[Flashback] CWC admin meets with Stoner parents, refuse to answer questions, parent demand an "Answer, answer!"

Stoner community turns out to voice concerns about CWC

After five months of being on campus, three protests and multiple complaints from the Stoner and local community, CWC administration finally decided to meet with the Stoner community to listen and respond to their growing concerns regarding CWC. The meeting was disaster, but on multiple occasions, I have heard the CWC executive director cite the meeting as a success and an example of the progress and outreach that CWC are making to help solve the problems they caused. So, I'm here to do a flashback so that we can see what CWC considers a success.

FLASHBACK -- FLASHBACK

    On February 13, 2014 LASUD hosted and moderated a meeting between Citizens of the World Charter Mar Vista administration and the Stoner Elementary community. The meeting began with CWC reciting platitudes about their commitment to community, diversity and education.  It sounded like a good spiel, but once Stoner parents began asking questions, things went downhill fast.

    Eighteen minutes in the meeting, I finally got the microphone. I had a list of prepared questions for the CWC admin. However, I never got past the first one because the principal and director could not respond to my first question.

CWC admin, not answering and not looking too happy

     "Who authorized giving the combination to the lock to all the CWC parents?" This was my first question.  I wanted to know who was responsible for such a poor decision that put all out children in danger, because I wanted to ask that person what they were thinking, and also find out what if any disciplinary action they faced for such a dangerous decision.
      Principal Kerr and Director Held looked at each other with a deer in the headlights look, stunned by the questions and didn't say anything. I waited and still no response. They just kept looking at each other, while the audience sat in stunned silence. The silence was getting uncomfortable. So, I repeated by question  "Who authorized giving the combination to the lock to all the CWC parents?" At this point Director Held began speaking and dancing around the question, but never gave an actual answer to the question.
     Since they would not answer, the moderator decided to continue to more questions and passed the mic to the next person, my wife, who repeated the question a third time and still, the only answer we received was more silence while the Principal and Director looked at each other.
     The crowd was incredulous and began chanting "Answer, answer!"

      At that point, the meeting was basically over. If CWC could not give us a truthful answer to a straight forward question, how could we trust anything they were saying. Ultimately, we never received any answer to our straight-forward question  about who was responsible for creating a major serious safety issue on our campus and yet the CWC director ended the meeting by claiming it was a success.
     Obviously, we have a different understanding than CWC of what constitutes "success."

Enlightening conversation with CWC parent last night

Informational flier on car

Yesterday, evening I had a very enlightening conversation on Stoner Avenue with a CWC parent who was volunteering for an open house that night.

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    Early in the evening my family started noticing traffic on our residential street. Car were speeding, driving erratically, driving in the middle of the road, make fast U turns in driveways. When you see this kind of dangerous driving on our street, it can only mean there was a Citizens of the World Charter Mar Vista event going on. I pulled my daughters inside the house and told them they would not be able to play outside that evening like we usually do because of the traffic danger.
    I went to see what the activity was all about and saw CWC was having yet another open house. I decided to distribute some informational fliers to those attending so that they could have a broader understanding of what was going on with this co-location.
   As I was distributing fliers, a CWC parent called out to me "You are only hurting the children!" Oh on, I thought. Anytime a CWC parent has talked to me on the street, it ends with them yelling at me. I responded with a question "What about our children and what your school is doing to them?"
   I reached out my hand and introduced myself. "Hi, I'm A--- Benitez. I live where those palm trees are." She gave a look of surprise like she had just seen the devil. She obviously knew who I was. So, I continued, "Yes, I'm that neighbor. The one CWC is placing all the blame on for the problems. I'm the only one with a yard sign. I'm the only one who signed a petition. I'm the only one who was present at all the demonstrations. The only one who is causing problem. I'm that neighbor." I took a breath and calmed down.
  I told her I was well aware of what was being said about me and my family by the CWC community, and told her that the CWC community had made my family a target and that we had received gang threats and threats from the CWC community because of this.
   She was surprised "Wait, I thought we [CWC] were the ones receiving gang threats." I explained to her the threat I received from some one who was representing themselves as part of the CWC community and the Culver City street gang. I explained how that threat from their community ultimately resulted in the graffiti on their school fence. She had no idea of any of this. I told her to check out my blog. I hope she's reading this right now. (Hi! Thanks for the conversation.)
   We continued to talk about other issues with the co-location including the competition for resources on campus, the separate entrances, the parents in the bathroom, the spikes left by the CWC parents and a few other issues.  It seemed like this was the first time she was hearing any of this. She didn't believe the spikes and I told that I could probably point one out right now. We walked a few feet before we found a spike inside campus under a CWC lunch table. I told her about the ordeal with the spikes.

