Relentless Pursuit

by Donna Foote

  At the same time that the WASC process was unfolding, SAIT was on campus. The SAIT team consisted of a few county education consultants who were brought in to help fix Locke, which had failed to meet agreed-upon growth targets after accepting more than three million dollars in state High Priority Schools Grant Program funding since 2002. SAIT had started out early in 2006 by conducting an academic survey of the staff to identify the school’s most pressing needs. The survey was followed by small focus groups. In her group, Taylor let it rip: she suggested that the school institute two-period blocks of literacy instruction. And she insisted that the curriculum needed to be literature-based. The SAIT consultant seemed to like her ideas—particularly since the others spent the time complaining about the administration and crummy teaching conditions.

  Based on staff input and team observations, SAIT began to develop an action plan for academic improvement at Locke. This was not the first time the school had been the subject of intervention. SAIT discovered at least five other so-called student-achievement plans gathering dust at Locke. One was actually a draft; no one could find the finished product, if there ever was one. Part of the problem was that there was no institutional memory at Locke. Administrators had come and gone, with not so much as a handoff. The other factor was that the plans and the action steps were all boilerplate, written to meet a requirement. No one at Locke took them seriously, and none of the regulatory bodies appeared to, either.

  SAIT published the latest iteration of a corrective-action plan at the end of March. The report painted an alarming picture of a school in crisis. Among the nine key problems listed were a failure to identify and serve students in need of intervention, particularly English learners; the ineffective use of funds for both algebra (600 kids were failing) and English learners (850 kids); a failure of the master schedule to address student needs; and a lack of supplies coupled with inadequate staff training and support. The state required that the team be a presence at the school for at least eighteen months to supervise the implementation of the corrective-action plan they had drawn up.

  After so many audits and interventions over the years, it was hard for anyone at Locke to get too worked up about SAIT. Still, if you read—and believed—the fine print, this was the last chance for the troubled school. If Locke failed to implement the SAIT action plan, it would be put into trusteeship by the state. When the SAIT team leader, Marci Perry, addressed the staff just days before the end of school, she didn’t sugarcoat things: “You had a ton of money at this school, and this school did not make progress on the API. And so this money [$150 per student, instead of the $400 per student Locke would have received had it made its targets] comes with strings attached, and one of the things attached is me.”

  Later in another meeting, Perry expanded on the role of SAIT: “When you exit SAIT, you will not have arrived. This is not the thing to get you to the top of the world. This plan is to get you on the right track. These are basic foundational items—Do you have textbooks? Is your master schedule for kids as opposed to adults? Have the teachers had the basic training they need in the adopted curriculum to instruct in that with some kind of fidelity? The collaboration piece—is there time to talk?”

  The SAIT team would help teachers and administrators (Dr. Wells would be assigned a principal “coach”) install systems that would keep the place running long enough for real improvement to occur. The problem, of course, was that all the research out there suggested that it takes five to seven years to institutionalize positive changes upon which real progress can be built. Would it, could it, ever happen at Locke?

  If you had asked some of the teachers, they would have said no, not as long as Dr. Wells was in charge. Over the course of the school year, Wells had become a lightning rod for some of the teacher dissatisfaction. Test scores were on the rise, so were graduation rates, and everyone agreed that he had established a better school environment in terms of safety. After that, the reviews were mixed.

  Chad and the SE team thought that Wells lacked academic vision; he was not an instructional leader with established systems in place for academic achievement. They believed Wells did not support—and in fact undermined—real efforts at reform by failing to empower his teachers and his administrators. He ruled autonomously. He didn’t even share the budget with the school stakeholders.

  Some particularly vocal veterans took a different, more personal view of Wells. They alleged that he favored the young turks on the SE team and a handful of pet teachers. Frank Wells was out to get some of the old-timers, they said. They grieved him again and again to the union—for things big and small. According to Wells, nothing stuck.

