I had a bit of a shock the other day when I saw some demographics for my old grade school. First, I was amazed it was still standing -- I thought they had to gut the whole building to get rid of asbestos or some other substance that is objectionable to the People's Republic of California.
According to the new numbers, 73 percent of the student body at Mountain View Elementary School in Riverside, California, is Latino.
A shock? You bet. It's like, whatever happened to the neighborhood?
Oh, yes, there's more, according to a study by the L.A. Times:
Enrollment: 924 students
Free and reduced-price lunch: 75%
English language learners: 38%
Diversity rank: 4/10
Total teachers: 39
Median teacher experience: 12 years
Student-teacher ratio: 24:1
Interesting ...
I completed the sixth grade in 1970, and at the time Mountain View had a really slim Latino population. We had the Aviles brothers and Gary Macias. Although this was a fairly good-sized grade school, that was about all for Latinos. I knew these people. Gary was the class clown in fourth grade. And there was Eddie Filho, of Brazilian parentage. Eddie was my best friend during that time; I understand he's in Colorado now.
In sixth grade, Lawrence Mejia transferred to our school. A fairly big guy then, he was always first pick in our choose-up baseball games. Lawrence could really swing the bat; so powerful he was scary. It's anyone's guess what became of him; word was that he was in some gang activity before our class graduated high school.
We had a number of black students at our grade school, mostly from the Hillside Ave. neighborhood. But most of the students -- I'll guess at least 75 percent -- were white.
I didn't really know many Latinos until high school, and that was because Ramona High School served parts of Casa Blanca, a rough neighborhood that made it on the nightly news quite often. Casa Blanca had a couple of families that were constantly feuding, and every so often someone would end up getting shot up on his lawn.
But even figuring in Riverside's barrios, it's pretty surprising to see how the population figures have shaken out in recent decades.
According to the new numbers, 73 percent of the student body at Mountain View Elementary School in Riverside, California, is Latino.
A shock? You bet. It's like, whatever happened to the neighborhood?
Oh, yes, there's more, according to a study by the L.A. Times:
Enrollment: 924 students
Free and reduced-price lunch: 75%
English language learners: 38%
Diversity rank: 4/10
Total teachers: 39
Median teacher experience: 12 years
Student-teacher ratio: 24:1
Interesting ...
I completed the sixth grade in 1970, and at the time Mountain View had a really slim Latino population. We had the Aviles brothers and Gary Macias. Although this was a fairly good-sized grade school, that was about all for Latinos. I knew these people. Gary was the class clown in fourth grade. And there was Eddie Filho, of Brazilian parentage. Eddie was my best friend during that time; I understand he's in Colorado now.
In sixth grade, Lawrence Mejia transferred to our school. A fairly big guy then, he was always first pick in our choose-up baseball games. Lawrence could really swing the bat; so powerful he was scary. It's anyone's guess what became of him; word was that he was in some gang activity before our class graduated high school.
We had a number of black students at our grade school, mostly from the Hillside Ave. neighborhood. But most of the students -- I'll guess at least 75 percent -- were white.
I didn't really know many Latinos until high school, and that was because Ramona High School served parts of Casa Blanca, a rough neighborhood that made it on the nightly news quite often. Casa Blanca had a couple of families that were constantly feuding, and every so often someone would end up getting shot up on his lawn.
But even figuring in Riverside's barrios, it's pretty surprising to see how the population figures have shaken out in recent decades.
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