One week after filing a letter of inquiry with the School District over Culver Park High School’s disputed move from a traditional campus to a parking lot, the American Civil Liberties Union is awaiting a response.
Supt. Patti Jaffe said this morning that, following consultation, she wrote a response yesterday, outlining the upgrades and repairs the District is planning to make this summer.
In last week’s five-paragraph message that appeared take the form of a warning, the ACLU said that while it has not conducted an on-site examination of the property, it has “heard allegations of dangerous conditions.”
Attorney Brooks Allen, author of the letter, was non-committal about the civil rights organization’s intentions regarding the plight of the continuation school’s students and strongly objecting teachers.
Of the present condition of the bungalows or portables, as some label them, Mr. Allen said that “it is unclear where things are.”
Ever since the ACLU won a landmark court case eight years ago, Williams v. California, “we have tried to make schools aware that certain state stands must be followed. There is a complaint process, and in the Education Code there is a section, 35186, that allows folks to file complaints and have those complaints addressed in 30 working days. They can appeal the complaint all the way up to the state Dept. of Ed if they don’t get a local resolution.
“We help folks learn about and navigate the process. That is how I was first contacted (about Culver Park). Folks had an awareness about work we do statewide. Through that, we hear about facilities that are in poor conditions. It is not rare to hear some of those concern about conditions in relocatable classroom, portables, trailers.”
Mr. Allen said that life spans of portable classrooms vary. “What I generally have heard, and this is a generic figure, some are designed for a 20-year life span.”
Culver Park’s intended new bungalows are said to be almost 40 years old.
Culver Park’s parking lot home is not unusual, according to Mr. Allen.
“It is not uncommon to see portable classrooms placed on asphalt,” he said.
As for the Culver Park case, “right now we are just asking questions because I have not been to the scene. I don’t know all the facts, just what I have been told.”
