We Don’t Have Time To Wait For Schools to Improve. But Real Change Happens Slowly. And There Are No Cookie-Cutter Solutions.
“There’s no harder thing than being a teacher in South L.A.,” Robert Vidaña says bluntly as we squeeze interviews into his packed schedule, sitting in his tiny cubicle in what used to be the counseling office of Fremont High School, where he is LAEP’s community school coordinator (for a post about LAEP’s work, click here; for a description of an LAEP community school coordinator’s job, click here.) Robert’s father, who attended Fremont himself, is surprised that his son chooses to work there, but Robert believes in the school, loves South L.A. for all of its challenges, and has no interest in an easier job.
He grew up in West Covina but found suburban life dull. After graduating from Pomona, Robert got a degree in urban planning from UCLA but found himself working first with the LAUSD to build interdisciplinary after-school programs, then in his current job at Fremont working to build a community infrastructure. “I know it’s the unsexy thing to do. The fruits of your labor are not going to be seen in two or three years.” But the work is deeply meaningful to him.
Like English teacher Jordan Gonzales (profiled here), Robert has seen enormous changes at Fremont in his time there since the school’s radical restructuring in 2010. “My first year, we had 5500 students. Now we’re down to 2300.” Like several of the students I interviewed, he believes that when the LAUSD built another high school a mile or so away, that school drew away some of Fremont’s most troubled students, the ones who came from Charles Drew Middle School, a notoriously chaotic school with insufficient resources to meet the needs of a high-poverty population.
But Robert believes that significant cultural shifts were the key reason for the school’s improvement, starting with the new principal’s decision to put the school’s discipline in the hands of the counselors, instead of the dean—a major shift toward We Don’t Have Time To Wait For Schools to Improve. But Real Change Happens Slowly. And There Are No Cookie-Cutter Solutions. | Gatsby In L.A.: