<< New leadership, new rules at Locke High

The California Department of Education, which sent a team of investigators to Locke High School in October, criticized the school’s culture, classroom instruction and administrative procedures including registration, attendance, discipline, scheduling and data collection. Here are some of the findings in an early draft of their report obtained by L.A. Youth:
 
• Staff and students said it can take up to six hours to register for classes.
• Stacks of confidential documents were scattered throughout the counseling office.
• Counselors are constantly shifting students and schedules. Teachers are frustrated with continually adding and deleting students from their rolls.
• Staff, students and parents stated that higher achieving students transfer out of Locke and that overpopulated schools send their underachieving students to Locke.
• Locke High’s leadership eliminated the majority of career/technical classes from its curriculum. Counselors, teachers, students and parents stated that the school does not offer courses that are relevant for students.
• Students in the Advanced English Language Development class are not expected to write more than 200 words in an essay.
• Students stated that they had to sneak textbooks from class to take home.
• Some students were enrolled in both advanced ESL classes and mainstream English.
• A sixth period U.S. History class had seven students in attendance and showed an enrollment of 28.
• More than 100 students were out of class during any one period.
• Main office staff is often rude and reluctant to help others.
• Students caught truant from classes are "swept up" and told to go to a "tardy room" where they are held until the next period. If a student is two minutes late, he or she will miss 53 minutes of instruction.
• The school lacked textbooks and other supplies. A "law and youth" class used a criminal law text from 1978 with old census data and other obsolete information.
• State investigators could not identify how budget decisions are made. Teachers, parents and community members questioned use of funds and expressed frustration and anger about not being informed of budget amounts and decisions made over the use of funds.
• Locke recieves $750,000 for Digital High School and matched the grant with $1,205,090. Technology is virtually non-existent to the administrative and counseling staff. The librarian stated computers and printers are ready to be hooked up, but the library plan failed to take into account that the library has only three electrical plugs and is not wired for the Internet.
• Teachers interviewed overwhelmingly supported the idea of long-term planning, coaching and training. There is no evidence that this has occurred or is planned to occur in the future.