Skipping School : Boycotting Pupils Do Their Studying at Home

Five-year-old Aaron Maas didn’t go to school Wednesday. Neither did Melodi Perlman nor Melissa Brunner, both 8. And Marshal Cowley, 7, stayed home.

Altogether, 128 Robert H. Burke Elementary School pupils were absent Wednesday, the majority of them boycotting classes to protest the planned closure of their Huntington Beach school.

The boycott was organized by Ed Zschoche, president of the school’s Parent Teacher Organization. With about 25% of the school’s 408 students participating in the boycott, Zschoche called it “extremely successful.”

Burke Principal John G. Magnuson, on the other hand, said the boycott was a “futile effort that’s not going to be productive in any way.”

Boycott Called ‘Unfortunate’

“It’s unfortunate that parents elect to do this,” said Magnuson, principal for just three weeks. “We try to teach that school is an important place to be.”

Zschoche, an English and math teacher in a Huntington Park junior high school, organized nine alternative schools-for-a-day in private homes, each manned by a licensed teacher and parents acting as aides. At least 80 Burke pupils attended; about 25 others, like Aaron Maas, simply stayed home.

At one of the alternative schools--the comfortable Glencairn Lane house where Marshal Cowley lives with his parents--teacher Zschoche, two aides, Marshal and nine other second-graders held classes from 9 a.m. to 3:10 in the afternoon.

On the day’s agenda were mathematics, reading and writing, science, social studies and recess in the backyard.

“We’re trying to approximate, as closely as possible, the regular curriculum,” Zschoche said.

Magnuson, however, said the alternative classes could not approach the educational quality of those provided in regular school. He also said the boycott is illegal, although “no one plans to do anything about it.”

‘They’re Really on Soft Ground’

“(Legally,) I think they’re really on soft ground,” he added. The boycott “hurts the kids by teaching them, ‘you fight the system this way.’ ”

Brian Garland, president of the Huntington Beach City School District Board of Trustees, called the boycott a “clear violation of the California Education Code,” one that the Board of Trustees finds “regrettable.”

Like many of the boycotting parents, Aaron Maas’ mother said she never had been involved in a protest before and had mixed emotions about it. She said she fully supported the boycott. “It makes you proud, but it’s kind of scary at the same time,” she said.

Nevertheless, there was no other way parents could let district officials know how seriously and strongly they oppose closing Burke School, she said, adding, “We feel like we’re the scapegoat for the rest of the district.”

No additional boycotts are planned, but parents have begun lobbying the trustees to encourage them to reconsider the school closure, Zschoche said. Moreover, three parents who are professional financial experts are scrutinizing the district budget and plan to make recommendations to the board Tuesday on possible cuts.

Savings Foreseen

The decision to close the school at the end of the school year was made last week by the trustees and is expected to save the financially troubled district $220,000 annually.

The board’s unanimous vote capped a series of decisions that began last year that many parents say has no logical basis:

- Sept. 4--Following a recommendation of district Supt. Lawrence Kemper, the trustees voted to close one elementary and one middle school.

- Oct. 23--A blue-ribbon committee, appointed by the board, began meeting to select the two schools.

- Jan. 15--The committee recommended closing the Ralph E. Hawes M.D. Elementary and Ernest H. Gisler Middle schools.

- Feb. 5--The trustees voted to close the Joseph R. Perry Elementary School. Closure of a middle school was postponed for one year, and a consultant was hired to decide which school would be the best choice.

- Feb. 19--The board decided to reconsider closing Perry, and asked Kemper for a recommendation.

- March 1--Kemper recommended closing Burke, a suggestion adopted by the board four days later.

“To this day, we don’t know why Burke was chosen,” Maas said. “There’s simply no good, logical answer. It was an arbitrary decision based on the mistakes they made with Perry and not following the recommendation of the blue-ribbon committee,” she said.

Denial Issued

Board President Garland denied “charges that (the trustees) did not look carefully and thoroughly into the various possibilities.”

He noted that no one wants his particular school closed and said everyone who runs for a seat on a school board “believes in the neighborhood-school concept.” Closing Burke School is an economic necessity that makes sense, he said.

“The quality of the program is the primary goal, rather than the building in which the program is housed. The children will receive just as good education at their new schools as at Burke,” Garland said. He called the boycott “regrettable.”

Meanwhile, the 7- and 8-year-olds gathered at the Cowley house wrote and read poems, played with Legos and jumped rope, considered various roles played by government in their everyday lives, examined shadows and varying light sources, and studied “borrowing” in addition and subtraction.

At one point, while the children were going through subtraction flash cards, 7-year-old Marshal Cowley--in the unheard-of position of hosting his classmates for math lessons--lost a tooth.

As the other nine pupils excitedly gathered around to view the marvelous tooth, one girl exclaimed, “Marshal subtracted a tooth!”