The Student Who Got Straight F’s in a San Francisco High School Isn’t the Only One

06Apr
by Leticia Chavez-Garcia

I once knew of a teacher that intentionally failed every Latino student that came through her classroom. She taught math and science in a local high school in the Inland Empire. Of course, I lobbied for her firing. Unfortunately, she was not fired and earned a retirement after her deplorable behavior toward children for over three decades!  

If you cannot fathom how a child can get all F’s in a school in San Francisco, you have not been paying attention. Sadly. It’s not as rare a situation as school officials would like you to believe.

“There’s probably a root cause,” Truitt, chief of student family and community support for the school district in San Francisco, said. “When you’re talking about a student that’s failing every class, every semester for years, that’s an extremely rare and severe case.”

Is it?

The root cause is probably that no one gave a damn about this child to even intervene before the situation declined to this point! And no, he is not alone! There have been others children like this in our schools — too many of them in fact. Some of these schools simply operate as if it’s acceptable to throw away these kids.

Getting all F’s in every class in high school is one thing, but it’s just as bad to give kids passing grades when they really haven’t mastered the subject. I cannot begin to tell you how many students have graduated from their high schools thinking they were in the top 20 percent of the class and they then go out into the real world, only to find that they perform poorly on community college placement tests. These students end up requiring several years of remiaditon in order to attend community college.

All of this is criminal. I have often said that I believe that a whole generation of kids have cause for a class action lawsuit against the California Department of Education. I sincerely hope that parents begin to get more involved in holding schools and teachers accountable.   

We cannot allow for this kind of injustice to continue in our schools.

What do you think?

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Leticia Chavez-Garcia

Leticia Chavez-Garcia

Leticia Chavez-Garcia is a Mother, Grandmother, former Middle School Teacher, former Member of a School Board of Education and an Education Advocate for hundreds of parents and students in the Inland Empire. Having become a mother at 15, Leticia knows what it’s like to be a single mother trying to navigate the education system. Leticia received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Political Science and Public Administration from California Baptist University and a Masters’ Degree in Education Technology from Cal State Fullerton in her 30’s. Leticia has used her knowledge and experience to help hundreds of families as an Education Advocate in the Inland Empire and currently works as an Education Specialist.

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