LA School Report: CWC has new new home at least for next year

LASR ran a story on CWC's new home at St. Joan of Arc.

    You can read it here: http://laschoolreport.com/cwc-charter-finds-yet-another-new-home-at-least-for-a-year/#more-26651

Kentwood was upset with CWC co-location and fought back

One of our fellow Adventurers alerted me to a July 3rd article in the Hometown News about the June 25 meeting at Kentwood  ES regarding the CWC co-location.
    You can read the article here:
http://thehometownnewsonline.com/parents-express-frustration-over-move-to-co-locate-charter-to-two-elementary-school-campuses

    Kentwood parents and community were especially upset that the co-location would take away key resource rooms and force them to end programs to accommodate the CWC co-location.
   For this co-location, just as at Stoner ES, CWC would have its own private entrance. At Stoner ES, the private entrance was a major sore point. I don't see why that would be different at this co-location.
   CWC Principal Kerr confirms that it was CWC Executive director Held who missed the deadline and that Held had resigned.
   Kentwood parents did not take the co-location news lying down and wrote a petition to LAUSD asking them to re-evaluate the co-location decision.
    LMU Family of School, which supports 6 schools in Westchester, including Kentwood and Loyola Village, will be organizing a workshop to help their sponsored schools navigate Prop 39 and future co-location requests.
    As for the myth that Kentwood and Loyola would welcome CWC with open arms, I think the quote from Kentwood PTO president Doug Lee sums it up "If you [CWC] can come back and say with a straight face that it is, that Kentwood is the only place that this school can go to do what it needs to do, then we’ll have to receive them..." Open arms, more like up in arms.
 
 

CWC Mar Vista finds a new home (again)

There is a major announcement on cwcmarvista.org:   CWC Mar Vista has a new new home.
    They will be moving to St. Joan of Arc School in West Los Angeles located at 11534 Gateway Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064 for the 2014/15 school year.

   What adventures will these worldly citizens and St. Joan have next year? Based on CWC MV's first year, one can only imagine...will CWC distribute Purgatory Tickets to parishioners? Hose down naked children by the rectory? Erect another cocoon-like fence covering declaring themselves a "true community"?
     One can only wonder what type of mindfulness and gritty behavior CWC will bring to their new location.

Gritty mindfulness coming to a parish near you.

Kentwood and Loyola concerned about co-location (...and they should be)

Kentwood ES community concerned about charter co-location

The word through the grapevine is that Kentwood and Loyola communities are very concerned about the co-location of CWC Mar Vista.
   If I was them, I would be worried too. Even the June 7th offer letter regarding the co-location at Kentwood & Loyola sounds ominous.
   Below is an especially troubling excerpt from the offer letter that highlights the fact that the Cwc co-location at Kentwood and Loyola would take "...set aside spaces critical to existing programs..." that are used for "art, childcare, computer labs, itinerant workrooms, intervention and counseling..."
    This was one of our biggest fears at Stoner ES, that CWC would ultimately take our art rooms, computer lab, parents center, counseling rooms and speech & occupational therapy labs, thus decimating Stoner ES and leaving our community school with little if any resources for our neighborhood children. These fears were expressed in the initial petition and letter writing campaign that ultimately lead to the third and largest protest against CWC Mar Vista.
    It is troubling to think that CWC would enter into a co-location knowing that they will be taking resources away from the community school that they claim to want to work with.

[Flashback] CWC Karma Tickets

Citizens of the World Mar Vista claims to be a progressive school that teaches and practices mindfulness, and encourages diversity and respect for other cultures. Unfortunately, their actions don't match up with their platitudes. In fact, Cwc has shown themselves to be an entitled community that is culturally insensitive and thoughtlessly insults the surrounding Del Rey community for bringing up serious concerns about the co-location of CWC.
     The most blatant example of this thoughtless insensitivity and lack of respect for other cultures is the CWC Karma Ticket.
     A few days after the first protest against the CWC co-location, CWC delivered packages to the surrounding neighbors on Stoner, Lindblade, and Wagner that contained a letter (pictured at the end) from Executive Director Held and Principal Kerr.
     In the letter, CWC states that it has asked its parents to be "mindful" and "...to drive safely, park legally, and refrain from moving any trashcans, blocking driveways, and generally to respect our neighbors."
     Included with the letter were CWC Karma Tickets which CWC asked the neighbors to use to help keep the CWC community mindful of respecting the neighborhood.

