Whats it like to go to a school in a neighborhood where violence and murder happen often?
Sonali Kohli and Iris Lee write about kids growing up in dangerous neighborhoods. How does it affect the survivors? Some suffer physical wounds, all suffer psychological wounds.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-edu-school-safety-deaths-nearby/
Gun control would help. Gun confiscation would help too. These young people need to be protected.
”Jaleyah Collier had just said goodbye to Kevin Cleveland outside a doughnut shop a few blocks from Hawkins High School on a spring afternoon in 2017. Get home safe, she told him before walking away.
“Minutes later someone drove into an alley nearby, got out of the car and asked Kevin, 17, and two others about their gang affiliation. The gunman then sprayed them with at least 10 rounds, killing Kevin and injuring the others.
“Jaleyah, then a high school sophomore, barely had time to grieve when a month later, her best friend, Alex Lomeli, 18, was shot and killed when someone tried to rob a market about a mile from the same high school, located at 60th and Hoover streets.
“In the early hours of Mother’s Day 2018, two other teens Jaleyah was close to, Monyae Jackson and La’marrion Upchurch, were walking home with friends, when they were fatally shot near Dymally High School.
“Each of Jaleyah’s friends was killed within walking distance of public high schools in Los Angeles.
“You don’t know when it’s going to be a person’s last day,” said Jaleyah, a senior at the Community Health Advocates School, one of three small schools on the Hawkins campus. “[Kevin] woke up not knowing.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many school districts should have psychological support for students that are victims gun violence and other traumas. These schools are often in under funded urban settings with large class sizes and few services available to students due to budget constraints. The students attending these schools with few support services are likely to be poor and minority. Neighborhood public schools instead of charters outside the local area also provide fewer opportunities for students to cross into rival gang territories. Common sense gun control legislation would help get some of these guns off the streets, although California has stricter gun laws than many other states. Los Angeles should figure out ways to get illegal guns off the streets and hire more gang unit officers that can work to deescalate the level of violence on the streets.https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
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I taught for thirty years in schools that were located in communities (called a barrio) that had violence and dangerous multi-generational gangs.
Hearing about deaths in the community around the schools where I taught were so common, that it lost its shock and surprise.
The good student trying to study who went across the street to ask a neighbor to please turn down his loud music or at last close his doors and windows who was shot dead and then stuffed in a storm drain.
The girlfriend of a gang banger (both students at the high school where I taught) that had to go into hiding because a rival gang put a price tag on his head so that rival gang sent him a message by executing his girlfriend who didn’t belong to the gang and was a great student.
The CPO (campus police officer) who chased a boy off campus at lunch who was supposed to be on expulsion waiting for a court trial who pulled a pistol on the CPO the minute they stepped outside the High school’s gate. Many of the hardcore gang bangers only come to school to recruit new gang members or sell drugs. That boy was one of those.
Back in the late 1970s when I was teaching at a middle school a few years before I transferred to the high school a few blocks away, I had a 12-year-old boy in my English class with a price tag on his head from a rival gang because this 12-year-old was known as a shooter and had executed several of the rival gang’s members. The rival gang found out his class schedule and one morning they were on their way to invade his first class, my first period English class, but another teacher who taught math next door to me was on his planning period and managed to stop them and chase them off campus before they could enter my classroom. They were all armed with baseball bats with the intention of taking out anyone that got in their way to execute the 12-year old shooter.
The boy on expulsion who cut across campus one dark early evening to return home from his girlfriend’s house. I was working late with the student editors of the high school paper when we heard the shotgun blasts that killed this boy right outside of the classroom where we were working. The rival gang found out his routine and was waiting to ambush him.
Another night in the mid-1990s, when we (high school newspaper editors and me) were working late again, it was dark and late, so late, the high school had turned off the HVAC system and no one was at the switchboard to take calls. Due to the heat, the classroom door that faced the sidewalk on the other side of the HS’s fence was propped open. A group of gang bangers wondered by and stopped to see what was going on inside the classroom. They saw all the girls (all the paper’s editors were female students) and decided to invade the classroom and rape them all.
I ended up in a tug of war to close the classroom door with several of these boys who had climbed the fence. I won. The girls were terrified and they were all incredible students who mostly had all A’s for their grades and every one of them went to college after graduation.
The child poverty rate at this high school at the time was 70-percent. Today, it’s up to 80-percent.
This is just a sample. The incidents the teachers and students had to deal with is much longer than this.
