Posted on 02/25/2005 8:16:55 PM PST by WindOracle
Advocate for staying joins fleeing parents
Harding Elementary School PTA President Meredith Brace has led a battle for several years to stop her white neighbors from transferring out of the heavily Latino Westside campus.
Now she's joining them, saying she's not willing to make her son the guinea pig any longer.
The Braces are like hundreds of other local families who, over the years, have sought transfers out of neighborhood schools that are filled with mostly poor Latino children.
"I'm gone," said Mrs. Brace, who on Tuesday requested and was granted a transfer for her first-grade son out of Harding and into the more affluent Hope School, within the nearby Hope Elementary District. "I've just got to the point where, 'Sorry guys, I need what's best for my kids and there's a school that's two miles away that offers all those things I want.' "
About 40 percent of the 462 students at Hope School are there on transfers from the Goleta or Santa Barbara elementary districts.
Some school officials and neighborhood families view Mrs. Brace's departure as a red flag. If someone who has advocated so fiercely against white flight won't stick it out, who will?
A liberal whose father is Superior Court Judge George Eskin and stepmother is former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mrs. Brace had been considered over the years as the Great White Hope for Harding.
"This is a major blow," said Santa Barbara school trustee Bob Noel. "Meredith was kind of like Supermom in terms of doing things for her school. . . . You can read racism into this, but I read more of an issue of social class. People don't want to look and see their kid is in a classroom where most of the students are underachievers and where friendship circle possibilities are very, very small because they don't speak the same language."
Harding is 90 percent Latino, 6 percent white. Hope is 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino. Hope families have raised enough money every year to keep on staff an array of specialists in art, music, computers and science -- all the "extras" Mrs. Brace wants for her son, who is 7, and her 4-year-old daughter.
As PTA president, Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding.
"We made it so affordable, $20 for a six- to eight-week session. We told everybody, 'Come on, do something extra for your kids.' We had so few people sign up, we had to eliminate a lot of the classes," she said. "I've met some very lovely people, but we have nothing in common. Every time my husband and I would go over for an event, my husband would feel like it was his first time. We haven't made any friends."
Harding parent Cristina Hernandez said she's seen the school's racial mix change, but that Mrs. Brace shouldn't give up.
"I've been here 14 years now, and all of a sudden we turned around and all the white parents had gone," she said, speaking in Spanish. "They don't want their children side by side with our children. (Mrs. Brace) shouldn't leave. She should stay and keep fighting."
It was about three years ago, before her son entered kindergarten, that Mrs. Brace started going door to door touting Harding's achievements, trying to convince her neighbors to join her in giving the school a try. She even took on the PTA president post before her son had entered kindergarten.
Once her son started, she remained PTA president, volunteered in the classroom, boosted fund-raising efforts, and continued to hold regular neighborhood meetings to make other white families feel comfortable with the campus. While she said she's not bilingual, she used the Spanish she picked up while living in Costa Rica and Mexico to try to connect with Latino parents.
Some of the white families she had convinced to enroll their kids at Harding later bailed out. She said her son has struggled to make friends.
"He hasn't been invited to a birthday party. There is absolutely no after-school interaction," she said. "For his birthday, he invited four of his classmates. Only one came."
Then she was miffed that her skills -- she's a credentialed librarian -- weren't capitalized on in her son's classroom.
Another Harding mother and friend of the Braces, Brenda McDonald, said she had independently decided to transfer her kindergartner out of the campus. Mrs. McDonald is also considering Hope School, or Washington Elementary, which is still within the Santa Barbara district.
"At Harding, the teachers are wonderful. The principal is great. It's the socioeconomic chasm. It's not a gap, it's a huge difference in the population," said Mrs. McDonald, who described herself as a middle-class professional. "We don't have a lot in common with the other families. At the same time, do I want to drive five days a week now every day for the next six years? Then again, if half of the Westside is going in that direction, maybe we can carpool."
Superintendent of Santa Barbara schools Brian Sarvis granted Mrs. Brace's transfer request it "with regrets."
"It's a big loss to the school," Mr. Sarvis said. "But I see Meredith as a parent making the best choice for their child, and other parents making other choices for their children. I don't think any one parent is that critical, but that's not to take anything away from Meredith. She has been wonderful."
Mrs. Brace says she'll stick with her PTA president post until a replacement is found, even though her son starts at Hope School today. Over the years, she has criticized district officials for maintaining open enrollment as an easy way out. Now it's a policy she is taking advantage of.
"They keep telling me, 'No, Meredith, we've got to keep options open to parents or they'll leave.' It's so plain and simple. It's created such segregation. It's left us with a situation that is almost gotten beyond repair."
She said the policy allowing transfers within the district -- and outside of the district when a parent comes up with a valid reason -- has destroyed many neighborhood schools by exacerbating white flight.
With her 4-year-old daughter getting ready to enter kindergarten, Mrs. Brace had recently been courting a dozen other white families in her neighborhood who have children of the same age.
