A Forum for Community Issues : Los Angeles: Supplementary government programs bring in enrichments and a private gift supplies a computer lab, but struggling parents can’t provide much help.

There are approximately 1,200 students, pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, in our school. We have a high turnover rate, so the number varies from day to day. Few days pass that we don’t have a parent either checking a child out or registering a child in one of our classes.

Our school is about 50% Latino and 50% African American. Unlike some schools, however, our parents seem to work very well together, without any friction between the racial groups.

Parental involvement is absolutely important to a child’s success, but there are economic realities that make it impossible for parents to volunteer at the school. As I tell my parents, there are a number of ways to be involved without attending meetings.

The majority of our parents attend teachers’ conferences. We ask the parents to encourage their children to return their homework and we ask them to discuss school rules with their children. That’s a form of involvement in which all parents can participate.

We do have a cadre of parents who are very involved and who are at the school on a regular basis. We no longer have a PTA but we have a strong Booster Club. PTAs have to send dues to a central office, but with a Booster Club, 100% of the money goes to the children.

The Booster Club raises roughly $5,000 a year and that money pays for some of the extras, such as field trips or holiday celebrations. Santa Claus came to school last week and the Booster Club provided a stocking full of goodies for each child. One of their goals this year is to purchase an alarm system for the school because recently we have had a number of break-ins.

Money certainly helps but I don’t think that it’s the only thing. There are schools where achievement levels are high compared to other schools with more money. I think student achievement has to do with the dedication of the staff, which is as important as money.

We do get money from other sources. We get federal funds because we are a Chapter One school, which means we have low test scores and high levels of poverty. The federal government also funds our IBM computer lab, part of a program responding to the civil unrest that broke out after the first Rodney King trial in April, 1992.

We have a School Readiness Language Development Program, funded through integration funds, money from the state and district to relieve the effects of segregation. The program allows us to prepare 4-year-olds and their parents for elementary school. Integration funds also go to our Language Development Program for African American students. And as a school with large numbers of students with limited English-language proficiency, we get state bilingual funds. While those funds can be used only on particular populations of the school, we received $119,603 in state funds this year from the School Improvement Program. That program is probably one of the best because all the children benefit from it.

For the past six years, the youngsters also have benefited from a private donation by the Riordan Foundation. We have two “Write-To-Read” labs--a kindergarten and first-grade program that provides computer labs for children, where they practice reading and writing simultaneously.

I believe we’re on the road to addressing the problems we have at this school.

We recently decided to become a LEARN (charter) school, which will give us more autonomy from the district to pursue solutions to our problems.

I’m not satisfied with the achievement level some students have shown on tests. Part of that may be because there’s more transiency in our community than in communities where the scores are higher.

Our parents do what they can. They are very supportive. But, obviously, they are not as affluent as some parents at other schools.

The best thing about our school is our children. I think visitors to our school would be pleasantly surprised.