2ndary Education

Both of our boys, Michael age 8 and Marc age 4, had been attending a private school for the last ten weeks.  Verdugo Valley School was a winner, an idyllic setting among trees in the foothills, safe and well maintained, colorful and industrious classrooms, filled with cheerful and obedient children who were overseen by a tastefully attired staff.  How could we have been so fortunate? 

We had come to the school for a parent-teacher conference and were caught off guard when Ms. Finch, Michael's teacher, expressed grave concern.  She suggested that we give serious consideration to institutionalizing Michael, where hopefully, the necessary skills and experience would be available to properly address his special needs.  Thankful that she had closed the door for our session, we asked what had led her to this conclusion.  She explained that when the class began each morning, all of the children would remove their jackets and sweaters and take their seats, except for Michael.  She paused at this point as though reluctant to share with us the alarming details of Michael's behavior.  We gritted our teeth, knowing we would just have to deal with it, no matter how devastating it might be.  We encouraged her to go on.  She said, "He keeps his jacket on, sometimes for the entire day!"  Not being experts in child development, we reserved judgment for another fifteen seconds before concluding that Ms. Finch had a marble loose. 

We started visiting schools the next day.

Due to the constant drone of the helicopters hovering above the local public school amid gun shots, we were focusing on private schools.  Unfortunately, the schools we toured were patterned in a way we found distressing.  There was an abundance of do's and don'ts with a heavy emphasis on the latter.  There was a paramilitary devotion to academics, overall inflexibility, and a high degree of "This is going to hurt me more, than it hurts you."   As simplistic and embarrassing as this may sound, we wanted our kids to have fun at school, at least in the beginning.  If they started out liking school, as opposed to me, they might actually attend classes in later years.  We were toward the end of our list of schools when I phoned Sequoyah School in Pasadena.

Patti Zirolli answered, "Sequoyah, this is Patti."

I said, "We are looking at schools for our kids.  Can I speak with someone who can tell me about your school?"

Patti said, "I'll do."

I asked, "The size of the school?'

Patty said, "Sixty-five kids and seven classes."

I asked, "Uniforms?"

Patty paused and then said, "Jeans and T-shirts."

My next question was, "Any religious affiliation?"

Patty answered, "God, no."

At this point I was thinking, so far so good, "What grades do you have?"

Patty said, "We don't have grades."

I tried to clarify my meaning, "I meant the range, like first through sixth grade."

Patty said, "We don't have grades.  As for range, we have kids aged four to seventeen.  By the way, we don't have those other grades either."

I asked, "Other grades?"

Patty said, "You know, A, B, C …….."

I asked, "How does that work?"

Patty said, "Teachers write evaluations every week and a summary at semester's end.  Parents can see them whenever they want."

I continued, "So classes are based on age?"

Patty said, "Depends on the kid."  

A little confused I asked, "How does that work with the curriculum?"

Patty said, "Depends on the kid.  Instruction is on an individual basis.  We evaluate each kid to determine what they are ready for and that's what they get."

I asked, "Can we come by and take a tour?"

Patty said, "Sure, just come to the office."

I didn't need to see the place to know this was where we were headed as soon as I heard the "jeans and T-shirts" crack.  

The school was established in Pasadena in 1958 and sits directly in the path of the yet-to-be-completed CAL-TRANS project meant to connect the 210 Foothill and 710 Long Beach Freeways.  The residents of the City of South Pasadena have successfully foiled all efforts to begin this project for more than fifty years.  Rather than an offensive freeway put through the center of town, senselessly  up-rooting hundred-year-old birdbaths; there is evidently a preference by the locals to have all north-and-south bound surface streets, clogged with impassable traffic and murderously enraged drivers, for three hours every weekday morning and late afternoon.

We were given a tour by Hannah, the director of the school, who added more details.  She described the school as "parent owned and parent run".  I suspected that the property was leased from CAL-TRANS and by ownership she meant the books and teaching materials.  She told us there was a parent board not unlike a home owner's association that approved the budget, oversaw fundraising, reviewed and approved policy decisions, etc.  The classrooms were frenetic but seemingly in a positive way.  The kids were so sky high, I wanted to stick around to see how parents got them to go home at day's end.  The teachers all had suitable credentials and plenty of experience.  The older kids looked like characters from William Golding's Lord of The Flies.

