Stoner Elementary community to hold protest against charter school co-location that has taken resources from home school

Press release – Stoner Elementary community to hold protest against charter school co-location that has taken resources from home school.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On Monday, August 17, 2015, the first day of school, from 7:30-8:30AM, the Stoner Elementary School Community and local Del Rey neighborhood will be holding a protest against the co-location of ICEF Vista Charter School on the Stoner ES campus. Stoners parents are upset that the co-location has taken resource rooms including: music, special education, and language therapy among others. Local residents are upset because the co-location will bring traffic and safety issues to their neighborhood.

WHAT: Stoner Elementary Community is holding a:
      RALLY TO SUPPORT STONER ELEMENTARY AND OPPOSE THE CO-LOCATION
WHEN: Monday, August 17, 2015 at 7:30 – 8:30 AM
WHERE: on the corner of Stoner Avenue and Lindblade Street, 90230.
[map]

Media is invited to attend.

There will be speakers. There will be signs. There will be chanting and drums.

Most importantly, there will be calls for better schools, a safer neighborhood, and unity in the community.

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ICEF Vista Elementary, a neighboring school that is located two blocks from Stoner on the campus of the defunct St. Gerard Majella Elementary School, has taken classroom space at Stoner.  To many people in the neighborhood, ICEF is seen as ‘the school at the church’ and many ICEF families take pride that their school provides benefit to the local parish.  However, ICEF wants to expand and that means leaving the church grounds. Part of ICEF’s expansion plan includes co-locating at another campus to open up space at the St. Gerard campus.

ICEF is “stealing from Peter to Give to Paul”

Stoner ES parents are outraged that ICEF Vista’s will be co-locating this year and has taken set aside rooms that are used for music, art, parents center, and computer lab at Stoner so that ICEF can open up space on the St. Gerard campus to have room for an art room, parents center and computer lab.  ICEF is literally taking away resources from Stoner ES to give those same resources to the ‘school at the church.’

The Stoner parents and local residents are mad about the colocation and are fighting back

In February 2014 when the proposed co-location was announced, Stoner community leaders addressed the ICEF board and asked them to reconsider their co-location plans.    In March 2014, Stoner families and local residents sent over a hundred letters and emails to ICEF and LAUSD Boards urging them to not have the co-location at Stoner.  In April 2014, when a final offer was made for the co-location, the Stoner and local community held a protest in front of the ICEF Vista campus urging them to not co-locate.

The Stoner and local community will be holding a protest on the morning of the first day of school Monday August 17 to let ICEF families know about our concerns with the co-location. More protests are planned for later in this school year.

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WHAT DO WE WANT:

We want to let the ICEF community know the damage this co-location is causing and the harm it is bring to our community children. The Stoner parents are asking family of ICEF Vista to not support the co-location by selecting another educational option. We are encouraging the families of the 20 ICEF students who pertain to Stoner to consider sending their children to their local community school. We are asking parents from outside the area to consider their local schools or choose a non-colocated charter.

Adam C. Benitez
President, Friends of Stoner Avenue Elementary School
www.friendsofstoner.org

Stoner Elementary community to hold protest against charter school co-location that has taken resources from home school

Charter Corporation CWC Mar Vista doled out 8 out of school suspensions last year—they serve Kindergarten and 1st Grade!

Charter Corp. #CWC Mar Vista doled out 8 out of school suspensions last year—they serve Kindergarten/1st Grade #LAUSD pic.twitter.com/CV66RraOeT

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) August 4, 2014

Charter Corporation CWC Mar Vista doled out 8 out of school suspensions last year—they serve Kindergarten and 1st Grade!

Schools Matter: Open letter to Ellie Herman, or how Green Dot's Marco Petruzzi's special education policies hurt everyone including their own administrators

First published on Schools Matter on July 12, 2014

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"It is not legally or morally acceptable that these so-called "schools of choice" that are concentrated in urban communities and supported with public funds, should be permitted to operate as segregated learning environments where students are more isolated by race, socioeconomic class, disability, and language than the public school district from which they were drawn." — COPAA

Wall Street privatization darling Marco Petruzzi (above) led a beleaguered Green Dot through charges of racism, embezzlement, poor performance, and even cheating. He has claimed that his lucrative charter chain doesn't receive money from rich guys, meanwhile foundations give them millions. He has gone beyond denying that Green Dot discriminates against special needs students, he takes pride in it.

