Letter of Appeal

[queenoftheskies]

I'm putting this behind a cut because it's very long and I'm sure most people won't want to be subjected to it.

But, for anyone with an eye and a mind for these sorts of things, do you think this letter sounds totally off-base? Does it sound too personal? Is it too lacking in facts?

If you teach or work for a school district, and you read this, how would you feel?

I don't want to provoke anger, I just want to make them think and hopefully appeal to their sense of what is really right for my son as a student and show them that, as his mom, I do know what's best for him.

Names, of course, have been removed to protect the innocent, and even the not-so innocent. :)



Dear Director of Pupil Services:

I’d like to submit this letter in appeal to the denial of transfer to the Azusa Unified School District, for my son, XXX. I’d like to begin by stating that I think it’s a sad day for education when a child is nothing more to a school district than a statistic and money coming in from the State/Federal level. When a child’s well-being is no longer important, I believe that education, as a whole, suffers. All it takes is a look at more numbers and statistics and an observation of the condition of education in the state of California, to see that our educational system is failing to meet the needs of the students who depend on it.

Having said that, I fully support our educational system and all efforts to make advancements in education and improve the quality of education students receive in this state. I am a former employee of a southern California school district and would have preferred to stay in its employment if the financial needs of being a single parent had not dictated that I return to higher paying employment.

I am not a foolish and uneducated parent. I have a college degree and work as Controller for a southern California aerospace corporation. I support my children as they learn, I help them as they need help, and I’ve always tried to be as involved as much as possible in both their education and in the events at their schools.

I tell you this to point out the fact that I’m not requesting this appeal out of foolishness or lack of understanding education and what my child needs. I feel very strongly in my desire to remove XXX from the Rowland Unified School District, or I wouldn’t put myself through the stress and agony each year of having transfers denied and making appeals.

One thing that troubled me, I must admit, as I talked to a lady in Pupil Services on the telephone yesterday, is the lack of record-keeping in your district. In the past, I’d been advised to point out every year that my children have had transfers to Azusa Unified each year for the past five years. (This year, I have only one child I’m requesting a transfer for because the other two have since graduated high school.) When I brought that up to the lady on the phone, she informed me that I would have to PROVE it to your district with copies of each of the previous years’ ultimately approved transfers, as you did NOT keep record of them in your office, nor did you keep track of them electronically in any way, and that you could NOT go back and verify transfer requests from previous years. According to her, each year’s worth of records is boxed and removed from your site to be stored in another location. I find it difficult to believe, in this age of such easy access to electronic technology, that you do not have this information readily available at your fingertips.

My son, XXX, is fourteen years old. Do you remember what it was like to be fourteen? Entering high school is a big step. Do you remember what it was like to enter high school? I do. I remember that being a teenager was filled with adjustments, changes, and sometimes, emotional angst. I remember that entering high school was frightening. It’s that last huge step before college or being out on your own. It’s another huge change in your already changing teenage life.

At this point in time in my son’s life, you are asking to rip him away from his continuing education in the Azusa Unified School District. He has attended school there since he was in first grade, and is now going into ninth. He’s been involved in their GATE and MESA programs, their advanced math and science placement programs. You’re asking to derail him from the next step along the way. He’s been involved in their concert band and handbell programs and already accepted into the music program in high school. You’re asking to tear him away from the precedents already established in his life.

He would like to be involved in Gladstone High Schools Jr. R.O.T.C. program. Nogales High School does NOT have such a program. I was told that your district did not care, that R.O.T.C. was NOT necessary, and that the only thing that mattered in a school program was the academic classes, not what the student took away socially and emotionally as well.

Shame on you.

When did your district lose sight of the fact that our students/children mature not only academically, but emotionally, physically, and socially as well? Instead of turning these students into children that despise school and will not continue on to college, why not try turning them into responsible adults instead?

My older children were both involved in Gladstone’s Jr. R.O.T.C. program for their full four years there. While they were already good and responsible students, I feel that the program, under the direction of Major XXX, added a new dimension of involvement, social awarement, and understanding of the importance of community service to their lives. I believe that they emerged even more well-rounded than they would have without such a program. They both, also, were awarded college scholarships from outside, community groups that support this program. Scholarships are always welcome to a single parent family trying to pay for college.

Friends are also another very important aspect of a teenage boy’s life. You’re asking not only to rip him from his education, but to rip him from stability and friends as well. You’re asking him to adjust to different classes, a different school, and entering high school all at once. You’re asking him to do all of this with no friends. Nogales High School is over 2,500 students strong, as opposed to 1,500 at Gladstone, where XXX will already have friends. Which school do you think will provide the greater comfort level, and therefore, the greater environment for learning?


I should add that the letter is not finished. That's why it breaks off abruptly. I just wanted to get a feel for what folks thought about it before I close and take it over to their office.

My plan is to also e-mail a copy to the L.A. County Office of Education, who can intervene for me, if they choose to do go.