Thursday, March 13, 2008

Well, I've taken pictures of sixteen RSD schools in the past two weeks.

Karen and Sarah have taken many, many pictures of other RSD schools.

A good friend of mine expressed some disgust this past Sunday at this undertaking of photographing all these schools that are on the chopping block.

"Those schools out east deserve to be demolished," she said. "Their principals didn't fight hard enough to have them reopened."

I was pretty angry at what she said. I was also exhausted and didn't want to blurt out something I was going to regret later. So I didn't say anything, and the subject was dropped.

It's amazing how much she forgot from the first week or so after the storm. A former Orleans Parish Schools employee, my friend learned over the internets in the town to which she had evacuated that the school system had been dissolved due to the floods. She had talked to me over the phone about it when she found out, and later on that night, I found a number on the Times-Picayune's website for her to call to check on her pension status.

She was even offered a teaching job right away in the town where she was staying. It paid a heck of a lot more than staying with the OPSD, but she was so distraught, she turned it down. She now says that, if the floodwaters hadn't stopped a block from her house, she'd have stayed in the evacuation town and gladly taken the job.

So where is her empathy for all those who took jobs elsewhere and declined to return?

In some ways, I know that empathy for others who left this city from those of us who are here is really difficult to come by. The impulse to tell those folks:"To hell with you! You've abandoned us in our time of need" can be very strong.

But when I see things like this happening, or see Paul Pastorek getting some sort of "combat pay" for having to handle the RSD, or hear about others' struggles with teaching the kids here - well, how can you blame some school administrators for going where they are wanted and better paid? Where there are much better connections to the parents and guardians whose children are in the school? How can you blame teachers who, in late 2005, needed a job, period?

How powerful would you feel when you saw buildings like Hardin Elementary School in this condition 2-plus years after the Federal Flood?


Looks pretty darned hopeless, huh? Especially if you're doing it without much of a committee, or without the backing of a community effort to make the RSD, or the OPSD (what's left of it) accountable for their actions and their spending. Not to mention what exactly will happen to these properties once the buildings are demolished - will it become yet another case of "letting the market economy decide" what happens to the land?

Enter a group of concerned parents in Mid-City (and a notification courtesy of E):
Some folks in Mid City have become suspicious of the Recovery School District's suggestion that Morris F.X. Jeff Elementary School requires "complete replacement."...

A group of them will be mobilizing to attend tonight's facilities planning meeting tonight at 3121 St. Bernard Ave. The meeting runs from 6 to 8.

I won't be able to make it but I wish I could.


People have become suspicious of the RSD Master Plan in general. The situation certainly merits the watchful eyes of New Orleans residents.
Click on the picture below to access Karen's pictures of Morris F.X. Jeff and members of the surrounding community who want some answers.


What exactly is going on here? What makes Jeff Elementary a candidate for demolition machines, even though it didn't see nearly as much water as Hardin did? Would you trust a school district to build and maintain new facilities when they couldn't even deal with the old ones? Would you trust new facilities built by a company that royally screwed up overseas?

How public IS our public education system anyhow?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you fight when they have taken your arms from you? How do you fight when the weapons are words and the words are lies?

How do you fight when the enemy is as unseen and elusive as any "terrorist"?

words and deeds..

I remember sitting in the Car in Austin Texas when I heard the had dismantled the educational system. And I thought back to a Hurricane my sister went through in Florida just a year before me. She works in the School system as does her husband and while gutting and cleaning her house the County was reassigning students and teachers and support staff.

They were back on double sessions in 2 weeks.

Here we are 2 and half years later or is it 3 or 5? Still in limbo.

GentillyGirl said...

Darlin',

They've taken our Public Schools away. They have finally found a way to take away education from the poor.

I grew up poor, but my parents insisted that I grow intellectually. I graduated as the top of my class. My I.Q. scores range between 165 to over 200.

This school closing stuff is about removing any opportunity for the poor to better their place in Life. It's about having a servant class in our culture, and they won't have the ability to fight back.

This is apalling, but what can you expect from White, Rich Amerrikkka?

Leigh C. said...

This is bigger than the buildings, obviously. This is about removing in almost every way possible the right to question what is going on. And it's happening all over this town, if anybody can open their eyes and ears enough to pick up on it.

This WAS a public school system, last time I checked, anyhow. And our tax dollars are supposed to be at work for all the kids, not for the market economy's high rollers...

...or maybe I'm just being a Pollyanna. I can crawl back into my li'l shoe box, if need be, but not without a fight.

NOLA radfem said...

Heartbreaking.

You are doing amazing work documenting this. I'm really grateful.

My mom was teaching at Grace King in Metairie at the time of Katrina. She was living in Mandeville. After the storm, they moved her to a school in Marrero (the head of Jefferson schools was a former Riverdale teacher, so all her pals were Riverdale teachers; after Katrina, she shifted the student population so that NOT A SINGLE Riverdale teacher got let go, while Grace King lost students and, therefore, teachers too). The extra gas money plus the TWO toll bridges were a huge added expense for my mom. Her landlords refused to fix her house even though they'd gotten an insurance check (rich jerks on the northshore) and for six months, she couldn't sleep because of the tree stuck in her roof, the breeze moving the branches around in the ceiling above her bed, and the critters scurrying around up there. The doctor gave her tranquilizers to help her sleep, and eventually, she fell asleep while driving several times. Finally, she realized she was fantasizing about blowing up the school and when she told her doctor about it, he put her on disability for the rest of the year. Originally, they had promised her she would be back at Grace King in fall of 2006, but then they changed the story. She ended up moving away, 2400 miles away. I miss her so much.