July 11, 2014

Ms. Herman:

I occasionally read your posts with skepticism. Typically, even when you seem to almost reach the correct conclusion about an education topic, you find a way to ignore your own evidence. In the end nearly all your pieces cheerlead for the lucrative charter industry, and provide cover for the biggest enemies of public education.

My interest was piqued today with a piece you wrote on a Green Dot Corporate Charter principal stepping down from one of the schools they seized from the public system. Here is the passage that caught my eye:

Nat was taken aback to find that 18% of the students were in Special Ed. "We thought they were overidentified. Turns out they were underidentified." When I ask why there were so many kids with special needs, he's not sure. Part of it, he thinks, is that the number of kids in foster care may be a factor, because foster kids are often moved from school to school, not staying long enough for their issues to be identified. "It's just conjecture, but kids in foster care, they're often in foster care because their parents were on drugs or couldn't take care of them, well, are you more likely to be unable to take care of a kid with special needs and behavior problems?"

For years those of us engaged in social justice activism have criticized the corporate charter chains—Green Dot Corporation has always been a particularly egregious example—for under-identifying special needs children. I've spent years advocating for families struggling for Special Education (SPED) equity, working closely with the former chairperson of the LAUSD SPED Community Advisory Committee. Marco Petruzzi, the erstwhile hedge fund manager running Green Dot Corporation, has gone as far as to attack those of us that have brought up this issue. He has called us liars (among other things), and gone on to say that Green Dot's SPED percentage are low because LAUSD somehow over-identifies SPED. The mendacious corporate executive stated that the entities' outside of Green Dot "over identifying" SPED children is—this will be hard to comprehend for any reasonable person—is a "civil rights" issue. That's right, the wealthy CEO of Green Dot is on record saying just that. Here's one instance of Petruzzi's convoluted corporate thoughts on the matter [1]:

our track record serving kids speaks for itself for those who want to look at the real numbers, but is a very technical issue and this is not the forum for it. For example, the special Ed issue is fraught with misunderstanding and manipulation of data. LAUSD has high numbers because it over identifies African American and Latino boys relative to many other urban Districts, a civil rights issue, not something to be proud. It also has high numbers because it doesn't serve kids well and thus exits them from special Ed in the typologies of special Ed that can be addressed. It serves special Ed kids in over restrictive environments. Anyway, I realize we will never agree with certain folks, particularly those employed by the current system and that view us as a job threat.

Ms. Herman, I appreciate your post as it bears testament to what many of us have always said about Green Dot and other corporate charter chains. Public schools also under-identify SPED as well, but unlike the well heeled executive quoted above, nobody boasts about underserving them. Petruzzi seemingly makes it a point of pride that Green Dot SPED IEPs are significantly lower than that of public schools. Green Dot has a long record of avoiding obligations to SPED students [2]. Moreover Petruzzi has a long record making outrageous statements, like when he told the families of Animo Justice that Green Dot Corporation doesn't get any money from "rich guy[s]". [3] Must have been all those years he worked for Mitt Romney's sister company, Bain & Company, Inc.

I agree with you and Mr. Pickering on the SPED issue. Since Green Dot Corporation, like all corporate charters, is about bottom lines rather than education, that will never change. Ironically Petruzzi is right to frame the issue in terms of students' civil rights, but he and his fellow six-figure profiteers are the ones violating them.

Advocating Public Education and Social Justice

Robert D. Skeels ****@ucla.edu

"Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor" — Paulo Freire

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[1] http://venice.patch.com/groups/schools/p/space-for-a-new-building-at-walgrove-elementary-likel839b5a4cd8
[2] http://www.scribd.com/doc/100558792/Green-Dot-SPED-Binder
[3] http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2010/04/advocating-public-education-roundup.html the video in which Petruzzi claims Green Dot gets no outside funding is here: http://youtu.be/kbtUUBS3eO0 the transcribed quote is "We have no money. We're a nonprofit. We don't have a rich guy that gives us extra."

