Teachers Rise to Challenge of Working in the Inner City

Times Education Writer

For Bethune Junior High School in South-Central Los Angeles, the school year is ending today on a happy note.

Last year at this time, more than one-third of the teaching jobs there were vacant and school officials were not sure they could get anyone, let alone a qualified teacher, to take the classes in September.

But this year Bethune has had a cadre of teachers, young and old, who say they are enthused by teaching in what some view as a difficult school. And they plan to come back in September.

“I’m really excited by what’s happening,” Principal Peggy Selma said. “We actually have math teachers teaching math and science teachers teaching science.”

While this hardly sounds like an exciting achievement for most schools, the inner-city schools in Los Angeles have had a chronic shortage of qualified teachers over the last few years. First-time teachers who were assigned to the inner city often never showed up for work, or quit shortly after the school year began. And since tenured teachers could turn down reassignments, classes often had to be taught by substitutes or district administrative personnel.

Last summer, however, the Los Angeles school district decided to concentrate on recruiting teachers for 55 of the city’s “hard-to-staff” schools, including Bethune. At the same time, newly appointed “mentor teachers” and retired teachers were assigned to the schools to help the new teachers.

From interviews with district officials, principals and teachers, the program appears to be working. While the district has yet to release total year-end figures, it said Thursday that 95% of the new teachers hired in Region C, which encompasses South-Central Los Angeles, are still on the job. In Region B, which encompasses areas southeast of downtown including the cities of Huntington Park and South Gate, 94% of the teachers are still on the job.

By reputation, an inner-city junior high school is about as tough an assignment as any new teacher could get, but the new teachers at Bethune say they were attracted by the challenge. They repeatedly said it is “more rewarding” to teach in a school where they are needed, although for most it has not been more rewarding in dollars. Several said they took big pay cuts to go to work in the city schools.

Jacques Bordeaux, 31, said he had earlier worked for the telephone company and in a sales job.

“Neither was as aggravating or as satisfying as this,” he said of his first year of teaching mathematics at Bethune.

“There are inherent problems in a school like this--low academic achievement, high absenteeism and spotty parental support--but I’ve loved it,” he added.

Why take a pay cut to become a teacher?

“I grew up in this community,” Bordeaux said. “And as a black professional, I thought I ought to contribute something back. And there’s no better way to contribute than in teaching.”

Mike Crumrine, 32, grew up in a very different community in Ashland, Ohio, but he, too, said he “feels an obligation” to teach in a school with disadvantaged students.

“These kids need consistency because there’s not much consistency in their lives,” he said. “I feel I can make a difference by supporting them, by pushing them, just by being there.”

In September, 29 new teachers started at Bethune, and 27 of them are coming back next year, the principal said.

But they were not without complaints. Most said they didn’t have enough textbooks for the first few weeks of school. Several said their students were shuffled around during the first semester because of scheduling foul-ups.

All said discipline was a never-ending problem.

“You have to be on top of things from the very beginning, take charge, be assertive,” said Carol Johnson, a language teacher finishing her first year. “They (students) will challenge you if you’re not strong.”

Several of the new teachers voiced a one-word assessment of their jobs: “tiring.”

The assessments were more scattered, however, on the “mentor” teachers, a new state-funded program created by the 1983 education reform law. These instructors, judged as outstanding by their peers, get $4,000 extra a year, partly as a bonus and partly to pay them for helping new and struggling teachers.

The Los Angeles district concentrated its mentors in the inner-city schools so that experienced teachers could work with the large numbers of new instructors.

At Bethune, several teachers said that a mentor teacher gave them advice and guidance that helped them improve their skills during the year. But others said that the mentors were too busy with their own classes to be of much help.

At Jefferson High, also in South-Central Los Angeles, Principal Francis Nakano said he employed several retired teachers to work with his 13 new instructors.

“I brought in four retired teachers and they were great. They helped turn around several of my new people,” said Nakano, who added that 12 of the new teachers will be back in September.

One of those is Kathryn Symmes, 31, who in recent years was living in Hollywood making television commercials.

“I made three times as much money making commercials,” she said, “but I don’t love commercials. I love teaching.”

Another new teacher at Jefferson had worked for a computer firm, a third for an international travel agency, rebutting the notion that teachers don’t have any other choices in the job market.