Suffice to say, we went all in.  At the time, my job required only an average of eight work days a month.  I spent the rest of my time at Sequoyah in class with our kids, running fundraising events, installing a massive Timberform playground structure, setting up the school's accounting on Quickbooks, dealing with issues such as parking, drainage and other maintenance concerns.  Soon I was the president of the parent board, having been sized-up early on as the ideal patsy by parents and staff alike. 

Ingrid and I were having a great time with the parents.  We and our kids made good friends with some of the other families.  The parents included a good share of ex-hippies but the overall mix was very diverse in every way. The part of the school culture that brought almost everybody together was the annual slate of no-kids-allowed theme parties for staff and parents.  My personal favorite was "The Blend Off". Where everyone came equipped with a blender, ingredients and a name for their original creation of an alcoholic brew.  Attendees proceed to sample any of the drinks that catch their fancy.  Throughout the evening, there were rarely fewer than a dozen blenders roaring away en mass.  A panel of judges oversaw the competition and awarded prizes in a number of different categories.  At the first blend off I attended, one of the winning drinks was made with Jack Daniels, prune juice and corn niblets.  It was named the Jack Shit.

Somewhere during our third year at Sequoyah, things began to slip.  I came to the school one morning and saw a poster hung on the fence in the parking lot.  It was promoting an anti-nuke rally of some kind.  I asked Hannah about it and she told me one of the parents was involved with the organization that was putting on the rally and had asked Hannah if she could put it up.

I asked Hannah, "What happens when somebody wants to hang a poster for the American Nazi Party?"

Hannah said, "I would say no."

I said, "If you say yes to one, don't you have to say yes to all?"

She said, "Don't be a pain in the ass, okay?"

I was afraid she either didn't understand the point I was trying to make, or she did and didn't care.  A few months later, somebody showed me pictures of the Sequoyah School entry in Pasadena's annual Doo Dah parade.  This event allows people who go to Burning Man every year, to work their way down a public street and poke fun at just about everything serious.  The pictures were of a bunch of Sequoyah kids walking as a group with a banner showing the school's name and lots of balloons with "NO MORE NUKES!" written on them.  I went over to give it another try with Hannah.

I asked her, "Am I missing something or were we the only entrant that missed the whole point of the Doo Dah parade?"

Hannah said, "What do ya mean, it was great."

I said, "All we had was a banner and these balloons?"

Hannah nodded.

I asked, "There is no satire or even humor, isn't that the whole point of the event?"

Hannah said, "There is no point to the parade, you can do what ever you want."

 A few months later, a church in Texas offered sanctuary to a group who had fled the latest conflict raging in Central America.  The U.S. government frowned on the actions of the church and threatened to deport the Latinos and throw the church elders into jail.  In support of the Texas church, a church in Pasadena had also provided sanctuary to a few families who had escaped the same danger.  Following these developments, Sequoyah's monthly school board meeting was held on a week night with 70 or so staff and parents in attendance.  We were working our way through the agenda per Robert's Rules of Order.  Once we were done with old business we moved on to new business. 

Hannah introduced a proposal for the school to offer to help the refugees hunkered down in the Pasadena church.  She wanted the school to offer a patch of ground at the edge of the property where these families could grow their own food. 

A parent named Gary said, "Hannah, that's all decomposed granite where you're talking about.  Nothing is going to grow there."

Dana, the board's vice president said, "If the school were to formally carry this out, I would have to resign.  As much as I empathize with these people's plight, I am a single mom and I can't be a part of something where the government might toss me in jail."

Jim, another board member said, "As an attorney, I couldn't have anything to do with it either."

Gary again, "Does anybody have a backyard where there is some space and some decent soil.  That way we could offer something practical and keep the school out of it."

There followed comments from many people expressing their desire for the school to do what it could to support these families.

I said, "How did we become a political entity?  We can't take sides as a school.  That's telling kids what to think instead of how to think."

At least Jim was with me, he said, "Does the school have a charter?  Whether or not it does, this has nothing to do with the purpose of the school.  If a group of staff and parents want to take this on, all the more power to you; but you don't need the school to do it."  

This brought Hannah out of her chair.  She actually shouted, "During World War II in Germany, there were millions of people who did nothing!"

An hour later, a vote was held.  Hannah's proposed refugee garden passed by a few votes. 

We started visiting schools the next day.