Dear Neighbor…

An ongoing column from former HIGHLIGHTS editor Lucy Fried

Did you see the KABC-TV news piece about the recent rally in front of Baldwin Hills Elementary School (BHES)? No? It was a protest against LAUSD placing a charter school on their campus, and teachers, parents, kids, and neighbors were demanding that LAUSD return the eight classrooms and special education spaces they had given to the charter.

Baldwin teacher and UTLA board member Marie Germaine (Court 12) called on the LAUSD to support Baldwin Hills Elementary as a charter-free campus and return the classrooms and other areas Baldwin needs for their Pilot and Community School programs. ​

These programs, Baldwin parent Joanna Casucci (Court 3) explained, provide the school with greater authority to shape its curriculum and add such classes as robotics, art, and yoga. However, the charter took the rooms Baldwin needed, for those classes and for family conferencing.

Later, I ran into Alan Canterbury (Court 3), an attorney whose daughter attends Baldwin, and I asked why he and his wife, Genevieve, had chosen BHES. He simply wanted to support the community in which we all live. “We will all rise or fall together,” he says, “By choosing Baldwin, we tie the future and success of our own child to the future and success of our Black neighbor brothers and sisters.”

​Alan added that he and Genevieve have seen a straight rise in their daughter’s academic performance, her confidence, her awareness, and her compassion. “She has excelled under Baldwin’s teachers, who are trained to support and motivate students on their own terms, which leads to the teachers really getting to know their students well, their strengths and weaknesses,” he said.

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​I love Alan’s point that VG is part of a larger community. Get to know Baldwin Hills 
Elementary and support it. He makes a good case for parents who live at VG to send their kids to the school in their backyard. Neighbors in Action (NIA) can give you more information. You can reach them at [email protected].

Please send comments on this column to me at [email protected].