"Every single one of them is going somewhere else, and they had all looked at Harding," she said. "I said to myself, this is not getting any better, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is not the teacher's fault, or the principal's fault. They're wonderful."
At Harding on Wednesday, mom Amy Voss and her son, second-grader Eric Voss, said they're pleased with the school and planning on staying.
"I like Harding a lot," Eric said. "They got good friends, good teachers. Mrs. Schwyzer is the best."
Teacher Carol Schwyzer has been at Harding since 1991. She described Mrs. Brace as heroic for even taking on the challenge.
"It's sad to see Meredith go. She had such wonderful energy. But is it OK? Yes, we are OK," she said. "We are doing the best we can with who comes through the door. We love our students."
At the same time, Mrs. Schwyzer isn't pleased that Harding has gone from the diverse school it was when she first arrived to the racially isolated campus it is today.
"It's not OK, but it would take a major shake-up on a more systemic level to fix things now," she said. "That balance has tipped too far.
"You see what Meredith was fighting against. She had a vision of how things should be, and she didn't see why she couldn't bring other people along. We have to be sad that it didn't work out."
e-mail: ccohee@newspress.com
We're being sold down the river by our own govt.
This is one of the things I don't miss about Caleeforneea. Here in WV we have been getting quite a few Indian immigrants, but they all speak English, are educated, and actually contribute to the community. You folks out there have my deepest sympathies.
You are blessed. I'm right now working hard and making plans to move back to America. I no longer want to be a citizen of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Maryland.
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Fifty-seven percent of public elementary and secondary school principals reported that one or more incidents of crime/violence that were reported to the police or other law enforcement officials had occurred in their school during the 1996-97 school year.
Ten percent of all public schools experienced one or more serious violent crimes (defined as murder, rape or other type of sexual battery, suicide, physical attack or fight with a weapon, or robbery) that were reported to police or other law enforcement officials during the 1996-97 school year.
Physical attacks or fights without a weapon led the list of reported crimes in public schools with about 190,000 such incidents reported for 1996-97 (Figure 1). About 116,000 incidents of theft or larceny were reported along with 98,000 incidents of vandalism. These less serious or nonviolent crimes were more common than serious violent crimes, with schools reporting about 4,000 incidents of rape or other type of sexual battery, 7,000 robberies, and 11,000 incidents of physical attacks or fights in which weapons were used.
While 43 percent of public schools reported no incidents of crime in 1996-97, 37 percent reported from one to five crimes and about 20 percent reported six crimes or more
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Stats a bit dated... but interesting nevertheless. I have seen little to give me reason to believe things have improved much in that area.
Up from about 10 in 1970.
Speaking as one of them, I can only smile at the thought of a company full of twenty-something non-whites trying to compete on the basis of their affirmative action status.
Won't be long before they have to sell the office furniture.
So was I at that time. I also just smiled. That company was NYNEX. They did so well that they got bought out by Bell Atlantic. Now they are Verizon. Again, says it all.
[I know they're not all children of illegals, but many of them are]
Actually, out here they really are.
btw "Orientals" is a banned term these days. It's "Asian."
Could it be as bad as the People's Republic of Mexifornia? The nanny-statism out here driving us crazy!!!
Grew up in Santa Ana, CA. My neighborhood backed up to an apartment complex which became a haven for illegals, and this was back in the late 60's to early 70's. Confession of a naughty youngster: for fun we would hide behind the fence in my yard and yell, "IMMIGRATION!", and watch them scatter. It was just starting to get bad, but now it is impossible. Back then, most tried to learn English. Today we print everything in Spanish at taxpayer expense.
No English, No Opportunity. Know English, Know Opportunity.
"Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding."
Ah, the arts! Maybe she should have been trying to start programs that had real meanings...such as manners, responsiblity, compliance to social standards, the importance of speaking English, etc...
Emergency clue train stop: They are not coming to Southern California to make friends with you.
I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
And I'm glad that the commies were thrown out
From the AFL-CIO board
And I love Puerto Ricans and Negroes
As long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me I'm a liberal.
The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crane?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal...
Phil Ochs had it nailed, oh, so long ago now....
Politically correct hypocrites just can't bring themselves to use the term "Euro-American".
I've seen blond-blues eyed Hispanics and dark skinned Europeons. Confusing, eh?
In the beginning of the last century, public schools made it their mission to drag newly arrived immigrants into the American culture and middle class. Well, they sure don't do that anymore.
A little "dash" will do you...
(Hey, what happened to the other 7% of poor Hope?!?)
My mother went to college with very wealthy blond, blue-eyed Puerto Rican women who looked down on one particular woman because she had dark skin and kinky hair (she later became head of a college). I guess the other ones went back home and married rich men.
These women were laughed at by the rest of the students because they didn't know how to use the washing machines at the school. Their maids always did their laundry at home.
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