“Santa Ana Unified has beefed up staffing and hired private investigators to look into safety concerns at Spurgeon Intermediate, where teachers say teens and pre-teens are accosting adults, turning desks over and smoking marijuana in class. The problems have become so bad that 36 teachers and classified employees filed a “hostile work environment” complaint earlier this month,” according to the O.C. Register.
The worst part of this story is that the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) ignored this disaster. One of the teachers even said that the school police asked that the teachers stop calling them!
And the district put in place a stupid program that called for the teachers to praise the kids five times compared to each negative comment. But the kids were spitting at the teachers, cursing at them and making sex noises in the classrooms. What could you say at that point that would be positive?
And the fault doesn’t just lie with the administration. Clearly the principal at Spurgeon, Lillian Soto, was over her head. She is now on paid leave.
And where was the School Board? This is what happens when you elect a School Board full of Trustees who don’t have kids in the district. Audrey Noji sent her son to an Irvine high school. He has long since graduated. John Palacio’s kids grew up and left the district. Rob Richardson never had any kids. At least Jose Hernandez and Ceci Iglesias have young children. But they are the exception, not the rule.
The District just held a Principal for a Day event this week. The Trustees showed up for that. But they apparently never stopped by Spurgeon.
What about the kids at Spurgeon who really wanted to learn? They have been receiving a sub par education up until now. The District owes them an apology.
Finally, where are the parents of the kids who have been misbehaving? How do you let your kids smoke pot at these young ages? These kids are eleven and twelve! What is going on at their homes?
The complacency at the SAUSD is astonishing. The worthlessness of our School Board Trustees is disturbing. This district is a disaster. Just look at the intermediate schools. I won’t send my son to any of them. My employer is moving to Irvine next month. I am putting my son in an Irvine school when he finishes at Muir Fundamental Elementary – and we won’t be looking back. But what about the families who don’t have this option?
You want to know why our city is under assault by gang violence? Just look at the SAUSD, where teachers have to go to the state for help because the District is asleep at the wheel. The ultimate irony is that the District blamed the kids for this mess. This is why adults are in charge – but in Santa Ana, especially at Spurgeon, apparently no one is in charge.
I need to make sure that it is very clear that this is not typical of ALL SA intermediate schools. There is at least one school where the students are respectful and most of the time when a student is suspended, it is for repeatedly not doing their homework. The type of behavior described in this article would never be tolerated. The sad thing is that we now have a superintendent who doesn’t want to hear it, everything is just peachy according to her. Unless it involves a positive spin with a focus on her, she doesn’t want to know about it. They are getting ready to drive away the involved parents and high achieving students in droves.
Clearly, PS RESIDENT has never been to Willard.
METAL DETECTORS PLEASE!
Like I said, it isn’t typical of ALL SA intermediate schools, I know that it quite possibly is typical at some of the others. Sorry if you have to endure this type of thing but maybe things will improve if the staff at Willard follows Spurgeon’s example. Best of luck.
The staff at Willard does not need to follow Spurgeon’s example. Yes, we have students who misbehave. Is our school out of control? No way. What’s happening at Spurgeon is way beyond anything that’s happened at Willard this year.
That is good news. Thanks for all you do to teach our kids.
Please. I teach at Willard. We don’t need metal detectors. You are being ridiculous.
What is perfectly clear is that Admin’s new web site looks fairly retarded compared to what it use to be. Now it is covered and smeared with a bunch of commercial horse shit all over the pages. I can’t even tell what it is that I am trying to look at. WTF? Stupid Ass American commercial propaganda messing with beloved NSA. I think that I am going to go kill myself. This is a joke of a blog existence.
I guess you don’t have any kids in the school district? Guess what? If the schools fail, crime goes up and our town goes to hell in a handbasket so this should matter – even to jaded artists like you.
But Mateo if you had a desire to attend massage school you might not ever see that ad otherwise.
Good call! That might augment his artist income!