   The more we talked, the more I realized that the CWC community is not being told the truth.  They are receiving a whitewashed, varnished version of the truth where anyone who brings up a problem is made a scapegoat for bringing up their concerns and this is exacerbating the problem with the co-location. Just like the April 8th CWC communication about the gang activity and traffic problems minimizes both problems and places the blame for the traffic problem on "A resident", CWC is sending a distorted message to their community about what is really going on and is trying to shift blame on to others. This is helping to fuel the tensions between the communities and is creating more problems for both communities.

   

[special snark edition] CWC does not take safety concerns seriously. How can we take them seriously?

[Advisory] Generally, I take the situation caused by the CWC co-location very seriously. However, I'm well aware of the absurdity and comedy of the situation. Stoners vs Citizens, a mainly minority school vs a mostly white school, poor working vs well off...sometimes it sounds like a bad joke and you just have to laugh. And so today, I'm presenting a extra special snarky edition of the blog.Yes, there will be rudeness. Yes, there will be mockery and condescension in today's post, but today is a chance to step back and laugh at the comedy of errors that is this co-location. Please, be advised.
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Considering the graffiti this month and that my family was almost run over by a CWC parent, I wanted to see what CWC was telling their community about the gang and traffic safety issues. I made a California Public Records Act request and was , frankly, not surprised to see that CWC was minimizing the gang problems and placing blame for traffic/safety problems on  "A neighbor" and not on the actual unsafe driving by the CWC community, but we'll get to all that in a second.

   This letter was sent out to the CWC community by the CWC Executive Director on April 8, 2014. A JPG of the document is below if you'd like to see the original released document. Here on the blog, we are going to go through this document line by line and adding some annotations in red.
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Hi all,

Hope you are doing well! Writing with a quick update about the graffiti on the fence banner and with some traffic safety reminders. (I hate to start off being picky, but this is a fragment sentence and this communication is very informal. Is this really an official communication from a professional educator?) Wanted to let you all know that, thanks to amazing parent volunteers, we're painting over the graffiti right now. I know it's troubling to see. We reached out to LAPD and they came by this morning (What took CWC so long? We contacted LAPD on 4/7 in the morning. In the evening on 4/7, LAPD told us CWC had not yet returned their calls and were not available when they went by campus twice that day.) and said they'd be having additional evening patrols to try and deter this in the future (When I spoke with LAPD, they strongly recommended removing the fence covering. Why no mention of that option, considering it is the option CWC ultimately chose?). We have seen this at other locations and LAPD definitely mentioned there's tagging in the neighborhood generally. (Yes, there is definitely tagging in the neighborhood, but in my four decades in the area, I've never seen a direct "F--- You!!!" written in a tag. The graffiti does not look like your general run-of the mill tagging. This was definitely a message to the people behind the fence. I would not take this message as a general message.) We will be looking at other measures we can take from installing cameras to moving the banner to the interior of the fence (Really? Why because spray paint won't go through a chain link fence?). More to come on all of that.

