Father Figure : Volunteer Is a Role Model, Protector and Confidant to Pupils

On a recent day at William Kelso Elementary School in Inglewood, James Baker shot hoops with the sixth-grade boys, settled a fistfight in the boys’ restroom, entertained a dozen squealing second-graders for a busy teacher and donned a luminescent vest to substitute for an absent school crossing guard.

Ask any of the Kelso children about Baker, a burly man with a grin as warm as morning sunshine, and they say, “He works here,” surprised that anyone would ask.

Tavonia Russell, a second-grader who cannot imagine why else a grown man would show up at a school almost every day, declared: “He doesn’t come here for fun.”

In this post-riot era with so much emphasis on the absence of fathers in black families and the lack of parental involvement in inner-city schools, James Baker challenges the stereotypes.

A 39-year-old Los Angeles police officer, he is a husband and father of two and a nearly full-time school volunteer, arranging his job schedule so he can spend part of almost every day at Kelso.

Kelso Principal Marjorie Thompson called Baker “a treasure” and her most unusual school volunteer ever.

“We’ve had many outstanding volunteers, but this one is beyond description,” Thompson said.

Parents, teachers and staff go to Baker when they want to discuss their problems, she added, praising Baker’s innate ability to treat every human being, no matter how troublesome, with dignity.

“I really think he is showing the dignity of a black man who is in control, and he is in control of himself and in control of situations,” she said.

Kelso staff members laugh about the time officials from another school in the Inglewood Unified School District telephoned Kelso officials demanding to know why the school was allowed to have a full-time police officer on staff.

“I’ve done this for years,” Baker said, explaining that his volunteer work began when his daughters, Dionna and Devon, now 14 and 12, started their school years at Kelso.

“I schedule for days off during the week,” he added, explaining that he also works night shifts so he can be at the school during the day, doing whatever is necessary, be it mopping up the cafeteria floor or watching over the playground.

Baker and his wife, Bettina, a clerk in the Los Angeles County court system, moved from Inglewood to Hawthorne a couple of years ago. Their daughters transferred to Hawthorne schools after graduating from Kelso, a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade school.

But Baker has remained deeply involved at Kelso, which ranks as one of the most successful schools in the state when it comes to educating low-income minority children. About 35% of the Kelso youngsters come from welfare families, and 75% of the approximately 900 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

For Kelso’s children, many of whom come from dangerous, gang-ridden neighborhoods, Baker serves as a protector, playmate, confidant and role model--jobs he performs with an unassuming, unflappable disposition.

Helping children at a crosswalk recently, Baker sang out to one small girl crossing the street.

“Michele, my belle,” he said to a second-grader who had not missed a chance all day to be near Baker. She crossed the street slowly, stretching out the moment by turning to say: “Bye, Mr. Baker. See you tomorrow.”

Baker is keenly aware that many of the youngsters do not have fathers at home.

“I have them come up to me and say: ‘Would you be my father?’ ”

To that, he tells the students that even if their fathers do not live at home, they are still their fathers.

“And I’ll be your good friend at school,” Baker will say. “We’ll play, we’ll talk about everything. Any problems you have you let me know.”

On the playground, giggling Latino girls come up to talk to him, delighted that he can speak Spanish. He studied the language as a student at Crenshaw High School and at Cal State Northridge, and he makes good use of it on the grounds of Kelso.

Baker has been a police officer for five years, joining the force after more than a decade in retail security for such stores as Bullock’s and Target.

“I said I need to do something more with my life, be involved,” he said, explaining why he decided to go into law enforcement.

Though he leaves his police uniform at home when he is at Kelso, Baker remains the ever-vigilant police officer. Recently he spotted two boys, about 8, fingering a wad of bills.

“What are you doing with all that money?” he asked.

One boy explained that his friend got what turned out to be 10 $1 bills from his mother for his birthday.

Baker explained that it was not safe to flash the money around in public. “Some lowlife drug addict (might) see you and take it,” Baker said. “Some dope addict (might) bust your head open, thinking you’ve got a lot of money.”

Children, Baker said, need to know they can walk to school in safety and be secure once they get there.

The job of a role model, Baker said, is a critical one--but not one that he believes is hard to fill.

“I do what I normally do at home,” he said. “I’m a clown at home; I’m a clown here.”

He is insistent that more adults are needed in the schools as volunteers, even if they are not parents.

“Children need more and more role models in 1992 than ever before,” Baker said. “We need police officers, we need firefighters, we need doctors. A lot of them do this, go back to the schools . . . spend just an hour a week at a school and give children a sense of someone cares, someone loves them and (show) them the right way to go.

“It’s easy to find the wrong way to go,” he added. “But sometimes it’s harder to find the right way to go because there are so many negatives in their lives.”

Baker is unforgiving when it comes to parents who are not involved with their local schools.

“There’s no excuse for parents not getting down here,” he said. “I’ve worked graveyard; I worked different shifts; I work 12-hour days; I work overtime. . . . There’s no excuse.”

“It’s your children. It’s our children,” he said. “I care not only for my children, but I care just as much for these children down here. Because these children, they deserve to have a place where they can go, a safe environment where they can learn.”