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Helms
Middle School is located in the West Contra Costa Unified School District
in northern California. Featured in First to Worst, the school exemplifies
many of the problems faced by California's public schools, from dilapidated
and over-crowded facilities, to high rates of student poverty, and
large numbers of English language learners. Read an interview with
Helms Principal Harriet Maclean to find out more about the challenges
the school faces. Also, go on a visual tour of the school to see the
conditions in which the students must learn.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Helms
Middle School
West
Contra Costa Unified School District |
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JOHN
MERROW
Can you describe Helms?
HARRIET MACLEAN
It's a 51 year old facility. It was built for 800 students, we now
have 1410 and of those 1410, 90 or 95 percent qualify for free lunch.
It's about 60 percent Spanish speaking. About 10 percent Southeast
Asian - mainly Hmong - from Laos - and about 25 percent African American
and then a bunch of other languages. The students are very sweet but
we have a lot of work to do because they don't come from homes where
they are prepared for school the way the middle class prepares their
children for school. So we're trying to catch them up in middle school
and that's hard to do.
JOHN MERROW
Why is the school growing so fast?
HARRIET MACLEAN
Because in this area there are lots of little houses, and the families,
mainly Spanish speaking, have been doubling and tripling up in these
houses. So ten years ago Helms had 10 or 20 percent Spanish speakers
and now we have 60 or 70 percent.
JOHN MERROW
Is the school able to accommodate this growth?
HARRIET MACLEAN
Only with difficulty. Right now we have a classroom in every closet
and every last room that the school has. We have a class in a closet
that use to be for drawing between two former shop rooms. We have
classes in the shop rooms. We have classes in the dance room that's
attached to the gym. In the health room attached to the gym. In the
music room. And we have teachers who rove and go room to room all
day long.
JOHN MERROW
Does that effect how well they teach?
HARRIET MACLEAN
I believe it does because they have to carry everything with them.
They can have a little corner in the classroom where they keep things,
but they have just those five minutes, just like their students to
get from class to class.
JOHN MERROW
Why can't you just say ... "listen district, we have a growing
population. We need a new building?"
HARRIET MACLEAN
We say that every year, but the district doesn't have the money to
build another school here in San Pablo. They just put up a new middle
school in Richmond and already, that's not going to make really any
difference for us.
JOHN MERROW
Do you think the state of California cares about these students?
HARRIET MACLEAN
No I don't. I have seen no evidence that they do. They pass a lot
of legislation claiming they're doing it because they care. But if
you don't have the basics, then how can you have the actualization
at the high level?
JOHN MERROW
When you say the basics, what do you mean?
HARRIET MACLEAN
I mean clean restrooms with stall walls that aren't about to fall
on you, roofs that don't leak and water fountains that work. Yards
with grass, not full of gopher holes. An then also materials and teachers.
Our district is a training ground for teachers. We have a certain
number of veteran teachers who are really loyal to their school, this
area, the community. But in a lot of cases, it's a revolving door
because they can get more money in other districts. So we're frequently
starting over each year with under prepared teachers who are teaching
out of their field, or they've just gotten out of college, so they
have no credential at all. So they have a major, but they don't have
any idea about classroom management. It's just a constant vicious
cycle.
JOHN MERROW
I know that there are some districts where parents raise the money
so they can supplement teachers salaries in order to attract good
teachers. Do you think that's ok?
HARRIET MACLEAN
It's the reality of America. We don't really believe in equality or
equity, we just don't. We believe in individualism, every person for
himself. Pull yourself up by your boot straps. My grandfather did
it, so you can do it, that kind of thing. And those people who can
afford to do that figure they've earned it.
JOHN MERROW
Does this school have enough money to do what you want to do?
HARRIET MACLEAN
No. We have a teacher contract that dictates the sizes of the classes.
The contract makes us put up to 32 to 35 English speaking students
in a class. Whereas we only have to put up to 25 English learners
in a class. And the English speakers are all African American and
they are the lowest achieving group. So we need money to have smaller
classes for the lowest achieving students. And we also need more facilities.
We don't have the rooms. Even if we could get more teachers, there's
no way we could have more classes here on this campus. So we need
less kids, or more teachers and more rooms.
