Magnet School Talk Attracts 600 to North Hollywood High

Nearly 600 parents and teachers from 40 schools across Los Angeles congregated Monday afternoon at to hear School Superintendent John Deasy talk about magnet schools.

A coalition of parents at the magnet schools got together when the latest Los Angeles Unified School District budget showed that $100 million was being diverted away from school programs, said North Hollywood dad and music booster Steve Page. North Hollywood has Highly Gifted and programs. 

“We think that they should look at the overall program and see what is working and preserve those successes,” Page said. “The whole thing needs to be looked at again.”

As a prelude to the two-hour meeting, the North Hollywood High School Orchestra performed under the direction of popular music teacher, who ironically, has received a notice and is not scheduled to return next year.

North Hollywood Principal Dr. Randall Delling welcomed the crowd after the orchestra performed and said, “We will somehow have to make room for 30 more students who want to be up there in that orchestra next year.”

When new school superintendent Deasy took the stage he was being asked questions (that were emailed in and written by the audience) by activist Lynn Alvarez, who has three children in three different schools.

At one point a parent in the audience interrupted Deasy and shouted. He turned to the woman and said, “Don’t yell at me, I don’t yell at you.”

Also in the audience were three elected school board members, new member Bennett Kayser, District 4 representative and local District 3 representative .

Galatzan first joked about the school not having enough parking for the big crowd, and said, “We have to park in the neighborhood.” She explained her recent vote against a magnet school and said, “We should make sure we have the money to maintain the programs before we start new ones.” She also said the number of students at a magnet school should not be the reason why a school gets magnet funding. It should be a lot of various reasons, including Title 1 status, if the school has lower-income families.

Deasy said he was disappointed about Gov. Jerry Brown recently vetoing the latest budget proposal, saying there are “grave concerns” about the “negative signaling” that his decision gives.

Deasy said he would try to maintain programs for pre-schoolers as well as try to keep transportation to schools.

“If you can’t get students to the magnet schools, what is the point of having them,” said the superintendent.

Page pointed out that North Hollywood High has students from Gardenia, Sylmar and West Los Angeles. “People come from all over the city for our school,” Page said. 

Deasy received some applause when he said the present system of cutting back teachers with the RIF notices was silly. “That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever and to not take into account the ability of the teacher and how the are doing on the job.”

Some of the questions written out by the audience included money spent on special needs rather than highly gifted students, charter schools and unnecessary textbooks.

“We spend millions of dollars on books that the teachers don’t want to use, we should stop that,” he said.

Deasy talked about his own three children all in their early 20s who all went to public school. He said he would like the public to ask elected officials to support schools, but also said there needs to be a shift in priorities.

“We spend $58,000 to support a prisoner for a year and $4,700 for a Kindergartner,” Deasy said. “I have a problem with that kind of math.”

On a personal commitment, he said, “I will make sure magnet schools don’t cease to exist.”