Schools Matter: Open letter to Ellie Herman, or how Green Dot's Marco Petruzzi's special education policies hurt everyone including their own administrators

Ed Notes Online: Dora Taylor: What is a Charter School

Ed Notes Online: Dora Taylor: What is a Charter School: Dora reminds us of her 2010 piece on charters at the Seattle Education blog. What is a Charter School? The basic difference between a tr...

Ed Notes Online: Dora Taylor: What is a Charter School

Schools Matter: Where Do Corporate Welfare Charter Kingpins Send Their Children to School?

Schools Matter: Where Do Corporate Welfare Charter Kingpins Send T...: One answer here from Tamarac Talk : By: Sharon Aron Baron Imagine your neighbor owns a Ford dealership, however not only will he not d...

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Tragic: CWC Corporate Charter schools pay executives $200K plus salaries, but too cheap to get crossing guards

Tragic. CWC Corporate Charter schools pay executives $200K plus salaries, but too cheap to get crossing guards #LAUSD http://t.co/3GAkKTP4Gs

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) February 12, 2014

Tragic. CWC Corporate Charter schools pay their well heeled executives $200K plus salaries, and hold lavish events for their staff, but they're too cheap to get crossing guards. This sad incident is the inevitable result of putting public money into private hands.

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Tragic: CWC Corporate Charter schools pay executives $200K plus salaries, but too cheap to get crossing guards

Stoner Public Elementary School community to hold protest against corporate charter school co-location

