Playa Vista vs. Special Needs Kids?

Playa Vista parents are clearly doing something antithetical to the pop wisdom du jour on educational reform: they are working WITH the school district to make a neighborhood public school work well. The PV parents group has been unprecedented in LA in their passionate support and vigilant collaboration with LAUSD to improve on the dismissive expectations of Angelenos to what is possible "within the system". Instead of conceding to cynicism and shuttling their kids off to private schools or tossing the dice with a charter, they have stood their ground and demanded what used to be a considered a right in the US...a solid public education. In the end, the PV parents expressed their concerns about WISH's unspoken intent to become a de facto fixture at PV Elementary and thus threatening attrition of local PV kids in the future to the LAUSD (as was their right as tax payers) and an independent decision was made based on the complex conflicts between statutory requirements and the needs of all the students involved. The sad result of this incident was that two well-meaning groups promoting public education became polarized against each other while the shared concern about dwindling support on the Federal, State and City level for universal education remained unaddressed.

As for Ms. Goldstein and ultimately these journalists' ad hominem aspersion that Playa Vista parents are racist or at least bias against "special needs" students, this comes as a surprise to those of us who live in this culturally, racially, economically and yes, physically diverse community in PV. If these aspiring journalists had actually met with the members of the PV parents group, they would have been sitting across from a refreshingly diverse group of people. Playing upon racial sympathies is a pathetic argument and I hope does not reflect the intellectual rigor of what is otherwise a highly reputable charter program at WISH. Despite your myopic bias and appeal to pity, Ms. Goldstein, Ms. Rothman and Ms. Stewart, all children are special.

As the parent that reached out to WISH for this meeting and being mentioned in this article I must say that no one from LA Weekly attempted to contact me for comment on this matter for this and yet I am mentioned more than once. There are many facts in this article that are incorrect. First of all, there were two meetings with Shawna Draxton and Erika Higgins - one in Playa Vista and one at WISH. Both times we attempted to find out what actually occurred and what the long term goal for WISH was on this campus. We have worked long and hard to make sure that the children of this neighborhood will have a neighborhood school to attend and all we were trying to protect was the space for those students. We too were looking forward to collaborating with WISH if this could be worked out, brought plans and fire codes to the meetings to find a workable solution and attempted to have WISH formally agree to colocate for a period of time that would not impact the seats for the neighborhood children. We did not push to have the offer rescinded only to preserve the seats promised to our neighborhood children, that decision was made by LAUSD due to the fact that the school could not physically house so many YOUNG students. This had nothing to do with race, special needs, economic status or any other factors - only the amount of young students on their campus and the amount of young students in our neighborhood creating a conundrum that could not be resolved by LAUSD. As a strong supporter of multiculturalism and diversity I resent the allegations that "We were too disabled, we were too racially diverse, too different and scary to make them comfortable," Nothing could be further from the truth.

This sounds like such a nightmare, and most especially to those kids who are still seeking for a school location. I really hope they can work out their placement soon.

once more the weekly sides with charter schools. Wish isn't all that different than reg. public schools who have mainstreamed autistic kids. I do like the way weekly makes it sound like wish is helping poor minority students when being autistic does not mean low performing. Charter schools are just a backdoor attempt at vouchers. Research shows that charter schools have not really made any head way with struggling kids. There have also been several incidents of cheating on state tests by charter schools. Last, charter schools are not held accountable most of the time, one of the reasons charter schools were developed.

As a Playa Vista parent who was interviewed for and quoted in this article, I have to take issue with Ms. Goldstein's unfounded and frankly disgusting allegations contained within it. In the three meetings held to discuss the WISH co-location offer, two with LAUSD officials, the subject of special needs students came up exactly one time, when board member Steve Zimmer mentioned his admiration for WISH's model of inclusiveness. This was a sentiment many Playa Vista parents echoed. Indeed, there have been questions from Playa Vista parents put to the district and our other educational partners as to what plans there are to accommodate special needs instruction within CRES#22. The subject of race or how "scary" WISH kids are never arose in any discussion of the co-location offer. I would have gladly informed Ms. Rothman of this had it occurred to her to ask.

Ms. Goldstein's quote indicates a willingness to exploit WISH's students for political purposes which is shocking for anyone, much less the founder of a charter school. Is this the message she wants to send to those students, and their families? That people consider them "scary?" Had Ms. Goldstein bothered to attend the meeting between Playa Vista parents and the district (to which all were invited and indeed Ms. Ross attended), she would have heard first-hand our concerns, which were the apparent overcrowding on the first floor of the school, which could lead to the dislocation of Playa Vista kids, and the lack of any apparent long-term plan for WISH considering the district's own projections that CRES#22 would be fully occupied by Playa Vista kids within five years. That is a question no WISH parent or official has ever answered. Perhaps Ms. Goldstein should be taking the more constructive approach of asking and helping to answer that question for WISH parents, rather than characterizing their children as somehow unwanted.

- Alex Stein