Recent days, however, have brought a shift in direction at the district headquarters as a new school board majority allied with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has taken control. On Tuesday, new board member Richard Vladovic, who represents the Locke area, presented a motion to require an up-or-down vote in August on the Green Dot petition.
The charter group's leaders have vowed to press ahead, one way or another, with plans to convert Locke by 2008. Green Dot is planning to open two small charter schools near Locke this fall. To propel this effort, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday that it had given Green Dot an $8-million grant to develop charter schools in the Locke-Watts area.
The battle over charter schools has roiled Locke. Some teachers angrily oppose a takeover, while others are eagerly supportive. Many remain undecided.
For Karen Brown, who has taught at Locke for 16 years and heads the school's widely respected fashion design program, Green Dot is nothing more than an unproven, uninvited group attempting a hostile takeover.
She and other longtime Locke teachers are suspicious of Green Dot's labor contract with its union, which does not include the detailed work rules, job protections or lifetime benefits granted district teachers. Moreover, those teachers reject the idea that Locke is broken.
"We are confident that we can continue to give our students what they need. We don't need anybody from the outside coming in telling us how to do our job," Brown said. Green Dot "cannot prove to me that they can do a better job. Not here."
For Cubias, 32, a Locke graduate who grew up in the poor, violent neighborhoods surrounding the South L.A. campus, the field trip debacle reflected larger problems at a school he sees as struggling in an ineffective district. Much of the charter school's model appeals to him.
Green Dot's plan for Locke calls for the large campus to be divided into several small, autonomous schools with separate faculties and principals.
With a small central office and administrative staff for their schools, Green Dot officials say, they funnel more state funds into classrooms than the district does and give teachers and principals considerable control over budgets and instruction.
Cubias said he worries that the relatively small Green Dot operation could be overwhelmed by the numerous needs and demands of the school's 2,800 students. And he wonders whether the benefit of starting over from scratch and leaving the school district would outweigh the huge disruption to students and teachers that such a drastic move would entail.