     Of course, CWC administration asking its entitled parents to be mindful and respectful did not work.  The CWC community continued to block driveways, which continued to increase the frustration of local residents and ultimately led to the "flicked cigarette infraction." These "mindful" citizen continued to ignore traffic safety around the school, be disrespectful to local residents, and park illegally, even up until the last few hours of school. 
     Now, let's talk about the karma tickets.Who would even think this was a good idea? Cwc is, in essence, asking the local community to not report their citizen's illegal and dangerous activities to the proper authorities, and instead asking the residents to police the Cwc community ourselves by giving out culturally insensitive "karma" tickets.
     Karma is a deeply held spiritual belief in many cultures and religions. For CWC to use it so flippantly shows a complete lack of understanding and respect for other cultures and spiritual beliefs.  Karma is not just something you give to the barrista at Starbucks. It is a key concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism and many others religions. How entitled must one be to think that it is a good idea to co-opt a spiritual belief from another culture and use it inappropriately to insult the community they are claiming to want to be a part of?
     If CWC intended to calm the neighbors concerns, the letter and Karma tickets had the complete opposite effect. Instead of easing tensions, this just heated up on the whole situation and opened the neighbor's eyes to what CWC was all about.

CWC takes their mindfulness (and trees)

June 30, 2014. I received the following pictures from local resident who wanted to report that the co-location of CWC Mar Vista at the Stoner Avenue Elementary School campus was finally coming to an end.

   The last few CWC items were being moved out, including the contentious large potted-trees that were part of the "green" border that separated (and thus segregated) the charter school from the community school.

With the CWC trees, fence convering and plant borders now gone, the Stoner Avenue Elementary School campus looks like a unified learning center for the local neighborhood community. 

Del Rey Style #3/4 - Del Rey Art Walk/Stoner-Lindblade-Wagner block party

Del Rey SLW Block Party 2014

2014 Del Rey Art Walk 

   Faithful readers, apologies for the extended break on the blog.
   I didn't realize how many people are still interested in these adventures.
   After an exciting evening at the St. G's carnival, the family and I went down to Mexico to reconnect with the rest of the clan. We had no internet or phone access, which is why there were no updates to the blog even though there are plenty of stories left to tell.
   After we got back, there was really no urgency to write and so I decided to continue the hiatus. CWC was gone and I was focusing my energy on what was next for Stoner ES. I figured with school out and cwc moved out, it was all done, and no one would care about the Stoner/CWC adventure, but when I checked on the blog yesterday, I was surprised to see how many daily hits the blog received on during the hiatus and was still receiving today.
    So, since there is still interest and there is more to say, we will continue....
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Del Rey Style #3 -- 5th Annual Del Rey Art Walk.  Sunday, June 22.  http://delreyart.blogspot.com/
The Del Rey area is full of artists. This residential neighborhood is an art district unto itself. For the past five years, residents have opened up their home studios, garages and yards to share their art and music with the community.

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Del Rey Style #4
Sunday, June 29 the Stoner-Lindblade-Wagner residents held a block party.

    After a tumultuous year, the Stoner Lindblade Wagner residents decided to organize the annual block party a few months earlier than usual. It was a celebration of the difficult times that we all came together to overcome. There was food, music and drink.

Fallen friends were remembered. New life was celebrate.
 Old friends reconnected, and new friends were made.






  Del Rey is a special place and we are living a special time. I feel very privileged to share these streets with those who call them their home.