Protests Drain Attendance at City Schools

By Ann K Williams
Staff Writer

May 2 -- Perfect parking, but no place to get lunch. That’s what some students and staff noticed at Santa Monica College as many of their peers skipped class Monday and low-wage service staff didn’t show up for work.

And at public schools throughout the city, students said some of their classes were nearly half empty, and at least one school had to call in reinforcements to keep its cafeteria running.

Although an accurate count for public school attendance won’t be available until Tuesday and College attendance may never be known, there were clear signs that Monday’s historic immigrant rights protests in downtown Los Angeles were felt in the community’s schools.

But the impact was uneven, and depending on whom you asked, the numbers ranged from 10 percent attendance in some classes, and no change at all in others.

Santa Monica-Malibu public school officials hazarded a guess of 15 percent student absence across the district, while John Adams Middle School Principal Irene Ramos had more precise figures. She said 220 out of her school’s 1,100 student body didn’t show up Monday. Only two teachers took the day off from John Adams specifically to protest.

And McKinley School’s Office Manager, Vida Kamkar, said all of the teachers and staff were there, and only a small number of students were absent, “a little bit maybe more” than a usual day.

Ramos felt the crunch in the cafeteria, where many of the workers stayed out. She had to call the District to bring in help for the lunch hour.

Santa Monica High School student reports were mixed. Several said half the students in their classes were missing, but one, a senior named Sebastian, said that was only in some classes, specifically the Chicano studies classes.

His observation was seconded by Chelsea, a junior, who said the emptiest classes were those that regularly had more Latino students.

“It was noticeable if someone said something,” Chelsea said, “but it wasn’t like ‘Ohmygod, there’s nobody here.'”

And some students were holed up taking Advanced Placement tests all day and didn’t notice anything was different.

A handful of SAMOHI students left campus at 10 a.m. to go to the protests in Downtown LA under the watchful eyes of five City police officers stationed at the school entrance.

“We are being on the cautious side,” explained police spokesman Lt. Frank Fabrega. “If there is a walkout, we’re there to make sure they go from point A to point B safely.”

And students who wanted to protest without leaving school were allowed to sit in the Greek Amphitheatre, Sebastian said. He saw 40 or 50 sitting there in the morning.

Across town at the College, students and faculty had similarly inconsistent takes. While agreeing that parking was unusually easy, and almost all the campus eateries, including Carl’s Junior and Starbucks, were closed, their classroom experiences varied widely.

One Korean student, an immigrant himself who didn’t want to be identified, said that only three out of 35 students showed up in his sociology class. But another student, Noah Phillips, said that his singing class was full, perhaps because the teacher is strict and grades down for poor attendance.

The modern language tutoring center was busy, they said, and at least one professor, Ford Lowcock, said his photography class was full.

Several students said some teachers, particularly in the social studies, encouraged their students to take the day off to go downtown to protest. Not all the students followed the teachers’ directions, though. The Korean student said he called his classmate after 11 a.m., when he found out that class was cancelled and his friend was still asleep.

And Phillips said his logic teacher, who he described as “reasonable,” decided to repeat Monday’s lecture on Wednesday, giving the students who came to class a chance to take Wednesday off.

But it wasn’t all about getting a day off. Phillips’ teacher called the protest “historic,” and said “it will be written about in history,” a sentiment echoed by teachers throughout the grades and schools in the city.

Yong Jo Chang, who’s going to Santa Monica College on a visa, said, “If illegals disappeared, the Los Angeles economy would be shot.”

Philosophy professor Amber Katherine let her students vote to protest and led them down the halls shouting, “Walk out, walk out, walk out!”

And the public schools took advantage of their own “teachable moments.” District officials urged teachers to talk about immigration, and at least one school, Edison Language Academy, had a special assembly organized by Principal Lori Orum.

Teachers at John Adams Middle School, whose population is 47 percent Latino, taught their students about the segregation of Latino students in Westminster in 1946.

Even area private schools seem to have gotten in on the action.

New Roads School on Olympic Boulevard put up a sign reading: “USA Nation of Immigrants.”