Letter to the community about our fabulous Charter School

This is something I wrote to share the importance of voting for change in today's election...

I apologize in advance for the length of my share… but tomorrow is a very important time to make your voice heard and stand for a change in our schools.

Many of the traditional LAUSD schools are underserving their children. The people supporting charters are looking for a way to ensure all children get a chance for a quality education, which has been an issue for some time. The District’s own School Report Card states that 60-70% of 3rd – 5th grade students in these schools are not even able to meet the basic standards! Those are horribly high numbers in the nations 2nd largest school system. This is why I’m voting for Nick Melvoin. Nick supports improving education for ALL students, whether traditional district, charter, magnet or what have you.

With all of the turmoil back and forth between the school board candidates, and the anti-charter movement, I felt strongly that I needed to share my experience, albeit a little last minute.

Both of my children attend an amazing inclusive charter school. My son has special needs and my daughter is neuro-typical and in the GATE Program. The school beautifully meets their needs equally. This school is such a gem. We have hundreds of people on the waiting list because there are so few options for a family such as ours.

I sometimes feel like I've found "the golden ticket". But for so many of my friends with special needs children who do not get their number chosen, and for all of the underserved children in our great city, a change needs to take place.

I had not found a single school in LAUSD that would be appropriate for both of my children. Not a single school I've heard of would be able to support both of my children equally. Most schools would have my son in a special day class. Possibly with an hour or two of peer time a week. Which in many cases seems awkward for both types of children. Most of the typical peers will look at the SDC (special day class) children as “different” and not equal. And vise versa, the SDC children might feel a similar in an opposite way.

My son spent much of the first 2.5 years of his life in the hospital due to his many medical complications. This energetic and loving boy, who has come so close to death’s door more times than can be counted on a hand, is thriving in his fully inclusive classroom.

Our school is the most diverse environment I’ve ever experienced: culturally, socio-economically, as well as needs based. It's beautiful and so represents our great city. These children are growing up understanding how to relate so so many different types of people. My daughter, and many of her 4th grade peers who have been at this fabulous school since TK or K, have have grown up with all kinds of children in their classrooms. This will allow them to better relate, and succeed, in our world of diversity.

To walk my little guy onto campus each day and experience all types of kids running up to him with hugs, giggles, playing with him, wanting him to sit next to them; this truly is a special needs mother’s dream come true. Many of wonderful classmates consider him one of their favorite friends. They have no idea that he is helping them learn patience, empathy and so many other life skills that cannot be taught in any other way. As he learns so much from them, his typical peers, while they model for him how to age-appropriately engage socially and in an academic setting.

Through the amazing involvement of the families at our school, we have been able to keep our smaller class size, allow the children to be enriched by music class, PE, art, and technology. These are the classes that have many students excited to go to school and to stay in school. They enable them to engage a different part of their brain, and to expand their cultural knowledge. Our project-based learning allows the children to understand how the basic academics apply to real world scenarios. This expands their learning capacity beyond memorization.

Prop 39 has allowed my children to attend this wonderful school in our neighborhood, together. For them to remain on an under-used, traditional, LAUSD campus who classrooms might otherwise remain empty and wasted, has been wonderful for all. We have been fortunate to be able to make use of this space for the last 4 years, allowing consistency for those children. The relationship has been good between the schools. They work out the bell schedule and the space well to allow both schools to run smoothly, together on the same space without interfering with each other.

Charter schools are being created by families frustrated with the minimal options for a quality education available in the United States’ 2nd largest school system. Let’s look at why the Charter Movement is taking off and figure out how we can all work together to make all of are schools, whatever type they might be, serve the children who are our future.