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After the 50 schools in Chicago were closed, children had to cross gang territory to get to their new school. How many of these children were killed? Poor black kids usually don’t make national news if they are shot.
Studies were done by the National Institutes of Health proving that living in poor neighborhoods is similar to living in a war zone. Try learning with guns and gangs blasting on the streets.
One day when I was subbing in Chicago a class discussed what they knew about what had happened on the street the night before. It was a horrible thing to listen to. DeVos never entered a poverty school and has no idea of how hard these kids lives are. Hence, ‘CHOICE’ will solve all problems. It’s certainly cheaper than doing real work to help.
………………………………
Stresses of poverty may impair learning ability in young children
The stresses of poverty — such as crowded conditions, financial worry, and lack of adequate child care — lead to impaired learning ability in children from impoverished backgrounds, according to a theory by a researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health. The theory is based on several years of studies matching stress hormone levels to behavioral and school readiness test results in young children from impoverished backgrounds.
Further, the theory holds, finding ways to reduce stress in the home and school environment could improve children’s well being and allow them to be more successful academically.
High levels of stress hormones influence the developing circuitry of children’s brains, inhibiting such higher cognitive functions such as planning, impulse and emotional control, and attention. Known collectively as executive functions, these mental abilities are important for academic success…
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/stresses-poverty-may-impair-learning-ability-young-children#.XHgzNl6cfg4.gmail
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saddest line: “‘CHOICE’ will solve all problems. It’s certainly cheaper than doing real work to help…”
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Lloyd, when you work in a “war zone” as you did, it seems absurd and trivial to be worried about test scores. Beyond the problems in the streets, many of these students also face violence, various addictions and dysfunction at home from grinding poverty.
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That wasn’t my first taste of what it was like for children living in poverty. I was born into a family living in poverty. My father was an alcoholic and a gambler. My only older brother spent 15 years of his life behind bars for a variety of crimes before he died a broken man.
The jobs my brother had to work for poverty wages to feed and shelter his dysfunctional family destroyed his health plus he smoked and drank too much.
By the time I turned seven, our parents had managed to climb out of poverty but not by much. By then my older brother and sister had also left that home and were on their own. My sister escaped the poverty she grew up in when she was eighteen and married a long hall trucker who earned good money.
And the combat zone found in many areas where poverty festers wasn’t my first experience with violence. To escape the environment I grew up in, I joined the Marines out of high school and ended up in Vietnam for a combat tour.
I curse people like Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, the Walmart Walton family and Besty DeVos who have no idea the damage they are doing to these children. I’m going easy on them by calling them “idiots”.
They were all born into wealthy, affluent families that I’m sure all lived far from any signs of poverty. The closest most if not all of these rich turds came to poverty was flying over it at 30,000 feet in their private jets.
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These stories are common across the country – by zip code.
And, as this report summarized in EdWeek states:
U.S. Spends $23 Billion More on White Districts, Report Says
The district where I work has the same stories. The gang presence is not as it was in previous decades. The difference now is the prevalence of just groups of kids (not wannabes – just groups) declaring their presence and territory on a block or school and acting out on it no matter how minor the spark.
The most significant contributors to attacks and violence in and outside? 1) guns available and 2) cell phones. Every Monday brings in the weekend texting attack drama often resulting in an attack of revenge or see-me respect in third period.
The new hot topic in schools is “Trauma Informed” Districts and Schools. Nothing new except the name. Everyone gets trained. Then what?
Ok – all important to know – – but knowing the “why?” doesn’t solve the right now – – – and we get them 7 hours a day!
WHAT IF…
For 7 hours a day no matter how difficult it is, a youngster can experience love, attention, success, care, food, shelter.
S/he can be accepted and encouraged.
S/he can be motivated someway somehow with projects and art and discovery; not worksheets and daily tests.
S/he should be able to walk to and be in class without being reminded a hundred times to “be quiet” “stay in line” “‘shut up'” “do you want me to call your mother?” “where’s your homework?” and being poked a hundred different ways. (AND – kids see right through the daily mantras and chants of their ‘morning meetings’ and incentives and behavior modification in charters that shall remain nameless).
Old school Maslow? Yes.
Old school “building agency” or “self-esteem” and “self-worth” in students? Yes.
There’s a reason we witnessed “I am a Man” placards and today, Black Lives Matter signs.
When a school establishes this for 7 hours a day – and G-d knows there ARE THOUSANDS of teachers doing this every day – maybe it spreads to the community who takes a stance against the drama and violence in every venue- church – bodega – gas station a.k.a. where folks shop – – – – “Not here!”
