Palms Elementary School Principal Oliver H. Ramirez wants to build a $25,000 fence on the Motor Ave. side of his campus.
This truly sends the wrong message to the Palms community. The message is: Our kids are Bad; we have to fence them in. Or maybe the message is: You Palms people are Bad; we have to fence you out.
It may surprise Principal Ramirez that Palms people care about their first elementary school. It is a historic place. It may look a little old-fashioned (notice the weathered sign in the photo below), but its exterior has a strength and character that many of L.A.'s newer schools lack — and it has educated generations of Palms children.
We salute the principal and the teachers. They have a tough job; they are educating some 480 kids, of whom 
75% are eligible for "free or reduced-price lunches" (that means their parents are POOR). The average class size is 31. Forty-two percent of the kids are "English-language learners." Their Academic Performance Index is 717 (out of 1,000).
Compare those statistics with those of Charnock Ave. Elementary School, which has 566 students, of whom 31% are eligible for "free or reduced-price lunches" and where the average class size is 29. Twenty-one percent of the Charnock kids are "English-language learners," and their Academic Performance Index is 921.
Charnock asked the Palms Council for library funds. Palms Elementary asked for help in building a fence. There is something wrong with the image those priorities bring forth.
Yes, we salute all these teachers and their principal. But they go home at night. We Palms people (and our children) are here seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. We don't need a fence to mar the quiet classical nature of Palms Elementary School. Maybe we need more books.
