Ninth Grade Teacher Stays In Ring At Oscar De La Hoya High
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Photos by Andrew McIntyre
In a brightly decorated second story classroom, Kathy Richardson asks her ninth grade Ethnic Studies class to name some reasons for the victories of the Conquistadors; the students list weapons, disease, and armor. “Horses – we must put horses on the list,” adds Richardson.
Richardson, who has been at Oscar De La Hoya since 2006 (the school was formerly downtown near the World Trade Center), teaches all 150 freshman in either Ethnic Studies or Reading Enrichment classes. Originally from Michigan, she studied history at the University of Southern California, and after considering a career as a museum curator, decided on teaching. “I like the idea of teaching history and affecting lives, affecting change,” Richardson said after the class on Latin American history.
With 99% of the student body Latino (representative of the demographics of the community), students arrive at Oscar De La Hoya faced with a host of educational barriers at home. Since most students’ parents were born outside this country, “their parents aren’t able to tutor or read to them in English,” said Richardson. She added that students “are missing out on so much of that extra supplementation at home. That’s a huge difference with the immigrant communities… They aren’t getting that extra support at home.”
The school is located in a socio-economically disadvantaged area (90% of students are on free or reduced lunches), and thus many parents are forced to work two or three jobs, even occasional night shifts. Vice Principal Helene Pao said the kids “have to take on a lot of additional responsibilities [at home] themselves, making sure they are up and ready for school, making sure they are doing their homework at home. Some of them don’t always have quiet places to study.” According to Principal Harris Luu, “ninety-nine percent of [Oscar De La Hoya] kids are struggling economically.”
Adding to the students’ challenges at home is the reputation of the area being crime ridden. While school security officer Duwayne Taylor finds the immediate neighborhood “pretty subdued,” Richardson says she “see[s] the tagging, so I know the gangs exist… When we do gang reflections, I read them, and my heart just breaks because students talk about not feeling safe around their neighborhoods, so clearly it’s not safe to walk around at night in much of East LA.” Richardson adds that students’ parents tell their children they “can’t go out because it’s not safe for [them] to be on the street. Gangs could approach.”
LAPD officers Roy Raza and Felipe Pardo agree that Boyle Heights is an active sanctuary for gangs. Pardo, who has worked in the area for over ten years, routinely sees “the graffiti, the narcotics, the drive-bys, the jump-ins – all the usual tactics that [gangs] display to keep their stronghold on the area.” Property crimes in the area are up, according to Pardo. “I would blame that on narcotic users,” he said.
Although Oscar De La Hoya’s distinction among the 17 Green Dot Public Schools is the educational level of its teachers (it has the most teachers with Master’s degrees among Green Dot schools), test scores at the school are lower than Luu and Pao would like. With regards to student EAP scores (California State University’s college readiness measure), Luu said the students “aren’t quite ready yet. We still have lots of work to do.”
This past spring, all students taking AP English Literature and Calculus scored only a 1 or 2 on the exam, and only four of the 29 students who took AP World History scored higher than a 2 on that test. “Obviously, we are not where we want to be… Bringing in additional programs and resources that we want is costly. And in this budget environment, it’s hard to figure out how to fund these things,” said Pao.
And these recent budget cuts have affected Richardson, whose departmental budget is half what it was a year ago. “I got one bus for the year, and it was a trip I took to Homeboy Industries, for my reading class… I just don’t have the money, the school doesn’t have the money,” she said. Luu said the school does not have enough basic needs, including copy paper and textbooks. And “computers – we just don’t have enough [computers],” added Luu.
While administrators and teachers at Oscar De La Hoya are faced with a plethora of challenges on a day-to-day basis, the staff works tirelessly to provide quality education for students of all levels and backgrounds. “We are surgically precise about where we want the kids to go,” said Luu. “It’s a four-year project for each child,” he added.
Richardson and Pao believe one of the distinguishing characteristics of the school is the congeniality of its students, and neighbors take notice. Martha Arroyo, who lives on Garnet St., said, “for me, [the school] is very good. When the students come out, there is no fighting.” Freshman Leon Camancho concurs. “Everyone [at the school] is very friendly,” he said.
Camancho attributes much of the student rapport to the school’s talented teaching staff, noting that “the teachers get very personal.” And Camancho’s mother, Anabel, could not be happier to see her son at the school, which she says is “the best thing that happened [to her].” Speaking on the topic of student behavior, Richardson says the “halls are calm, even though they are tiny, they’re crowded.” And just down one of those halls, replete with dotted lines rendering it akin to a miniature indoor bike path, the school’s counselor Dominie Wilhite discusses the college application process.
Students are required to apply to at least three colleges, and all who are eligible for financial aid must file a FAFSA. However, Wilhite said that “a challenge for our population is that we are 15% undocumented. This is a challenge for students, families, and me. Finding resources is challenging. There are resources but they are often for only the top one percent.” Wilhite echoed Pao’s words regarding low test scores (the class of 2010’s mean SAT scores for Critical Reading and Writing were below 400), but added that the school is now running an SAT test preparation program.
Back down the narrow hallway in Richardson’s classroom, the ninth-grade teacher speaks about her experiences with sex education and drug education. She said she realized the school needed much more health education “because our students were getting pregnant, getting STD’s, and they just didn’t seem to know about health.” This year, the school has begun offering a drug education program through Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights Behavioral Health Services.
And though the challenges at Oscar De La Hoya are great, Richardson takes great pride following in the footsteps of her favorite high school English teacher. Mrs. Stofen “made me get better at grammar. I loved the challenge… I want my students to have that same sort of feedback on their essays. For once in your life, I want you to know every mistake you made,” Richardson said.
