Heartening Words Despite Low School Ranking

“I shall use words that are spontaneous, drawn from my heart,” Claudia Arevalo said. I was grazing the Southern California Living section June 13 and was drawn into the wonderful face of Claudia, holding hands with Patricia Barragan (“Rising to the Occasion”). I just hate the ranking of schools, saddling all the students and staff with an imagery of inferiority, if not stupidity. Why is this done? Is it a game of sports where everything is ranked, really having nothing to do with performance, more with arbitrary or politically motivated voting.

But these young ladies, their will, their laughter, I love them. There is little hope for bureaucrats and almost none for politically inspired politicians, but the country will be in safe hands with students like this, humans at their best.

--SANFORD GOODKIN

San Diego

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The clueless, roving, tagging, destructive ditchers bothered me the most when I taught at Locke High School last year. These mean, reckless kids would often throw soda bottles through my opened classroom door, splattering sticky soda onto my students. When I shut the door, they would throw the bottles at the light fixtures, shattering glass all over the hallway.

The security guards basically chased kids around all day long, with the kids running off in the opposite direction.

When a school becomes the de facto “dumping ground” for students who have been expelled from other schools, the district needs to provide serious, well-organized, systematic intervention programs. Sweet, altruistic teachers and administrators with good intentions aren’t enough. Locke High School needs an intensive Boot Camp Academy for the deeply troubled, dangerous kids. The school should also require an Academic Orientation Program for all incoming pupils. Kids would learn how to be organized, responsible students before they could enroll in classes.

Let’s really show these kids that the world hasn’t given up on them. Congratulations to valedictorian Patricia Barragan and salutatorian Claudia Arevalo. I don’t know how they did it with all the chaos around them.

--MARY BONNIE BRAY

Los Angeles