Crowded classrooms

Re “Turf face-off may be in store for schools,” April 7

The Times writes that all 40 schools “targeted” for invasion by charter schools “have classrooms that are underused.” Want to know what “underused” means? I have been teaching at Venice High School for five years. Until this year, I have had to move at least three times a day to a different classroom, losing my nutrition time, hauling my books and materials, sharing board space with other teachers and never having a place to relax during my conference period so that I might grade papers in peace.

This is the first year I have been able to set up a proper classroom, determining the seating, properly posting student work and setting up a library of books. Now I hear that the charter school teachers will have permanent classrooms while the rest of us have to scuttle around the campus. Just when we thought the schools in Los Angeles couldn’t get any worse, we have found a way to destroy what little sanity we still have left.

Gregg Heacock

Santa Monica