  A. J. Duffy, president of the powerful teachers’ union, came to Locke to address the widespread staff dissatisfaction. Wells had advised the faculty to give Duffy “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” But the union rep charged that Wells had intimidated the staff.

  Small, with dark glasses and gray, slicked-back hair, Duffy was dressed in a black shirt, white tie, and white suspenders. Speaking in a heavy Brooklyn accent, he got right to the point. “This is a very controversial school,” he said. “I’ve gotten letters and phone calls from a number of people at this school, and they run from ‘You have to help us get rid of the principal’ to ‘Please don’t do that.’ But if you people really want a change—new principal, new administration, new programs—the only way to get from A to B is for you to sit down together and agree on what you want. The UTLA stands behind you and can make change happen.”

  Then began a long debate. Wells’s supporters applauded him for the positive change in school culture under his leadership. His critics conceded that he was cool—as long as you agreed with him. Some of the newer teachers argued that just because things were better didn’t mean they were good. Back and forth it went, and with each exchange, the discussion became more heated, until finally Duffy shouted: “STOP! STOP! STOP!”

  Though meetings at Locke often went that way, no one wanted to miss the upcoming Socratic debate on the merits of the six-versus seven-period schedules. It promised to be a classic showdown between SE and the young reform-minded teachers on the one hand and the old guard on the other. Based on the campus buzz and the intense lobbying that had preceeded it, there were sure to be fireworks.

  The battle of the bells had been raging all year. In September, two more schools had adopted SE’s longer days–shorter periods model. But the schedule for the seven-period day kept changing—and the length of the extra guidance period kept shrinking—as the schools shaved time off the day to comply with union rules governing teacher work minutes. The result was that the bells at Locke rang seemingly at will. No one could keep track of which periods started when. It was especially hard in classrooms like Rachelle’s, where the clock didn’t work, or on “banked days,” when there was early release for staff development. Wells told a meeting of small-schools coordinators that the multiple schedules were “killing the school.” He was determined to get the school on one bell system, and he asked the school leaders to come up with proposals for a revised bell schedule.

  They met at the end of March. Seated around a long table in the principal’s conference room, the coordinators and department chairs thoughtfully debated the merits of a handful of options. The school’s fault lines were exposed for all to see. SE’s coordinator, Josh Hartford, refused to budge on the seven-period school day. Others argued that seven periods were too much to ask of students, teachers, and coaches.

  “Nobody has gotten urban education right,” Hartford said, his voice rising. “If you look around and you’re the only one doing it—you might be on to something. If you want lessons on how not to do it, go check out the last twenty years at Locke. I’m getting a little depressed about decisions based on what time teachers get to go home, how athletes feel, and whether there will be missed announcements. This is not about us.”

  When somebody tried to interject a comment, he barked: “I’m not done yet!” Then he continued: “We’r
e here because it’s hard. The easy answer is to leave the hard answers to somebody else. What I want us to do is to think about what it is our kids need and make a school schedule around that!”

  More thoughtful discussion followed before Chad stepped in. Noting that there were valid arguments on both sides, he suggested that the entire school staff attend a Socratic seminar in early April at which the merits of both schedules could be presented and debated. An informed faculty vote would follow.

  Chad left the meeting on a high. Sitting around the table and hearing all the good ideas and reasoned debate had given him pause. Maybe next year he would be empowered to effect real change. After all, progress had already been made. For one thing, the standardized testing had gone well. The small schools had really had gotten their act together, and fully 95 percent of the students at Locke were in their seats for the exams, a requirement for receiving an API score.

