Gompers Charter School

Why do we not have equal access to education? Although schools were desegregated by law back in the 50's, we still see inequalities today. Why? Perhaps that question will forever be un- answered. Today we got a glimpse of a part of San Diego that is "invisible" to much of the community. An area that is pre-dominantly lower class and under- privileged.

The major middle school in South East San Diego was Gompers. This school was plagued by violence, race riots, poor education, inconsistent teachers and impoverished students. But don't worry this story has a happy ending. :) You see, although this area was neglected by many, there were still an impassioned few. Amongst these activists for better education were Mrs. Evans and Mr. Riveroll. Hired as director and assistant this dynamic duo went door to door in the rain petitioning to transition the school to a charter. They knew that once they received the charter, they would be granted the freedom to make the changes so vital to the school's success.

After a long, arduous and politically heated struggle, they finally received this lucrative charter. They made improvements immediately. They removed ply wooded hallways to bring in natural light, pushed the city attorney to enforce strict legislation against gang members, brought down surrounding gates to connote a positive image of the school, formed college UC teams to facilitate greater attendance rates, and required students to wear uniforms to uplift self- esteem and pride in their school.

These changes proved to be highly affective. GCMS now boasts higher attendance, g.p.a., test scores and completion rate.

The purpose of our visit was two- fold: Observe the positive changes made at Gompers, and form a partnership between GCMS and HTMMA to strengthen education in the future. At GCMS we were greeted by the ASB who led us into the library. Here we watched news clips from the past documenting the change of GCMS to a charter. Everyone in the room was moved. After the video, the facilitator of ASB, Mr. Pete Chodzco led a question/ answer session. Students asked a plethora of questions. Why did GCMS have to change? Why did they change to a charter?

Immediately after the question/ answer session we ventured off to a 6th grade classroom to observe a lesson. Mrs. Drumm was leading a discussion centered around Freak the Mighty. Students had very specific prompts in which to write a response. We sat in the back and were impressed to see such an organized, high functioning, respectful atmosphere. When she finished her lesson, each student from HTMMA presented a folder to a student from GCMS. The front of these folders were decorated with logos centered around alliance in education. The GCMS students were thrilled!

Lunch time! In the cafeteria we divided the two schools so that a GCMS student had a HTMMA student to their right and left. We took on this similar structure when dividing the teams for our soccer game. By the end of the day, each student had made a new friend.

The last activity of the day consisted of designing posters for our partner school. On the posters students included their names and brief messages of hope regarding our newfound alliance. The whole event was EXTREMELY MOVING!!

After the trip to Gompers Charter School, we delivered donated diapers to the St. Vincent de Paul Warehouse in Downtown San Diego.

Lastly, we bought slushies on the way home from Am Pm. It was super fun!

Today, we saw that inequalities do exist in the community, but there is ALWAYS something we can do to remedy that!!