Mothers Lead Revival of Neighborhood School

The Beverlywood Moms were born out of fancy. Wouldn’t it be nice, the four young mothers thought, if their babies would one day walk to school down the street the way they did when they were kids?

Though it might not seem such a farfetched wish, they had reason to think it would never happen. For a generation--since forced busing sent white parents fleeing from the Los Angeles public schools--their mostly white, middle-class neighborhood had little interest in Canfield Elementary. Its academics were suspect. Its grounds were neglected.

Like so many others in the Beverlywood neighborhood west of Robertson Boulevard, the four young women assumed they would either pay private school tuition or get their children into one of L.A. Unified’s highly touted magnet schools. Until the day they decided to turn their daydream into action.

Over the next four years, they became Canfield’s biggest boosters. They started hanging out at the school working to make it better. They scoured the business community and foundations for money. They rang doorbells and held wine and cheese parties to get other parents on board.

Symbolically, their campaign was headed for a moment of truth this fall when it would be time to take their children on that walk. And they did, joined by 20 other 5-year-olds and their moms. It was the largest class of Beverlywood kindergartners to enter the school in more than a decade.

“It was such an emotional thing watching all these children walking to the school,” said Nicole Gorak, one of the original four moms, whose daughter is now in Canfield’s preschool. “We had done it!”

The Canfield story, first told in The Times two years ago when its outcome remained uncertain, now stands as a model for how a small group of dedicated parents can alter the destiny of a school by erasing deeply ingrained community perceptions.

It contains a message of hope for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which still struggles to attract middle-class whites 20 years after forced desegregation came to an end. The percentage of whites enrolled continues to decline, in fact, dipping last year to just 10.1% as total enrollment topped 700,000.

Partly as a result of the publicity, the Beverlywood Moms became the inspiration for parents in half a dozen other Los Angeles neighborhoods who are putting their commitment to public education on the line.

New friends groups have formed at Lanai Elementary in Encino, Cheremoya Elementary in Hollywood, Rosewood Elementary in West Hollywood and at Webster Junior High in West Los Angeles. Following the Canfield script, the founders of those groups have recruited their neighbors, called on businesses and foundations for money and set up volunteer cadres to work on landscaping, supervise children and tutor.

For some of those parents, the act of visiting the neighborhood school has changed their minds about sending their children there.

“The nightmares and ideas people have about what is going on in the public school were not true,” said Kenneth Robins, a screenwriter whose daughter will start at Cheremoya in two years.

Robins lives in the wealthy hillside portion of Cheremoya’s attendance area. Most of the school’s 432 students live in the flatlands below or come by bus. When a group of his neighbors met last year to consider becoming involved in the school, none had yet been there, he said.

“Once we start getting people to go into the school on little projects and volunteer missions, they get caught up,” Robins said.

Next year, about 10 children from homes above Franklin Avenue will enroll, Robins said.

Some Parents Can Become ‘Too Involved’

Promising as they are, such successes also demonstrate a more sobering side of the Canfield story--that restoring the neighborhood character of a school is a process of slow and incremental gains. The chemistry between parents and the school principal can limit the results.

Donna Feinstein, who started the friends group at Rosewood, said she fears that her constant prodding about neglected repairs and curriculum issues have alienated Rosewood’s principal, Janet Chapman.

“I found myself in a bit of a pickle, overstepping my boundaries,” she said.

Chapman acknowledged that she has limits to her enthusiasm for parental support.

“At some schools, the parents are almost too involved,” Chapman said. “They end up almost running the schools.”

Nor does Chapman believe that Rosewood will ever return to being filled with local children, because the West Hollywood neighborhood is short of young parents. And those young families that do live in the area see that the school is improving, but that “hasn’t increased the neighborhood students attending,” she said.

Regardless of the effect on enrollment, the signs of renewal at Canfield are extensive. There are parents on campus day and night. They volunteer in class, help keep the vegetable garden weeded and watered, supervise the playground, serve on committees and even labor on weekends with shovels and paintbrushes.

One night recently, a committee planned an assembly to promote the salad bar that will soon be added to the lunch menu. The seven parents also debated whether to repaint or rebuild old handball backboards, and decided to do more research on the costs.

Off campus, parents hustle for grants that they estimate have brought nearly $300,000 to the school. They have gotten money for playground sets and landscaping, and now they are working on rebuilding the school library.

“I’m stunned and bowled over,” said Principal Sylvia Rogers, who confessed to being somewhat skeptical when the four women came to see her about making the school better. “It’s been wonderful.”

Rogers said the outpouring of assistance has made her work more complicated, but also taught her new things, including how to ask for help.

“It used to be people would come up to me and say, ‘I have a really good idea. Why don’t you . . .?’ ” Rogers said, indicating that they meant for her to do it. “Now people say, ‘Do you think we could . . .?’ And they are the ones who do it.”

One parent, for example, is running a scrap center to collect materials for crafts, Rogers said. Another is raising money to buy robes for the chorus. Every classroom has a parent volunteer to coordinate all the supplies the teachers need, and parents bring breakfast to the teachers once a month.

“It’s such a morale builder,” Rogers said.

She sees a cumulative effect that has even boosted academics. Canfield’s score on the state Academic Performance Index shot up 40 points this year to 707, an increase of nearly six times its growth target.

After four years of pitching Canfield, the Moms have undergone their own transformation. Their view now extends beyond the familiar territory of Beverlywood to the larger neighborhood extending east and south that sends its children to the school.

“The Beverlywood Moms doesn’t even exist anymore,” said Gorak. “It is about Canfield. It’s about the neighborhood, what we need for our children.”