Passage of a Year Has Failed to Heal Rifts at Gompers School

A lengthy discussion Tuesday about Gompers Secondary School showed the San Diego school board that fundamental disagreements over how to save the high-powered science magnet program clearly remain a year after longstanding tensions exploded into vitriolic debate.

The hourlong debate--though far more civil than those involving Gompers in past years--left parents, teachers and San Diego city school trustees frustrated and confused over what is happening at Gompers. Gompers is the district’s best-known school, having garnered dozens of national academic awards in both science and social studies competitions.

The board had hoped to learn of the progress being made on a renewal plan for the 7th-through-12th-grade school in Southeast San Diego, a plan intended to raise academic achievement for neighborhood minority students without harming the enriched curriculum that has long attracted white teen-agers bused in from other areas of the city.

Years of Concern

That plan, adopted early last summer despite strident opposition from the majority of teachers and non-resident parents, was intended to address years of concern by neighborhood parents that too many of their junior-high children were left out of the advanced curriculum and relegated to second-class status.

Its heart called for expanding the science-math magnet at the junior high level to include all 7th and 8th-graders--almost all of whom are black and Latino--by having magnet instructors at the high-school level teach at the junior-high level as well.

Traditionally, magnet programs at Gompers were restricted to a small number of minority students matched on an equal basis with the white students who bus in. The rest of the junior high students had a different academic program which many perceived as inferior. The high-school portion of Gompers has always been a small, all-magnet component and is not directly affected by the renewal plan.

No Quick Solutions

But as the Board of Education learned Tuesday, longstanding issues concerning tensions between the principal and faculty, problems with counseling and discipline, redesign of curriculum to give more minority students access to better courses--among others--have proven resistant to quick solutions and in some cases have interfered with the policy set down by trustees.

There were some bright spots pointed out both by district evaluators and by an 18-member committee of parents and teachers set up by schools Supt. Tom Payzant last fall to carry out its own evaluation.

But in general, both the district and committee reports, while cryptic in their comments, were read by board members as indicating the future of Gompers--as well as the district’s reputation for dealing with integration and academic problems--remains up in the air.

“I’m disappointed,” Trustee Jim Roache said. “It’s apparent that a great deal of work needs to be done at Gompers, and I thought the reports should have been more explicit.”

‘Weird Report’

Colleague Kay Davis, acknowledging that she opposed the board’s plan last year, said the discussion left her “feeling that things aren’t progressing wonderfully . . . and I don’t feel things will change . . . this is a weird report.”

In large part, board members were irritated that the “interim reports” on Gompers’s first year were almost three months late in coming to them because committee members could not agree on either broad areas of consensus from their own research or on the district’s own report.

Reports from five subcommittees of the 18-member group made few conclusions while they sketched the deep divisions at the school over the principal’s willingness to give teachers a voice, over whether neighborhood students are prepared for rigorous classes, and whether revamping of the counseling department has brought improvement in both discipline and fair treatment of minority students.

The district’s own report painted a somewhat rosier picture of improvement, pointing to a host of special classes and tutorials to give minority students help in basic skills and to encourage them to consider college-preparatory work, as well as the willingness of many teachers to work on new curriculum.

‘Level of Resistance’

“I think you have to keep in mind the level of resistance (among teachers) at the site,” Trustee Shirley Weber said. “Even at our schools undergoing restructuring where all the teachers are wildly enthusiastic and motivated, we aren’t hearing of turnarounds in six months.”

Weber said, however, that “probably at Gompers, some folks are going to have to leave for us to bring change . . . some people will not see, don’t plan to see change . . . there are all sorts of people seeking to subvert things, yet there are many in the community trying to make it work.”

But Eustacio Benitez, a committee member, told Weber that “we agree that people are going to have to leave, we just don’t agree on the same people who will have to.”

Benitez, an administrator at UC San Diego, said that the situation is still “explosive, as far as teachers not being satisfied.” And he said the school still has tremendous counseling problems despite the counselor-to-student ratio being cut to 1 to 250 from the normal 1 to 500 at most schools.

Walter Kudumu, a longtime Southeast San Diego parent active in city schools, said he believes a majority of teachers are trying to make the district plan work but that “there is a general reluctance about, and in some cases a lack of clear direction on, how they can be part of that action.”

Gus Chavez of San Diego State University, also a committee member, said that the group is now tallying results from a survey conducted among the school’s 80 teachers.

“Attitudes may have mellowed somewhat but the feelings of last year are still around,” Chavez said. “The survey will tell us a lot” and Chavez said the committee has received 68 responses.

Both district administrators and the Payzant committee said they will have a final report on Gompers to the board by mid-June despite the problems exhibited Tuesday.