At Grant High : Drop in Attendance Helps Administrators Keep School Going

By 6:40 a.m. Monday, tension had squeezed out nearly all of Robert Collins’ normal jocularity.

Collins, principal of the 3,200-student Grant High School in Van Nuys, stood at the school’s Oxnard Street entrance with his walkie-talkie in hand, scowling, breathing deeply and appearing ready for anything from gang trouble to picket-line violence.

“You can’t block traffic, you know that,” he said to the striking teachers milling about. Then, a bit friendlier: “I hope this is the only day you guys have to be out here.”

Collins and his team of administrators had crafted what he called “a complete reorganization of the entire school” in preparation for Monday’s strike, juggling classroom assignments, schedules and supervision duties to allow the school’s operation without most of its 132 teachers.

But, until students and substitutes began arriving at about 7:15 a.m., no one knew whether it was going to work.

Rumors of impending gang violence had circulated all day Friday, adding to the tension. Collins had dismissed the rumors. Early Monday, however, the unknown still loomed. “You can discount rumors, but you never know,” he said.

Collins nervously radioed the front office, checking on the number of substitutes. “If I get about a dozen substitute teachers, we can be pretty secure,” he said. “Less than that and we can’t run the program we want to run.”

Only 10 substitutes arrived to work, and 15 of Grant’s teachers crossed the picket line. But it didn’t matter much because only 1,400 students, far fewer than Collins had anticipated, showed up.

When the 8 a.m. class bell rang, Collins and Joe Walker, the assistant principal, began sweeping through the campus, locking doors and hustling confused stragglers in the direction of their classes. Students whose teachers did not show were sent to large gatherings in the school’s two gymnasiums or an auditorium.

In the gyms and the auditorium, little of substance was going on, as administrators and substitute and regular teachers struggled for control. One student foursome dealt a hand of cards. Paper airplanes flew. Students shot basketballs.

Return to Order

By second period, a meager amount of instruction was occurring. A biology teacher conducted a lecture on organs and cells. A substitute art teacher gave out an assignment on shapes. Another substitute explained the rules regarding grades.

“This was a waste of time,” said senior Adam Finer, 17, as he exited the campus with a group of students who said they were bored by the lack of instruction. “They spent half the time reading the rules to us, as if we can’t read ourselves.”

Still, students were generally cooperative. A few gang members were warned to leave campus, but by the beginning of third period the 39-acre campus appeared entirely calm.

And Collins, the tension of the early morning having dissolved, was joking, exulting even, and saying that starting today real instruction and learning would begin again. “Now our plan will work perfectly, because the number of students is low,” he said.

Joe Walker sounded a note of confidence. “The longer this goes on, the better we get at it,” he said.