Parent Power : 200 Fed-Up School Backers Try to Fix Up Neglected Campus

Parents at Carpenter Avenue School in Studio City were so fed up with the condition of the building that they took matters in their own hands Saturday.

Organized into work teams by the followers of a Northern California relationships guru, nearly 200 parents gathered to paint, landscape, build cabinets and work on other improvement projects that the budget-crunched school district cannot afford.

“I have been so upset about all the budget cuts that I was glad to be able to finally do something,” said Adrian Becker as she prepared the trim of a windowpane for painting in a first-grade classroom. Becker, who lives in Van Nuys, has two children in the elementary school.

“Our children are our most important resource,” she said, “but you wouldn’t know that by what is happening with the school budget.”

Becker is just the kind of spirited parent that Burt Harris, the co-organizer of the event, wanted to have take part in the weekend refurbishing project.

“This is not about a bunch of people getting together to do charity work,” said Harris, who is president of KWHY television, which broadcasts business news and Spanish-language programming in Los Angeles. “It’s about getting a community to realize that it can organize and do great things.”

Parents and other volunteers are aiming this weekend to paint at least 15 classrooms, install doors on the bathroom stalls, erect a handball court, plant new grass and plants, paint new exterior murals and build a storage shed and several sets of cubbyhole cabinets.

Also on the school’s wish list was air conditioning for several classrooms. “We were prepared to do that, but we could not get all the proper approvals from the Department of Water and Power by this weekend,” Harris said. “But within the next 90 days we hope to get the units in eight classrooms.”

The work is being done in accordance with Los Angeles Unified School District standards, according to regional superintendent Gabriel Cortina. “It’s an extremely impressive project,” Cortina said. “We met with them last week and they answered all our concerns about safety, procedures and materials. They are well organized.”

Most of the materials needed to make the improvements were donated by local businesses and individuals, Harris said. Also, the group raised about $8,000 through a “bowlathon” and other events.

Harris is a graduate of a workshop sponsored by the Sterling Institute of Relationship, headquartered in Oakland, which sponsors approximately 12 workshops a year for men and women seeking to strengthen their relationships. He said that several local men who have taken the workshops over the years meet regularly to talk about their lives and support each other.

The Sterling organization encourages its graduates to participate in an annual International Community Service Day. Approximately 20 projects, similar to that at Carpenter school, are under way this weekend across North America, according to a Sterling spokesman.

Last year, the local group made improvements at the Maud Booth Family Center in North Hollywood, but Harris said the group’s goal of sparking interest for future community projects was not achieved.

“We were not very successful in organizing the mostly Hispanic community there,” he said, “so most of the work was done by the Sterling people. We did not leave much of a legacy for the community.”

When looking for this year’s project, he was happy to find a school that already had an active community support group. “We realize there are other schools in poor neighborhoods that might need even more help,” he said, “but we felt we would have more of a chance of success to organize a community project at Carpenter. Then, maybe we can learn enough to move into less advantaged areas in the future.”

School Principal Joan Marks said she queried members of the Sterling organization and concluded that they have not been involved in controversial activities. But she admits she doesn’t know much about the Sterling philosophy, which preaches an acceptance of immutable differences in behavior of males and females in relationships.

“I just know that these people have come together with our people to help our school,” said Marks, who was volunteering her time along with several other school employees over the weekend to work on the improvements. “Some of the walls in these classrooms have not been painted in 30 years.

“And I promise you, if we were not doing this ourselves, they would not be painted this century.”