In other news, wanted to let you know that in addition to Alison and Jim (Principal of Stoner) (This took me aback. "Jim?" Again, is this really an official communication from an education professional? Or maybe "Jim" is just cool with all the CWC community like that...)  meeting regularly, the liaison groups established with Stoner (small groups of teachers and parents from both schools) are meeting and collaborating as well (except that the CWC parents have cancelled the last two meetings and the group has not meet in close to two month, which is very upsetting since there are serious safety issues that need to be addressed. See: link). We're also working closely with the neighborhood council and their education committee that created an ad hoc committee specifically devoted to resolving the co-location/ community tension (The local community is boycotting the ad hoc meetings since the DRNC is not representing its concerns on this issue.).

I also wanted to remind everyone to please drive safely at all times around the school. A neighbor is repeatedly photographing and taking videos (Yes, that's the problem "A neighbor" is taking photos & video, not the actually unsafe driving by the CWC community. Also, I wonder how they concluded it is only "a neighbor" since many neighbors are upset and are taking pictures and video. As a community, we are only starting to get organized about collecting this evidence. Also, why is CWC placing the blame on one person and thus making them a target? We have seen the CWC community make targets out of our community members before. Instead of dealing with issue, they blame the people who bring attention to the problems.) of cars running stop signs, backing up into intersections, blocking driveways, parking in red zones or in front of hydrants (It's sad that she doesn't even mention the incident that sparked this reminder, that my family was almost run over in a crosswalk by a CWC parent driving backwards down the street) . Mornings in particular are harried times, please take care to drive extra safely especially when running late. While we definitely aim to start on time, it's better for folks to be tardy than to risk an accident (and run over a whole family). Thanks for your help with this. 

Thank you, as always, for your patience and steadfast support in the face of what is

definitely a frustrating situation. We do know from other charters that they have

faced this too and in time it has passed (It's upsetting to see how the CWC administration minimizes the problem and says that it is a passing thing.  The local community and Stoner ES community are not a passing things.  This is where we live and we aren't going anywhere.) Definitely come grab me in the office or shoot me an email if you have any questions or specifics you want to connect about.

Another week, another CWC parent seen in STUDENTS ONLY bathroom

 When I was walking my daughter home from school on Monday, a Stoner ES parent came up and told me that they had seen another CWC parent in the bathroom last Friday, but that's not even today's story. Today's story began a little earlier on Monday. 

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   I guess it really shouldn't come as a surprise anymore, but yesterday I saw a CWC parent coming out of the shared students only bathroom.
    I don't know why Citizens of the World Charter Mar Vista can't act like proper citizens and follow rules.
    What does surprise me though, is that I keep finding these problems. During the day, I am at work, but it seems that just about any school day that I am home, I find a safety problem with CWC.  Maybe it's just a coincidence that every time I pass by there is a problem, but after so many examples, it just seems to be a pattern of bad behavior by the CWC community.

      So, what happened? I came home sick from work. When I passed by the CWC entrance I saw the music teacher, the same one who was seen in the students' bathroom, entering campus. I decided to keep an eye on the student bathroom from the sidewalk outside campus in case he "forgot" the rules again. I readied by telephone to take video and thought I had a minute before he might be near the bathroom.
     As I was waiting, I saw some students exit the bathroom and some others enter. Then a gentleman exited the students' only bathroom. I was so shocked I didn't have time to hit record before the man walked off toward the CWC area of campus.
     I immediately reported the incident to both Stoner and CWC administration.

     Why is this still happening? 188 letters were written to LAUSD and CWC that listed bathroom safety as a major issue. A protest was held demanding safer conditions on campus. Stoner parents met with CWC administration. The Stoner and CWC parent liaison groups met and discussed this issue. New signs were made and posted in the bathroom and, yet, the same behavior continues.
      The new proposed solution is to have Stoner and CWC parents act as bathroom monitors. I have two problems with that: 1) CWC is the cause of the problem, how can we trust them to police the bathroom when they don't respect the rules? 2) Why should Stoner parents have to spend their time policing the bathroom when the problem is wholly caused by CWC?
      CWC is threat to safety on the Stoner Elementary campus and it is sad that we have to police their behavior on campus in order for our children to be safe. Instead of parents having to waste their precious time policing a danger on campus, LAUSD should remove this dangerous entity.