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Schools are ill prepared to deal with pervasive violence. That is why wrap around services are needed. These students need more support, not less.
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WHAT IF . . .
The chronically disruptive, combative, profane, threatening, and dangerous students who produce chaotic and stressful classroom, hallway, cafeteria, and locker room environments on a daily basis were routinely expelled so that the majority could learn in peace?
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…and then the cycle continues.
The “majority” make our job easy. The other students you are describing make our job important.
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And who’s waiting in the parking lot – and dealing drugs – and running guns when those kids are expelled?
Yes – wrap around services, community center at school, therapists, social workers, one-stop shopping for parents and guardians to get an ear and support and medical care at school – – church and Temple partners – businesses pitching in – – –
Idealistic and naive?
You bet.
But suspensions and testing and zero tolerance haven’t quite done the trick.
7 hours a day – no excuses –
I trust the kids with teachers and supportive administrators (supportive) who care about them to do more than society and government can any day
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Some very troubled students may need a more restrictive environment, particularly if they pose a danger to others. If they can be treated and helped, then the district should try to reintegrate them into the system. If not, they should remain in an alternative setting.
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Agree.
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Sorry to be snarky, but it is good to see Sonali Kohli, whose education articles began to appear in the wake of Eli Broad’s “donation” to the Times, writing something other than reformy. You know what, as a matter of fact, forget the snark and please allow me to rephrase: I hope the teachers strike changed the way the Times covers education, and this non-reformy Kohli article is an indication of that.
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I was interviewed yesterday by Howard Blume of the LA Times (to be accounted) and he told me the Times no longer is funded by Eli Broad. Good news! It was purchased by a new owner who saved the paper and keeps hands off the news and editorials. Its interim owners were hedge funders who only wanted the real estate, not the editorial content. That’s why the LA Times moved from downtown LA to a location by the airport. The money guys wanted the property.
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Mmm good! Thank you!
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The L.A. Times was sold to an Asian American Billionaire.
http://journal-isms.com/2018/02/l-a-times-sold-to-asian-american-billionaire/
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I’ve mainly worked in schools in violent neighborhoods, and I even lived in one in The Bronx until it started to gentrify. What I find particularly galling is when people entrusted to uphold and enforce the law do things like this:
https://www.masslive.com/springfield/2019/02/springfield-police-officer-under-review-following-arrest-of-student-in-school-hallway.html
And I find particularly galling when the administration of the school, as this one has, tries to bury this, and refuses to address it–again as the administration of this school has.
In a word: shameful.
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I’ve been in a high-crime neighborhood school for nearly 30 years now. Fortunately, we do have on-site counseling services. The bad news is that almost 30% of the students are receiving services–not bad news that they are getting some help, but bad news that so many need it. I would guess that at least another 20% need to be added to the list.
Too often, new teachers fail to understand that their primary obstacles in achieving success with their students come from stressors outside the school setting. Sometimes something as basic as having a bed overnight keeps our students from being able to stay awake in order to take part in a lesson. Other students have to work until the early hours of the morning, which while illegal, is common.
I’m constantly repeating the mantra that the students need to get the very best education they can, even though what our school offers is so substandard that it should be illegal. If they can get into a four-year college and earn a degree in a desirable field, then they can break the cycle of generational poverty.
As one of the most venerable at my school, I have seen how the students I taught years ago have not broken the cycle, so now I am targeting “my grandchildren,” the children of my former students. I plan to stay a few more years, so we’ll see if this generation does any better.
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Where are the those caring Billionaires for the student who bragged there were three books in his home, for the student who tried to sleep under the bed he shared with his mother and new baby ( the baby’s crying kept him awake), for the students whose parents dropped out after third grade (50% in one class) but who must score as well as those whose parents have doctorates, the angry student who had been gang raped at eleven, the straight “a”
student sexually abused by her stepfather for several years before she was thirteen, the twelve year-old who witnessed a gang murder on his way to school, the fourteen-year-old who had been stabbed on his way to school, the eleven-year-year old who carried old ladies’ groceries to earn money for shoes and who slept on the floor of a closet in a multi-family apartment—ad Infinitum.
Oh, I know. Avoiding taxation in the Cayman’s while visiting their money on one pf their yachts.
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West Coast Teacher: You stated the problem very well. Billionaires have all the answers, so they think, but don’t have a clue about the reality of what exists for some children.
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