Gompers Crisis : Plan Would Allow More in Magnet

A San Diego Unified School District report says the major goal in rejuvenating troubled Gompers Secondary School is boosting the academic performance of the predominantly non-white students who have studied in the shadow of its superb but restricted magnet program.

District administrators, in drawing up a plan for the atypical Southeast San Diego campus, are relying heavily on educational philosophies that call for giving all students the most challenging courses possible, for providing special counseling and emotional support for junior-high-age students, and for creating an ongoing series of parent education classes so that home environments will become more supportive of schooling.

The plan by city schools Supt. Tom Payzant will be discussed during an extensive public hearing Tuesday afternoon by the Board of Education, in the first step toward defusing the yearlong Gompers crisis.

Magnet Now Limited

Under the plan, all seventh- and eighth-graders at Gompers who live in the neighborhood--most of them members of minorities--would participate in the special math, science and computer magnet program. The magnet is now restricted to a limited number of neighborhood minority students and an equal number of white students who voluntarily bus to the school for its strong academic offerings.

The math-science program has garnered numerous state and national awards because of the prowess of its science-oriented students, and Gompers is by far San Diego’s best-known school outside the district.

Payzant has been under strong pressure both to protect the magnet’s stellar reputation and to reform its structure so the school offers as much to the neighborhood students as it does to those who bus in.

Gompers is both a comprehensive seventh- and eighth-grade junior high school--with 511 minority students and 13 white students--and a special seventh-through-12th-grade magnet program, which has an equal number of white and non-white students totaling about 900.

Payzant’s plan assumes that the current school-within-a-school organization is at the root of many of Gompers’ problems.

Those problems were aired at numerous, often acrimonious meetings last spring. The meetings were precipitated by a near-open revolt of teachers who were angered at requirements that specialized instructors at the high school magnet level should also teach a course to non-magnet junior high students. (The practice is known as “cross-teaching.”)

The parents of non-resident magnet students--mostly white--backed the protesting teachers and called for the transfer of Gompers Principal Marie Thornton, whom they blamed for low teacher morale.

But parents of resident students backed Thornton, the Gompers principal for the past two years, and pointed out that the continuing problems of poor achievement among many minority students and the isolation of the magnet predated her by many years. They argued that the white parents have little or no interest in making Gompers a truly integrated campus.

Payzant and his top aides have attempted to satisfy as many of the concerns that came out of the meetings as possible. The concerns were summarized in a lengthy report from an ad hoc committee of students, parents and teachers.

“We’re talking about equitable treatment of all students,” said George Frey, assistant superintendent for integration services. “We need to break down the barriers” between the magnet and the regular junior high students.

“I would say that this is like a football team that has been losing and decides it is time to go back to basics,” he said.

Frey was quick to point out that equal access to demanding courses would be phased in over a year, only after establishment of comprehensive tutoring classes, new bridging courses in math and social studies, a new counseling center and parenting classes.

“I’m not saying that every student will succeed, but with a thrust toward more enrichment, and with support not only from teachers but from parents, more will succeed than do now,” he said.

For example, Frey said more students should be placed in demanding math courses based on grade reports, standardized testing and parent-counselor discussions, rather than held back based on the current use of a single math test not originally designed for classroom placement.

At nearby Bell Junior High, several years of work in the math department has resulted in almost the entire student body ready to take algebra by the ninth grade, an effort that Frey and Payzant believe can be duplicated at Gompers.

“The curriculum is not going to be changed, but we want to see kids who are bright but now not achieving do better,” Frey said. “That is where we have to have staff development, where (resource teachers) can demonstrate how cooperative learning, how techniques of grouping children in the same classroom and other techniques can help more to learn.”

Frey and Al Cook, area operations superintendent in charge of the Gompers region, said that nothing during the series of community meetings indicated any problem with the curriculum being given to non-resident magnet students. Rather, the lack of perceived opportunity for the resident students was the cause for bitterness and racial antagonism, they said.

To that end, the administrators believe that the all-junior high magnet will lead to an overall better atmosphere. But they have added several components to the plan designed to smooth the transition both in the short and long term.

First, a number of teacher-parent and teacher-administrator committees will be set up to improve relations between Thornton and her faculty, and the report issued by the district details procedures that Cook says will ensure civility and honest discussion. Faculty members will be encouraged to experiment with new classroom methods, and cross-teaching will be implemented with the advice of teachers.

The report says that Thornton and two new vice principals handpicked for Gompers will establish a network of informal relationships by mingling with students and popping into classrooms on a regular basis. Several sessions will be held next month to show teachers and administrators ways to debate and disagree without personal attacks.

Second, 15 special joint parent-teacher teams will take responsibility for working with 150 students judged to have particular academic problems. They will contact parents on a monthly basis, and parents will be asked to sign a contract promising to give their students more support, such as setting aside a quiet place to study, forbidding television or other distractions until homework is completed and rewarding children for improved performance.

Parent education classes will be offered on subjects such as coping with teen-agers and on encouraging homework even if the parents are unfamiliar with the subject matter. The classes, if successful, should also help ease existing tensions between some teachers and the community, Cook said. Some parents view certain teachers as insensitive toward minorities, while the same teachers have viewed such parents as intruders in their classroom.

“It’s not going to be easy, but we have laid out a plan that can lead to mutual respect,” Cook said.

Third, the counseling department will be expanded with additional specialists, allowing a counselor each for seventh-graders and eighth-graders, reducing the caseload by about a third. In addition, a position of dean of students will be established to handle discipline cases, freeing up counselors to spend their time on academic, personal growth and career matters and turning counseling sessions into more positive experiences for students, Cook said.

Cook and Frey presented the plan separately to a group of Gompers teachers and parents last week. Frey said he did not know how many parents of non-resident students have taken steps to transfer their children from Gompers as a result of the unrest at the school, although district officials worry that non-resident attendance will drop substantially next year.

Cook said the reaction of teachers was one of “wait-and-see,” especially regarding a letter of support that all teachers will be asked to sign concerning the plan. He said the written agreement is similar to that asked of teachers in other district magnet school programs, but he admitted that it could be controversial among the staff.

“I told them that if any did not want to sign because of philosophical objections, I would have no problems as long as they support the plan,” Cook said.

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“I feel that we have made an honest attempt to address the concerns at Gompers and that they have a professional and moral responsibility to assist in shaping and carrying out the plan,” he said.