District Officials Propose Steps to Ease Racial Tensions

By Menaka Fernando
Special to The Outlook

May 10 -- District officials recommended last week that the School Board facilitate greater dialogue between students and faculty and hire more minority teachers to prevent additional acts of violence from erupting on the Santa Monica High School campus.

Addressing the April 15 brawl that broke out on the Samohi campus, the school's principal, Dr.Ilene Strauss presented a 12-page report at Thursday night's board meeting detailing the incident and outlining short-term and long-term recommendations.

The fight reportedly involved as many as 200 students and required police reinforcements from neighboring cities. Many believe the fight resulted from racial tensions between Latino and black students. Six students were suspended, including one who was intoxicated, Strauss said.

"We will be undertaking a concerted and organized program to hear and understand student voices from all segments of our student population," the report stated under a section outlining "intermediate plans for this spring."

The recommendations include training teachers, parents and administrators to host round-table discussions with "as many students as possible," which will then lead to a two-day conference with students, according to the report.

"The purpose will be to construct action plans and timelines for implementation of the ideas that emerge," the report said.

Strauss said working with students is something school officials should have done sooner.

"I deeply regret I haven't done this earlier," she said, referring to the various meetings she's had with students since the incident.

Out of the discussions with Samohi's Black Student Union and MEChA, a Latino student organization, students have suggested several changes.

They include coordinating a peace rally, bringing back peer-mediation, instituting a freshmen seminar in conflict resolution and culture studies, instituting in-house suspensions and actively recruiting underrepresented teachers with student input in the hiring process.

Strauss added that the school needed more resources to further tighten security. After the incident, a new policy was instituted requiring all visitors to show identification at the gate and requiring speakers to obtain permission prior to arriving on campus.

Because of rumors of violence between blacks and Latinos spreading from Los Angeles schools, security was heightened Thursday during Cinco De Mayo, but no incidents occurred.

District Superintendent Dr. John Deasy agreed with many of the provisions called for the students and their principal.

The district will begin funding a peer-mediation program and the hiring process "could've been pressed harder on," he acknowledged, adding that the faculty should look like the larger student body in terms of demographics.

While students brought up most of the suggestions outlined in the report, some students believed their concerns were not adequately represented.

"Even though we bring out thoughts, nothing has been done about it," said Samohi sophomore Michael Bruster, referring to the lack of diversity on the faculty.

If there were more minority teachers, minority students could go to them with their problems and "maybe things would get better," he said.

Natalie Mesa, also a Samohi sophomore, pointed out that students need to learn more about minority history and culture.

She sat through two hours of world history Thursday, but had learned nothing about Cinco de Mayo, she said.

Members of the Bilingual Advisory Committee said if school officials had listened to their concerns, the violence would not have broken out.

"There's no excuse to say they didn't know what was going on," said Marlene Herrera, co-president of the committee in Spanish.