You know, she was even willing to stay here as a substitute, but subs here get paid basicially minimum wage. In the state where she relocated, if a certified teacher subs, she gets paid a full teacher's salary for that day. So, it just made more sense for her to leave. The funny thing is that I hear Jefferson is now the one begging for teachers, since Orleans got some grants and special programs. HAH!

So, I agree with you - some have moved away but you never know what their situation was. At the time my mom finally left, she was fantasizing about driving her car off the Causeway and into the Lake. I would say driving off to Washington State is a better choice, yes?

I can't believe the same Bush cronies who so screwed up in Iraq are hired to build the schools here. Yes, I know, it's all about "The Shock Doctrine" per Naomi Kleine, so when am I gonna quit being shocked...

Anyway, I know you mentioned being tired. You're doing good work. Stay strong!

droudy said...

I wonder if the schools will be torn down or, if in the eleventh hour, they won't be sold to one of the vultures waiting to build more condos.

My mom was an Orleans Parish teacher for over 30 years. She retired and came back to teaching before the storm, under OPSB's "dire need" code. Just before the storm, she was at a school she loved, but the School Board kept messing up her pay and her retirement withholdings. Often she would have to wrestle with the System to get the money she earned.

When we evacuated, she found a job in East Baton Rouge schools, earning more money and being paid consistently. She often laments not being here, but she also needs the money badly. Since the report about the School Board needing $67 million more for repairs and teacher pay, she's reluctant to come back.

I hate that this city is becoming the hope and dream for only a few. Things were not perfect before, but the city was for everybody, not only those who could profit most from it. Gentrification sucks.

Thanks for exposing the true story.

Anonymous said...

Leigh,

Do you think there is a method to the demolitions just as there is to the razing of homes deemed viable in MidCity? If homes AND schools that do not need demolition are indeed being demolished and in a geographic pattern, then there is a plan afoot which the citizenry are not being involved in.

It's not taking education away from the poor, in my opinion. What I think is happening is that the New Orleans "problems" of poverty, crime and being black are being diluted in this city by the demolition of projects, hospitals and schools for the black and poor. The developers of New Orleans, together with the state and federal governments, want the black poor to go away and settle elsewhere. This is their Grand Solution, in my eyes. All they're doing is making this city unlivable for the people they thought ruined it, not keeping in mind that it was the corruption and money-grabbing by well-off politicians that ruined it in the first place.

In other words, not recognizing that Corruption and Apathy form the basis of all evil here, poorly-performing, i.e. obvious institutions such as public housing and public schools are demolished. For if you take away the rotted plant, the problem goes away, right? What they forget is that the soil is poisoned as is the water poured onto it.

Book said...

I hope they're rebuilt and at least keep the same names they had before.

many of the charter programs are changing the names of the schools they've taken over and to me, at doesn't Add to that schools tradition.

Leigh C. said...

Yeah, I don't want the names to be lost, either. It's kind of like the city streets: many of 'em say a lot about the history of New Orleans. Just as many say a lot about the history of this country.

It's kind of like when the neighborhood in which my grandparents in Long Island live changed its name because a mall of the same name nearby became notorious for its increase in violent crime incidents...I think most people don't see much beyond the fact that, in recent history, a school's name meant that it was part of the old, corrupt OPSD. It's yet another way in which a slate is being wiped.

And as for the question Maitri raised about whether or not this is a way of shrinking the footprint of the city without saying outright that you're shrinking it, I've got some more thoughts on that coming up...

D-BB said...

Thanks to Jindal, we are now going to pay parents with our tax for sending their kids to private and parochial schools thus undermining and sabotaging our public schools system.

And I saw few if any bloggers chastise Jindal for this plan. I wonder why?

Yeah, crucify him on Hannah Montana but for destroying the public schools system with this tax deduction?

People can talk all they want but from what I have seen, they are not walking the walk, unless the pathway leads to Holy Cross, Brother Martin or Country Day.

As for those schools you mention? Tear them down and make parks. Finish what Katrina started, what Jindal continued and what the big mouths hypocrites will take advantage of when they privately fill out their tax returns while pointing out the woes of our schools system.
(You do know you have to request that tax break when you fill out your state tax forms, so you actually can skip it that could benefit your public school system, levees, roads, public school teacher raises, etc; if you really want to.

Then we got the balls to go to D.C. and ask for more tax payers’ money! Shmuck you. (Not u Lippy, the “collective you”.

bayoustjohndavid said...

This minor, extremely minor, in the overall picture, but I wrote about something puzzling that I saw at Morris F.X. Jeff about a year ago. The next day, I saw somebody taking pictures and hoped she worked for the paper, or at least had a web site; but I never found out why those (seemingly) perfectly good computers were trashed.

KNOWSWHATSREALLYUP said...

Jeff is not being demolished ... just the portables behind the school. The schools in the East are being demolished to clear the blight and to make room for the new schools that will be built. check out the facts before posting false rumors and speculation. You can find the correct info from numerous press releases and other public sources.

Anonymous said...

Speaking about being angry about demolitions and saying things one regrets, I let a friend have it this evening on that - I am just too insulted at the various justifications for it.

Being objective he says: all historic buildings are more expensive to maintain than they look, and gave various technical details on that which I'm sure are correct, so far as they go.

But I think that's the narrow lens and in the big picture I am really p.o.'d at the situation.