Poway Schools Draft Program to Assure Equal Treatment of Ethnic Minorities

Poway Schools Supt. Robert Reeves, stressing that he has found no evidence of discrimination against Filipino students at Mt. Carmel High School, announced a five-point program Monday to assure equal treatment of ethnic minorities.

Reeves said the Poway Unified School District board will meet within two weeks to ratify his appointment of an investigative committee heavily weighted with Filipino representatives to “investigate and act upon all allegations of ethnic discrimination” at Mt. Carmel.

The issue of discrimination against Filipino students by school personnel and police was brought to the attention of the school board forcibly last week when about 200 parents picketed the site of the meeting, carrying signs urging action to resolve the problem.

In a discussion that lasted until nearly midnight, members of the protest group charged that teachers and staff at Mt. Carmel singled out Filipinos for excessive punishment and racist remarks.

Reeves countered that none of the Filipino protesters had come forward with facts to back up the charges.

320 Filipino Students

Mt. Carmel, in the Rancho Penasquitos community, has the largest enrollment--3,200--of any high school in the county. About 320 of the students are Filipino, he said.

Incidents at Mt. Carmel involving Filipinos include an October assault on a driver who was pulled from a van and beaten by a group of youths, and a February complaint by a youth that he was beaten up by a group of his friends.

Reeves said that Poway school officials and staff have met 82 times since last October about the discrimination problem, and that “the entire Mt. Carmel staff has been trained and has become more fully qualified to respond to culturally sensitive issues.”

“Without belaboring the issue, significant money has been spent, literally hundreds of hours of staff time has been devoted” to the complaints of Filipino discrimination, he said.

Number of Procedural Changes

As a result of the complaints, a number of changes in procedures are being instituted at the school: a hot line will be established to field complaints of discrimination; efforts will be increased to hire Filipino teachers and staff; a meeting will be called between school administrators and 11 Filipino petitioners who voiced complaints at the school board’s Feb. 27 meeting and school officials will work more closely with the San Diego Police Department to enforce student discipline, Reeves pledged at the news conference.

At the Feb. 27 meeting, 11 Filipino leaders came forward to protest school officials’ actions in questioning Filipino students about gang membership. Several of the Filipino speakers explained that Filipino-Americans tend to band together, but should not be considered as gangs.

No representatives of the Filipino community attended Reeves’ press conference.