JOHN MERROW
Why should people care about the education of these kids in San Pablo?
HARRIET MACLEAN
It's the common good. Do you want to have your country filled
with under-educated, non-high school graduates? I just don't understand
the mind set that my kids are the only one that matters. America is
about caring about everybody else's kids. No matter how old you are,
no matter where your own kids are, you care about everybody's kids.
Otherwise it's every man for himself. And that's not working. And
there are also a lot of people who are anti-immigrant and we have
a high immigrant population in our schools. So they don't want to
give any money to support them either. But times have changed and
you have to realize if people are here, how do you want them to turn
out? Do you want them to always be unable to find employment, barely
able to read well? It doesn't make sense. To not support all the schools
does not make sense.
JOHN MERROW
As a principal of this school what do you wish for?
HARRIET MACLEAN
If I could have whatever I wanted I would want credentialed teachers.
I would want the facilities to look nice. I would like the school
to be painted. The walls that are falling down to be fixed. The walls
that leak in the rain to be fixed. I would like a field that the kids
could run on, without twisting their ankles and falling in gopher
holes. But mainly I would want a staff that's well trained and open
to learning how to teach the students who come to us.
JOHN MERROW
It sounds to me like the things you're asking for are really basic.
HARRIET MACLEAN
Maybe that's part of my problem. I'm so stuck trying to fight for
the basics I don't see how to shoot for the moon, for the sun.
JOHN MERROW
Is there a villain in this story?
HARRIET MACLEAN
That's a big part of the frustration that I can't identify who the
enemy is. It's just everything. It's the system. It's the district.
It's the state. It's the legislation. It's the rich people.
JOHN MERROW
You're sitting here trying to give these kids a chance...
HARRIET MACLEAN
And I can't really - It's just so hard because the deck is stacked
against them and against the school. It's stacked. We're always on
a survival level. That's where we are. We're understaffed. We're over-crowded.
Our roof leaks. It's just constant logistics that keep you from being
able to really look at the real work.
JOHN MERROW
Some people say that money doesn't matter at all. You can give kids
a great education in a box.
HARRIET MACLEAN
They say that and probably it's true. I know that in the really old
days when we had separate but equal, and of course it wasn't equal,
when black students had black teachers and all they had was the bible
and pencils and candles, they produced literate, well-educated students.
I don't think that today's society can be compared to those days.
The kids have it in their faces all the time about what's really possible.
How people live in the world. Then to have them come and sit in rooms
that are cold and leak... You can't hide from them the reality of
the disparity between affluent and the non-affluent.
And they're aware that a lot of this has to do with racism too. They
don't often talk about it because they've already picked up that it
isn't talked about very much. But I've been in classrooms when I've
heard them talk about it.
JOHN MERROW
How do the kids feel when they come to a bleak building and they see
ceiling tiles falling and broken windows?
HARRIET MACLEAN
They don't think that they matter as much as the kids on the other
side of the freeway. Last year, over one of the breaks, we got tagged
so badly. Graffiti everywhere. And I was talking to a girl, and I
said, "Britney, look at this, look how bad it looks." I
said, "It looks like a ghetto here." And she said, "Well,
it is a ghetto." So that's what the students think, that this
is a ghetto school, because of the way it is so run down. And it's
demoralizing to know that kids feel that way.
JOHN MERROW
What about the immigrants? What is the message we’re giving
these new Americans when we say, "Go to Helms Middle School?"
HARRIET MACLEAN
The message is that there are definitely people who count and people
who don't count. And I don't know if anyone here at Helms - I'm talking
for my student body and their families - if they actually blame anyone.
But they wonder, how can this go on? This is America, after all, everyone's
supposed to be equal and have an equal chance. We say the pledge every
morning, it says freedom and justice for all. And frequently when
I say those words I wonder, how can I say that to these kids? Because
I know it isn't justice for all. But they don’t see it like
that. They see it as having to pay your dues.
JOHN MERROW
What is the solution?
HARRIET MACLEAN
We would hope there would be one, wouldn't you? But there are so many
factors that you have to take into consideration. It's not just an
education problem, it's not just a taxation problem or a political
problem or a social problem, it's everything. |
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