  The thing was, testing was the only time that Locke felt like a real school. There were no kids loitering in the halls or skulking about the outer buildings. Administrators were on top of attendance, calling parents, even hopping in their cars to pick up slackers. One VP, Mrs. Walton, actually tracked a missing student to a Bally’s gym and had her paged. The student was a senior, and it was her last chance to pass the CAHSEE so she could graduate on time. On any other day, her absence—and that of countless others—would have gone unnoticed. But on testing days, everyone—teachers, administrators, coordinators, even the kids—was on a high-stakes mission, a mission that could be accomplished only through sheer force of will and unity of purpose. What was strange, Chad thought, what was really sad, what was actually pathetic, was that the school as a whole chose to accomplish 95 percent attendance only twice a year, during testing. Still, they had done what many thought was impossible. They had proven that if you made attendance a priority, kids would come. And that wasn’t nothing.

  There were other positive developments, too. There was the inspiring soccer game, the proud and orderly Latino walkout, the upcoming graduation of more seniors (possibly four hundred) than anyone could remember, and the slow but sure uptick in standardized test scores. Then there were all the great teachers Chad had come to know, and, of course, all the wonderful kids he would never forget.

  Add to that this very productive coordinators’ meeting, which made Chad think that he could help build a schedule of class offerings that actually made sense. Maybe, in line with WASC and SAIT recommendations, the school could offer literacy intervention to the six hundred kids who needed it instead of the eighty who got it now. And maybe he could get teacher buy-in to actually make the intervention courses succeed. It was shocking to look at the courses on offer. Locke had culinary arts and a zillion different music and arts classes, but the school wasn’t giving students what they really needed to be successful. The fourteen-year-olds at Locke needed to learn how to read. Once they knew that, they needed to take the required courses to get into college. Here was an opportunity for him to guide the process along.

  We could make this happen! There could be a master schedule built completely on student need. Maybe it would be a seven-period decision, or maybe it would be six periods, which would suck. But if the decision was based on stakeholder input, maybe we could all live with it. Maybe, just maybe, it could work!

  His reverie didn’t last long. He had to remind himself that this was the same old familiar feeling that came over him every spring, when he would get it into his head that maybe this would be the year when all the hard work would pay off, when things would kick in and Locke would magically morph from failing to functional.

  The truth was, he had already made up his mind to leave. And he had pretty much lined up the team he wanted to go with him. Over the past few weeks he had approached each of his draft picks individually. Each one was a go. Green Dot paid 10 percent more than the LAUSD salary table, and Chad thought that the extra money would be a great selling point. In fact, the teachers he wanted couldn’t have cared less. For them, it wasn’t about the money. A much more important issue was who else was going to be on the team. When Chad ticked off the names, he could feel a sense of collective guilt settling in. He had recruited six core teachers from the School of Social Empowerment. It was impossible to ignore the fact that without them, there was a good chance SE would collapse. The kids would feel abandoned, betrayed. The teachers got wobbly. They couldn’t give Chad a definitive answer.

  That came after the April 4 Socratic seminar. There had been quite a buildup to the event. The six-period faction had lobbied heavily, dropping flyers in the mailboxes and handing out candy, too. One teacher showed up at the meeting with a homemade poster adorned with five-dollar and one-dollar bills. The title read battle for the 6’s. The chairs in Hobbs Hall had been arranged in a semicircle to facilitate debate. The meeting opened with an impassioned plea by Wells. Sometimes when he spoke—not always, but sometimes—if you closed your eyes and listened to his cadence, you could picture yourself in a church in the Deep South, just waiting to chime in with “Amen!” This was one of those times. He addressed the whole staff, but he might as well have been speaking to Chad and his entourage.

  “If you plan to leave, why don’t you do something that I think is ethically sound?” he said. “Don’t vote. And let me tell you why. Your vote will affect the people you leave behind, and that’s not ethically sound. Some of you are already looking, I know, because I get the calls. That’s fine. But my call to you is based on ethical behavior. Refrain from voting. Second, we spent a lot of money in training and professional development. We need stability. I am convinced that in two to three years, Locke will no longer be under the state [audit] and we could have a big sign in front of the school that reads ‘California Distinguished School.’ It could be a reality. I’m only a small part of it. It can’t be just me. It has to be me and you. The math department has improved; English is picking up on its rigor. The science department can’t be matched. To drop the ball now is going to be really painful.”

