Students at Hip Hop High know all about adversity. For many, life has been a minefield of gangs, violence and family chaos. They were academic failures, most of them, kicked out of school after school, allowed to fail their way from one grade to the next.
At their charter school in Hawthorne, they say, they found a home -- a place that is quirky and rough-hewn, but one where students are given the motivation to learn.
Now, they fear, a bureaucratic breakdown will cause the school, formally known as the Media Arts Academy Charter School, to close.
The Centinela Valley Union High School District, which charters the school, delivered notice on July 1 that its charter had lapsed and that Media Arts would not be allowed to apply for renewal.
Principal Jennifer Murphy said the decision was the result of a misunderstanding about the terms of the charter, which she thought was valid until 2009. She said she was convinced that the district, intent on closing her school, deliberately failed to warn her that the charter was about to expire.
"They literally have been lying in wait to do this," she said Tuesday night, after dozens of Media Arts students and parents appeared before the Centinela school board to plead for reconsideration. Murphy said she believes the district used a technicality to avoid a potentially contentious renewal process, which requires a public vote and can be appealed.
Charters are public schools that are authorized by school districts and operate under their supervision but are allowed independence in finance and curriculum. With an enrollment of about 140 in the school year that just ended, Media Arts offers a project-based curriculum that includes a focus on recording arts and gives students the opportunity to create music -- hence its nickname, Hip Hop High.
"You're shutting our dreams down," student Sergio Baccio told the board, which listened impassively and did not comment on the school's fate.
Another student, Giovanna Zepeda, told the board that in traditional schools, "people looked at me like a low-life gangster. . . . When I got to Media Arts Academy, they looked at me different, they looked at me like I was somebody." Sobbing, she continued, "This is the only place we can be ourselves and express ourselves."
