”—after a CITIZENS OF THE WORLD student had a bathroom accident, the child’s (uncredentialed?) teacher took the child outside and, in plain view of those in school community, as well as those citizens in the neighborhood and… I’m not making this up… stripped the child naked, the proceeded to hose him down with a garden hose, like he was livestock on a farm. In addition to being child abuse and outrageous, it posed a health hazard to the kids at both schools.
When confronted, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD officials were like… “Yeah.. so what? It’s no big deal… Get over it… ” but then stonewalled the release of any of its internal documents, then redacted them when they were later forced by a Freedom of Information request.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/06/flashback-cwc-protest-1-whats-in-gate.html
and my personal favorite…
— “The Strangler Vine Metaphor”—captured on video, one of the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parents let the mask drop, and signaled CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s true intentions—not co-location, but conquest; he compared CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s school to a young and healthy tree sending out “strangler vines” to strangle the older, rotting, dying tree standing next to it (Stoner Elementary):
Here’s that video: (at 03:23)
(you can see Karen Wolfe, pro-public education parent activist and regular blogger here, FRAME RIGHT)
——————
(at 03:23)
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: (at 03:23) “He’s saying that if this (the new CITIZENS OF THE WORLD school) ends up expanding to be a good school in the neighborhood –
KAREN WOLFE: “Oh, so that’s a good thing? So let me ask you a couple questions-”
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: “I mean if you’ve got a tree that’s dying, and the strangler (vine from the young tree) that’s healthy grows around it, eventually the rotting tree goes away.”
–
Needless to say, rhetoric such as this—comparing a beloved neighborhood school that’s served students for generations to a rotting, near-dead tree that needs to die so the charter can take its place—did not sit well with Benitez and the other Stoner Parents, as Stoner has been educating those neighborhood students for generations.
After a year (2014-2015) of being free of charter co-location, Benitez is reporting that LAUSD’s Jose Cole-Guttierez, perhaps in retaliation, is foisting another and different Charter Chain, ICEF, on the Stoner campus this fall.
Benitez is finishing up his book about this unending charter school horror that CITIZENS OF THE WORLD brought to the Stoner community. He’s currently vetting it with lawyers. Once I buy it, it’s going up on my shelf with “Chronicle of Echoes” and “Reign of Error.”
typo.. if the fifth or sixth paragraph, it should have said “June 2014″… no “June 2013).
also, wrong video for “Strangler Vine Metaphor”
TAKE TWO!
— “The Strangler Vine Metaphor”—captured on video, one of the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parents let the mask drop, and signaled CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s true intentions—not co-location, but conquest; he compared CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s school to a young and healthy tree sending out “strangler vines” to strangle the older, rotting, dying tree standing next to it (Stoner Elementary):
Here’s that video: (at 03:23) called “What’s in a Gate?”
(you can see Karen Wolfe, pro-public education parent activist and regular blogger here, FRAME RIGHT)
——————
(at 03:23)
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: (at 03:23) “He’s saying that if this (the new CITIZENS OF THE WORLD school) ends up expanding to be a good school in the neighborhood –
KAREN WOLFE: “Oh, so that’s a good thing? So let me ask you a couple questions-”
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: “I mean if you’ve got a tree that’s dying, and the strangler (vine from the young tree) that’s healthy grows around it, eventually the rotting tree goes away.”
–
Needless to say, rhetoric such as this—comparing a beloved neighborhood school that’s served students for generations to a rotting, near-dead tree that needs to die so the charter can take its place—did not sit well with Benitez and the other Stoner Parents, as Stoner has been educating those neighborhood students for generations.
Adam and his wife are fantastic public school champions in Los Angeles. I am so glad that more and more people have discovered his blog, which chronicles a Prop 39 co-location (Prop 39 is the California state law that requires school districts to offer classroom space to charter schools) at one of our neighborhood schools.
I have nothing but good things to say about them as well. Their West-side struggles against the “Citizens of the World” Corporate Charter chain mirrored those we have with the same chain in 90026.
Here’s a plug for the upcoming community protest against ICEP that Adam and the other Stoner parents are doing on Tuesday, the opening days of school: (any people from L.A. come and join in)
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2015/08/stoner-community-to-protest-icef-co.html
Here’s an article from last March, when the ICEF co-location was in its early stages:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2015/03/stoner-community-to-oppose-icef-co.html
Here’s Robert Skeels’ coverage:
http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2015/08/stoner-elementary-community-to-hold.html
Glad to hear about this. Diane’s influence is truly grassroots not the astroturfing of education oligarchs.
Diane and Mercedes Schneider’s ‘s blogs don’t require a Google sign in.
It’s possible that Adam would see a bump in his comments if Google sign-in
wasn’t required.