  The seminar began. Chad explained the rules. A certain number of school leaders were seated in the semicircle; empty chairs, which he called “hot seats,” were reserved for anyone else who wanted to contribute to the discussion. Each person in the semicircle had thirty seconds to give a summary of his or her position. After that, the floor would be open to thirty-second statements from other members of the staff. There would be no personal attacks, and everyone was to respect everyone else’s time. “I have to say, I am really excited,” announced Chad. “Because, if it goes well, this is the kind of forum we can use to decide other issues in the future.”

  The arguments followed a predictable pattern. Those in favor of seven periods argued that more instruction time was the best option for students. An extra guidance period would better prepare them for college; it would also make it easier for them to accumulate the requisite number of credits for graduation. Indeed, the seven-period schedule was one reason the graduation rate at Locke was on the rise. Kids had a way to make up credits they had previously lost through failures.

  The six-period folks were having none of it. They argued that students tended to skip school after lunch; adding a period would mean another period ditched. Besides, why would anyone advocate a system in which it was okay to fail ten classes and still graduate on time? Ms. Wick-horst, the UTLA rep, said: “If you guys want to work twenty percent more, and not get paid twenty percent more, then vote for seven periods! I believe the faculty wants six periods. I understand the need to take care of students, but over the last five years we have lost two hundred teachers. How can we retain teachers if we don’t respect their wishes for six periods?”

  Mr. Twine, the teacher in charge of the tardy room, said: “Where does the responsibility of the student come in? Zero periods, summer school, tutoring—they don’t come! How many more classes are you gonna give them that they don’t go to? I say the seventh period should be offered after school for more pay!”

  One SE te
acher who had already been offered a job by Chad spoke about how hard the guidance class had been for her to teach—and how beneficial it had been to her students.

  Another teacher, a six-period advocate, practically jumped out of his seat to respond: “I get tired of people saying we have to care for the students. My first year here I spent eight hundred dollars for the students! I don’t think you need to bring up how hard you work and how much you care. Most of you aren’t gonna be here. Some of the people talking are people I have heard are going to be leaving.”

  Then the girls’ varsity soccer coach weighed in. “The teachers talking within the circle all probably have honors students,” he opined. Chad warned him to refrain from personal attacks.

  “In PE, we have three hundred forty students out there—per teacher. Do you see us complaining? No, we do our jobs. But by creating a seventh period, you will be creating more hassle within the school itself.”

  Hartford had his say. Like Wells, he had a way with words. But there were no “Amen”s punctuating his speech. The only interjection was by a dissenting colleague who shouted “Bullshit!” to one of his points. Hartford kept talking.

  “I agree with everything those in favor of six periods said, and that’s exactly why we need to do seven periods,” he said. “You make it [the guidance period] in the middle of the day so they have to do it, and after a year you ask them what they want, and the kids vote one hundred ninety-nine to nine in favor of seven periods. It’s hard. But every good thing that has happened at Locke came about because a group of teachers said crap to this. I love Locke students and I hate the way this school works. Let’s not pretend that the staff stands for the students, because we all know exactly what’s gonna happen. We’re fostering a culture of failure. I want to see Locke change!”

  The debate ended as it began, with words from Wells. He reminded the staff that regardless of which option they chose, Locke had to be a school that provided kids with academic rigor across the curriculum. “Hey, if you wanted to make a whole lot of money, you’re in the wrong place,” he lectured. “If you think you can run out of here at 2:52, it ain’t gonna happen. Period. Every real teacher worth any salt works before they enter the classroom. It really is hard work being a math or an English teacher. Collecting papers and giving feedback is when you see significant results.” Wells insisted that he was neutral on the issue. One teacher accused him of having already made up his mind to vote for seven. But those listening carefully insisted he was a six-periods guy, especially when he said he believed that “less is more.”