Press release – Stoner Elementary community to hold protest against charter school co-location that is creating segregation and safety issues on and around campus. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Stoner Elementary community is mad and is fighting back against a planned expansion by the co-locating charter, Citizens’ of the World Charter Mar Vista (CWC), on the Stoner Elementary Campus. CWC has requested more classrooms and it is possible that they will take the Stoner computer lab, the speech & occupational therapist room, the book room and parent’s room. Taking anyone of these resources would devastate Stoner, a Title I school. The parents are also concerned that the co-location creates segregation on campus bring about many safety issues for their children. This week 168 signed letters from Stoner Parents were submitted to LAUSD this week pointing out their concerns regarding segregation and safety on campus. LAUSD has not responded. A PDF of the letters is attached. This will be the 3rd protest held against the CWC co-location at Stoner Elementary. WHAT: Stoner Elementary Community is holding a:       RALLY FOR STONER ELEMENTARY: better, safer school for our children WHEN: Friday, February 7, 2013 at 2:30 – 4 pm WHERE: on the corner of Stoner Avenue and Lindblade Street, 90230. [map] Media is invited to attend. There will be speakers. There will be signs. There will be chanting and drums. Most importantly, there will be calls for better schools, a safer neighborhood, and unity in the community. For more information visit: http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/ ___________ Stoner Elementary School has worked hard over the past few years to make itself a better school. We brought our API up to 811 and added two pre-K classes; We’ve had new murals painted beautifying our campus and old junk removed, providing more play space for our children; We’re looking to bring dual language and music programs to the school. Stoner is doing and looking a lot better, and I am proud to send my child to our community school, Stoner Elementary, but all the progress we have made might be derailed by the charter school co-location on campus. The co-location creates many problems for our children, parents and teachers including segregated conditions on campus, safety issues, and a lack of respect for our community. We have the following concerns: 1.      Our biggest concern is that since the two schools cover the same grades at the same location, they will be competing for enrollment of our community students. 2.      Stoner Elementary is Title I schoolwide. This means that large majority of our students come from an economically disadvantaged back ground. The co-location siphons key resources from our Title I school, depriving students of resource rooms, playground space, and library time. 3.      CWC is currently under-enrolled, yet has asked for more classroom space next year. It is possible that they will take the Stoner computer lab, the speech & occupational therapy room, the book room and parent’s room. 4.      The co-location creates segregated conditions on campus a.       LAUSD “…officials determined that the Braddock option [Main entrance] was not safe for the charter students.“? http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-karma-parking-20131104,0,2119984.story         i.      Why is the Braddock entrance not safe for CWC, but safe for the Stoner Children? b.      CWC threw a rock concert that could be heard throughout campus while our students were taking state standardized tests. CWC friends & family were invited. Even though they could hear the concert going on all morning and see the commotion during recess, Stoner students were not allowed to attend. The concert was a disruption and Stoner teachers reported the most bathroom requests ever during the event. Students reported having trouble concentrating on the standardized test, thus effecting the school and student’s future. 5.      CWC continues to endanger our students and has displayed a pattern of increasingly reckless behavior, including allowingsexual expression by CWC students a.       CWC allowed its parents to enter the shared school restroom in direct violation of posted signs stating “STUDENT RESTROOMS ONLY – NO ADULTS ARE PERMITTED IN THE RESTROOM” b.      CWC allowed sexual expression by students on campus: A Stoner parent found two CWC female students outside of class kissing, fondling each other and lifting up their shirts. When the Stoner parent reported it to the nearest CWC official, the parent was told that CWC would not do anything because CWC children are free to express themselves. c.       CWC has displayed a pattern of reckless behavior in regards to their entrance that has place Stoner students at risk.         i.      From Oct-Dec 2013, CWC had a combination lock on its gate and gave the combination to all CWC parents. This meant over 200 CWC parents had uncontrolled access to our students and campus.       ii.      After being ordered to remove the combination lock, CWC has been caught multiple times leaving its gate open and unattended for the convenience of CWC parents while disregarding Stoner student’s safety.     iii.      Recently, CWC officials were found leaving the gate open and unlocked to go on coffee run. 6.      Further lack of respect for our community and students a.       A CWC teacher had his class on the playground during Stoner student’s time. When the CWC teacher was asked to leave, instead of walking around the waiting Stoner students, the teacher marched the CWC students straight tough the group of Stoner Elementary Students, trampling the Stoner students backpack packs and sweaters. b.      CWC parents have harassed Stoner parents for voicing their concerns about the co-location, going as far as following Stoner parents home in an attempt to intimidate them and silence their concerns. ____________ WHAT DO WE WANT:             The Stoner parents are requesting that LAUSD deny CWC’s request for more classrooms for next year and are requesting that CWC’s co-location be terminated at the end of this school year. Since the co-location will continue this year, the Stoner parents are asking that LAUSD address the security issues immediately by rescinding CWC separate gate access, and requiring CWC to enter thought the main gate on Braddock. As a Lindblade Street, Del Rey resident, and Stoner Elementary parent, I invite members of the press to come and cover theRALLY FOR STONER. Adam C. Benitez Stoner Elementary Parent 11859 Lindblade St. Culver City, CA 90230 310-922-1176 adambenitez@yahoo.com

Stoner CWC Protest by Robert D. Skeels

Petition to Stop CWC Colocation at Stoner by Robert D. Skeels

Stoner Public Elementary School community to hold protest against corporate charter school co-location

School Matter: Thieving charter charlatan-scoundrel Juan Rangel steps down from UNO! He was a darling of the AEI

First published on Schools Matter on December 06, 2013

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Thieving charter charlatan-scoundrel @JuanRangel steps down from #UNO! He was a darling of @AEIeducation http://t.co/svdm81drB5

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) December 6, 2013

Via Professor Diane Ravitch: Powerful Chicago Charter Leader Resigns in Wake of Financial Scandal

My commentary: Thieving charter charlatan-scoundrel Juan Rangel was a darling of the fringe-right American Enterprise Institute (AEI). In addition to their loving his stuffing of public money into his private pockets, AEI gushed about Rangel and UNO's systematic program of right-wing indoctrination.

School Matter: Thieving charter charlatan-scoundrel Juan Rangel steps down from UNO! He was a darling of the AEI