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Friday, January 10, 2014

We Don’t Have Enough Security | Gatsby In L.A.

We Don’t Have Enough Security | Gatsby In L.A.:

We Don’t Have Enough Security




 As I visit schools this year on my search to understand education, certain images haunt me.  One is of the metal fence surrounding a large LAUSD high school in South Central that I faced one morning as I was trying to leave.  Though my car was in the parking lot only a few feet away, the gate, marked “Emergency Exit,” was held shut with a massive iron padlocked chain.  Beyond the fence, I could see kids running around the football field for P.E. (where, incidentally, classes were so overcrowded that teachers often faced classes as large as 70).
I rattled the gate, thinking that since this was an emergency exit, the padlock might not actually be latched, but in fact, I was locked in.  Because classes were in session, almost no one was around to help me; finally, at the back of the cement courtyard, I found a security guard, a diminutive middle-aged woman with a giant, friendly smile.  Cheerfully, she walked me back to the gate, explaining that she had to keep it locked while classes were in session.
Why? I asked.  Wasn’t this the emergency exit?
She shrugged.  “Ditchers.”
“You mean kids