Ponying up for a public education

And now here I go again.

Yes, I take full responsibility for my actions. I just never imagined, as a native of a state with a once-great reputation for the quality of its public schools, that I'd attend a meeting like the one I attended Monday night at Ivanhoe Elementary in Silver Lake. That's where my daughter will start school in September.

The auditorium was packed; the mood somber. About 200 parents had come to hear what everyone knew would be disturbing news. An anticipated $180,000 budget shortfall might well cost three critically important Ivanhoe educators their positions at the school, though they might be transferred elsewhere.

The parents group at the school had summoned families to tell them the news. And to present an alternative: a public education that would no longer be free.

Get out your checkbooks, parents were told. All those wrapping-paper sales and pancake fundraisers wouldn't be enough. We could either pony up some hard cash, or see Ivanhoe's standing as one of L.A. Unified's best schools threatened.

"We shouldn't be here tonight," parent Perry Herman told the crowd. "Our nation chooses to bail out investment houses rather than insuring our children."

But here we were, with the Friends of Ivanhoe urging parents to pay whatever they could to cover the shortfall and save the jobs of math coach and academic advisor Lynda Rescia, technology coordinator Carlos Hernandez and literacy coach Mary Frances Smith-Reynolds.

"She knows the reading strengths and weaknesses of every child in this school," a parent named Nancy Berglass said of Smith-Reynolds, praise that was echoed by parents and teachers for both of the others.

A parent across the aisle from me wiped away tears. So did a teacher who had to interrupt her own tribute to Rescia, Hernandez and Smith-Reynolds.

The principal, Jumie Sugahara, told me she hadn't yet received final budget numbers from district headquarters and couldn't say for sure how bad the hit would be. But the parents group did some math and decided to start the fundraising drive now, assuming Ivanhoe and other high-performing schools would get bigger cuts than schools that have greater challenges.