Ashley Walden and I had some appointments in Arvin on
Wednesday 2/8/12.
We visited Grimmway Academy Charter School and met with
the principal, Jose Salas. Greenway is the first and only charter school in all
of Kern County. Jose told us this: Barbara Grimm-Marshall’s company Grimmway
Farms is the largest employer in Kern County and they are based in
Arvin/Lamont. (Also famous for being
“inventor” of the baby carrot!) For many years they offered scholarships for
the children of their employees but out of thousands of employees hardly any
kids ever applied to receive these scholarships. Barbara started investigating why. She determined that kids were not being
prepared for college by area schools she sought to remedy the situation by
starting a charter school. She researched what that school should be like and
landed on a style/system called Rocketship Education. The Arvin School District did not approve
adding this school to its district, but the Kern County School District did, so
they are kind of their own school district of one.
Jose Salas previously was the principal at one of the
Vaughn Schools in Pacoima. They
currently have a staff of 14 teachers.
Three of them are from Los Angeles- 2 commute from Santa Clarita, Mr.
Salas and another teacher have moved to Bakersfield. Nine of the teachers are from Arvin. The school opened in August 2011 and
currently serves grades K-4, but they will add 5th and 6th
grades over the next two years. They
will also be adding a Learning Garden and test kitchen. Construction is in progress for the cafeteria
kitchen though the dining room was recently completed. They have a learning lab that is a
combination computer lab & library.
All the students spend 100 minutes a day working independently on a
variety of educational programs on the computers allowing for lots of tailoring
of programs to each student’s needs and progress. The grades are often mixed through the day
and are taught to always speak in complete sentences-- which was kind of a trip
as well as impressive to see in action.
There’s controversy about the school which I think is the
same for every charter school—seen as a competition for government funds and a
vote of no-confidence in the existing standard schools.
They have a Kinder Camp at their campus June 18 to July
13. Teachers have two weeks of work (including home visits to all the students’
families) July 16 – 27. The new school
year starts August 1 or 6.
They are open to anything we might want to do to involve
the school’s students and families. They
are open to hosting auditions at their campus.
Jose has a meeting with Barbara Grimm-Marshall the day after our meeting
and will update her about our project—she already knew about it. He’ll also let her know that Will is hoping
to meet with/interview her as a key individual in the community.
Jose Salas suggested we contact Judy Chase at the United
Congregational Church to learn if we could use their church facilities for our
housing. We went to the church which is
perfectly located catty-corner from the AHS high school auditorium. They have a swell kitchen and a very large
room that has accordian-type dividers and some other rooms might be usable
too. Plus there is yard space for
building showers.
Ashley called Judy and learned that we might be able to
rent space there. The congregation has
essentially moved to a Bakersfield location and they are in talks to rent their
Arvin space to another church. But the
other church has been dragging their feet quite a bit and the Congregational
Church is anxious to have the property settled.
We will send them our introduction and request and hope they will
seriously consider our offer at their Feb 18 (I think) meeting.
Ashley and I drove around a bit to see what rentable
housing options might be. I noticed
there were more sirens—fire and police calls—than in Fowler. (Though less than Pacoima!) We had dinner at Bear Mtn Pizza which was
pretty quiet.
We attended the Arvin City Council Meeting from 6 to
almost 8pm. There have been layoffs from
the city staff since I last attended a meeting in October. There were fewer people in the special seats
to the side. City Council member were
the same and once again it was a very professionally handled meeting. Public Comments included “First Five Kern”
thanking the city for designating February as Safe Surrendered Baby Awareness
Month. And the effervescent Leticia from
Senator Michael Rubio’s office gave the city or maybe First Five Kern(?) a
proclamation plaque. Then James Young
(not Dr. Jim Young) spoke about his ongoing sewer/sewer bill problem and
publicly appreciated Charles Trellis the city facilities person (who we are
also fans of) for his attention to Mr. Young’s problem. Another resident spoke about his unusually
high sewer bill. Another resident spoke
about squatters in an empty family property and theft and destruction at that
house as well as kids beating the stuffing out each other in a sump ditch right
near her house. She thinks these things
are a bad sign about the state of their community.
There were presentations (mostly very boring) and some
other formal consenting business. Under
Action Items one item was bumped to take place earlier: there were 2 dozen high
school students, many in HOSA club jackets, present to learn that the city was
denying their request for a $1500 donation.
HOSA stands for Health Occupational Students of America. I learned a lot more about this club from
Ashley who was in HOSA when she was in high school. The city has big $ problems and are not
making donations to school clubs. But,
as happened at the December meeting Will attended, a spontaneous commitment of
donations to the club took place among the individuals in the room. $1750 was pledged to the group whose leader
expressed their appreciation and then they left the meeting. We were 2 Action Items later on the
agenda—seeking council approval for Cornerstone to rent the city-owned house on
Varsity Drive for 38 days this summer.
There was some discussion and Councilmember Guzman shared that he did
not think the city should be getting into the landlord business. The city staff recommended that the council
approve our request and made clear arguments in defense of our cause. Mayor Tarver (who I think is fantastic)
questioned us about “I seem to recall seeing something about showers at
Veterans Hall..” and I assured him that city staff had been very clear that
outdoor showers there are not going to happen.
There was a moment of levity around that. City Council approved our
rental though Guzman did vote against.
We stayed for one more interminable item (an engineer not
speaking clearly or loudly but in a monotonous voice about engineering type
things) then scooted out and on our way home.
Ashley and I will be putting together a few drafts of
plans involving the various piecemeal housing options that we are working to
claim. These bits include: the Varsity
House (3 bedrooms, across from our venue AHS), Veterans Hall with no kitchen,
Veterans Hall with kitchen, Veterans Hall with some kind of shower trailer unit
something that lives in the parking lot across the street from the Vet Hall
property, the Congregational Church, Rene Garcia (not that Rene)’s collection
of trailers & mobile homes, sharing the home of Sherry (sister of one of
Will’s main Arvin storytellers), as yet undetermined rented homes or
apartments, and The Hampton at the southern edge of Bakersfield and 15 miles NW
of Arvin.
Love,
Paula
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