A Venice High Junior and Mother Speak Out

A Venice High (non-magnet) Student:
I am a junior at Venice High School, and I have some issues with the school. Too often I will see people smoking on campus and doing drugs. Many people in class will not pay attention, they talk and most teachers will just say be quiet rather than kick them out to keep the class quiet. It’s hard to hear the teacher sometimes because they are constantly talking. I often feel like I am the only one doing work in class. A lot of the teachers will not even do anything about the profanity. Sometimes they say something about it and sometimes the teachers say it themselves.

A Venice High Mom:
It is much worse than what my child writes. The classroom atmosphere is not conducive to learning in any way. Because s/he is not in the magnet, my child is in classrooms with students who don’t care about learning. Many times s/he will tell me that s/he is the only one that does any work or turned in an assignment. One day, s/he came home to tell me that s/he got the highest grade on the test. I assumed s/he received an “A,” in reality, it was a “B,” and no one else in the class came close to that grade. My child is frequently at the top of her/his class without putting in too much effort.

I know s/he probably belongs in the magnet, but I chose not to put her/him there because of the excessive amounts of homework I had heard about. I recently went through a teaching program and from that experience feel that too much homework is not necessary.

The administration does not seem to care about the students. I have tons of stories, but one stands out to me. At the beginning of the school year, my child was told to switch to another math class with a teacher that the kids couldn’t understand. No reason was given. I told my child “no way” and emailed her/his current teacher who told me s/he could stay, as there was plenty of room for her/him. Despite calling and leaving numerous messages with her/his counselor about her/him staying in his math class, I received no answer. When I got her/his progress report, they had her/him in the new math class, with an “F,” since s/he hadn’t ever shown up.

I called the principal and left a message. She never returned my call, nor had anyone else call me. I had to physically walk into the school and ask to talk to my child’s counselor. They told me she was not available. (This was a least a month after I had first called) I demanded to be helped, and someone else did help me and my child was allowed to stay in the math class.

It is unbelievable to me that no one called me back. My child has a high GPA, never misses class and is absolutely no discipline problem. I still can’t believe they didn’t help me out until I got angry. I could write a few pages on other incidents.

By the way, these parents that fought against your school used the word “elite” in reference to the Incubator parents. In reality, these parents that fought you are the elite. Their children are in the magnet. Many kids in the regular school at Venice High would not be able to make it in the magnet.

A school like yours, however, with innovative teaching methods and smaller class sizes, would be able to help them. I feel like I am very objective because it is too late for my high school child to go to Incubator, and my youngest child is already in a charter school, so won’t attend Incubator either. I am just for as many choices as possible for our children’s education.

Good luck with finding a site.