Admin,
This can’t be true! Just last week Councilman David Benavides posted about how Santa Ana was changing for the better. He even used SAUSD as an example. Benavides can’t be that out of touch…..
can he??
Well I tell you a secret!
Even in the old Czechoslovakia with 0 drop out and 99% higher scoring than USA we have done same thing and even worse and it was dependent on the teacher.
Some teachers were so strict that we wouldn’t even lift our had to look at them and some we walk all over.
For example:
We would fill seat of the chair with water so wen teacher sit his/her butt was seriously wet like if he/she urinated their pants and they had to finish class an we were giggling.
Or we would place wrappings of the very smelly cheese (Lumburger like) under the table so the smell would go directly into teachers nose so he/she would thinking that it was a smell coming from their dirty penis/vagina respectively. They look very uncomfortable and the class was ruined and no homework was assigned.
The classrooms had teachers standing on an elevated podium so we would arrange the table so that the legs would be just on the edge of the platform and when the teacher would sit and dropped our notebooks (about 30) on the table it would fall, turn over, and everything would be ruined with spilled ink. (We use to use the ink and dipping pen).
We would shoot rubber slings at teacher while he was writing on the black board. The investigation who don it ruined the class.
During the break, we would form the barricades from the tables and shoot at each other with starting pistols http://img12.allegroimg.pl/photos/oryginal/29/85/91/75/2985917594_2 using 22 blanks http://www.slaviaryby.sk/upload/stuff/resized/1879_600-600.jpg
We have thrown big wooden table from the forth floor window in the school into the superintendent’s garden.
We have done so much of mischief that it is hard to describe it and it would fill pages of this blog.
The bottom line is I turned out to be a OK….. no?
American society is to intolerant to growing children’s needs.
You should see what we have done to COPs and no COP would shoot at us like SAPD13 pigs do.
As I said you need teachers who can discipline children, yell at them and hurt their feelings.
My behavior was described to my parents simply as: Your child is Lump, Loter a Siger. (very offensive words)
So relax!
Close down the school. Arrest the offending students. Fire the entire staff. Sue the shit out of the SAUSD board for standing by and allowing it to happen. Simple.
Okay I agree with you as mom I need to do more than be critized Spurgeon and SAUSD I had my son he is a graduated fron Spurgeon, I can tell yo by my own experienced that he never had a problem in Spurgeon it depends of each kid, he was in honor band all the time, Mr. Martinez (Band Teacher) and Mrs.Soto were always supporting them, I have my daugther in Spurgeon and she said that everything is okay, even Mrs Soto and Mr. Martinez aren’t in the school we have a good principal Mr. Irving I know that he will do a great job as a principal, lets support our school as parents we can do alot…
Your a fuck*n moron ….. Google PBIS idiot!
*You’re
Try learning grammar before you call yourself “Educated”.
I am a new teacher at Spurgeon. I have read all the bad press about the school and I made a choice to work there. To make change we have to have a good administration, knowledgeable teachers and involved parents. Mr. Irving is making huge strides to improve the work atmosphere and the teachers are working collaboratively to engage students. As a new teacher I do not judge my students by what may have occurred last year, it is a fresh start, I hope others can let go of the past and look at us with out judgement. Help us make Spurgeon a good school and support kids learning.
You have a great attitude and we wish you and your students the best!
you sound like ms reinhart she was the sweeties teacher 🙂
spurgeon isnt a bad school yall are exagurating i have never seen a kid smoke pot in class thats such a big lie or seen a student spit at the teacher why are you guys trying to make it look like its a bad school i was a trouble maker my self yes i would disrespect teachers but only the ones who wouldnt respect me i have lots of respect for my principle mega lyod and zamudio and my teacher ms reinhart some teachers dont like it when we disprespect them but yet they would disrespect us and it wasnt fair that they would believe the teachers two or three of my teachers called me a low life it really got me mad and sad but thanks to ms reinhart and ms lyod im i grautuated from spurgeon so please stop making the school look bad cause its not bad
*gradauted
there’s no such thing as bad schools just bad people