mar vista

[majoun]

Originally Posted by John23

Mar Vista is very nice, but it's still in LAUSD, which is just an embarrassment.

I know a family with small kids that's taking the high road out of there. Venice High school is the closest highschool to them; a kid was shot and killed there last year.....what a wonderful environment for learning.

That sums up LA in a nutshell...nice areas that get dragged down by everything else.

What you said about Mar Vista also applies to Cheviot Hills and Beverlywood, which are zoned to an even worse high school than Venice (Hamilton, which even back in the day before LAUSD went to complete crap and when the other west side LAUSD schools were just fine had a deserved reputation for violence). For that matter it applies to every nice or semi nice neighborhood within LAUSD limits.

I'm probably the most left wing person on this board, but it might surprise some that I would support school vouchers as long as there's sufficient oversight to prevent extremist groups from taking advantage of them by starting madrassas, Scientology schools, etc. I really think school vouchers are necessary in order to bring families back into L.A. and make neighborhoods that are nice except for the school situation attractive to them. I'm convinced that saving L.A. does require something radical to be done to the school system. Since Antonio failed in taking over the system, something else has to be done. If it means replacing LAUSD with vouchers, so be it.

[Vicman]

From what I can tell, the only "sure bet" LAUSD comprehensive schools seem to be Palisades and El Camino Real... maybe a few others deserve to be on that list.

Anyway, I would:
A. Increase numbers of stand-alone magnet schools: i.e. start a small "liberal arts magnet"
B. Try to "reclaim" schools now that many transfers are no longer forced. I.E. try to turn University High School into more of a product of Westwood/Bel-Air/Brentwood by expelling the worst cases, increasing police presence, and then adding AP and IB tracks.

[John23]

Originally Posted by Vicman

John23: When was the shooting?

EDIT: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...cal&id=4240388

Augustine Contreras died when he intervened in a fight between his brother and a group of men. This was outside VHS.

The brothers lived in Culver City: http://www.latimes.com/broadband/wif/la-0610weekinphotos-pg,0,7701288.photogallery?coll=la-headlines-wif&index=6 (broken link)

I remember the story as on the grounds of VHS, in the parking lot.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198297,00.html

Shot and killed in the parking lot, right after school was out.

I remember it because I drive by there often. West LA is a nice area, there's a really nice elementary school off of Palms and Barrington, I think its the best in the area, but there's no comparable middle school or highschool unfortunately.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Vicman

From what I can tell, the only "sure bet" LAUSD comprehensive schools seem to be Palisades and El Camino Real... maybe a few others deserve to be on that list.

Anyway, I would:
A. Increase numbers of stand-alone magnet schools: i.e. start a small "liberal arts magnet"
B. Try to "reclaim" schools now that many transfers are no longer forced. I.E. try to turn University High School into more of a product of Westwood/Bel-Air/Brentwood by expelling the worst cases, increasing police presence, and then adding AP and IB tracks.

We've talked about this before. Palisades is a charter not a comprehensive (although it used to be a comprehensive) - this is why parents who live in areas covered by really nasty schools like Venice or (even worse) Hamilton or Fairfax often send their kids there.

Solution A sounds really, really great. Since Bloomberg took over the NYC schools, quite a few comprehensives have been shut down and smaller magnets have opened in their place. The NY and Boston experiences are why I and many other people were in favor of Antonio's plan (which now seems dead). Even if that's not going to happen, smaller stand alone magnets can be done anyways, and they'd be cheaper to open than the full blown comprehensives.

Solution B sounds pretty good too. I'm all for turning my alma mater Uni into a charter. That way it could be as excellent of a school as it was until about the late 80s or thereabouts.

[Vicman]

Cool! Perhaps we should convince the L.A. community to start a campaign for both A and B

If you guys know LAUSD-zoned parents who want more options, encourage them to contact their board members. Starting websites and sending petitions would be great too!

LAUSD already has the medical magnets and the "centers for enriched studies" (I.E. LACES and SOCES), but I feel like LAUSD needs more stand-alone magnets (e.g. liberal arts, law enforcement, performing arts, etc.). In fact, if you know any "magnets" inside schools that have extreme dissatisfaction with the outside schools, they should be encouraged to break away into new campuses.

As for University, if any people who man the school have questions about IB, show them the Houston Chronicle article about Lamar High School of Houston's IB program: http://search.chron.com/chronicle/op...dPath=Archives (You will need to establish an account, although the account is for free)

A charter Uni with a large IB and AP program would be great for Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Westwood.

Originally Posted by majoun

We've talked about this before. Palisades is a charter not a comprehensive (although it used to be a comprehensive) - this is why parents who live in areas covered by really nasty schools like Venice or (even worse) Hamilton or Fairfax often send their kids there.

Solution A sounds really, really great. Since Bloomberg took over the NYC schools, quite a few comprehensives have been shut down and smaller magnets have opened in their place. The NY and Boston experiences are why I and many other people were in favor of Antonio's plan (which now seems dead). Even if that's not going to happen, smaller stand alone magnets can be done anyways, and they'd be cheaper to open than the full blown comprehensives.

Solution B sounds pretty good too. I'm all for turning my alma mater Uni into a charter. That way it could be as excellent of a school as it was until about the late 80s or thereabouts.

[judymar14]

My family was one of the first to move into Mar Vist Gardens around '53 or '54. I was 8 years old. I don't remember any crime to speak of. The apts were new so very nice. Once a year they would be checked for proper up keep. Lawns were kept mowed, if one didn't have a mower it could be checked out from what we referred to as the 'shed'. As I remember it seemed as if 1/3 each of races living in the project, white, black and hispanic. Wish I could think of more pros to living in Mar Vista in the 50s. The worse I can think of was locations of stores, the nearest being Ralph's (I think that was it) a mile away at Washington Bd. and only one bus going to Washington Bd came by once an hr on Sepulveta Bd. I lived on an end apt, next to the shed and and what we called the creek, at the time 'catching' Polio was thought to be contagious, I still don't know if it was. It was thought by some to come from water, I remember several parents who didn't want their children playing down by my house being so close to the creek. All in all it was the best place we lived as I was growing up, 4 years.