#MelvoinWatch

A Bureaucracy Loses Sight Of The Children It Is Supposed To Serve

Under Nick Melvoin’s leadership, LAUSD’s Local District West shows a pattern of ignoring the serious concerns of public school parents.

“I felt ignored and not taken seriously.”

- Parent at Marvin Elementary

When parents send their children to school, they should not be “worried for [their] safety.” If they confront a principal with these concerns, they should be listened to and made to feel like the issues raised will be addressed. For the school’s leader to “shut the door in [their] faces” or for parents to be otherwise “ignored” is unacceptable.

Parents at Marvin Elementary are making serious allegations about incidents at their school and how the principal handled them. One states that their child “was stabbed with a pencil directly by the eye while being verbally threatened.” Another alleges that “while on the playground” their child has “been called names like the N-word several times and told to go back to the 1800s”. A flier distributed by parents says that “there was a gun threat by a student who said he would bring a gun to school”.

A flier distributed by concerned parents at Marvin Ave. School

Instead of working with parents to make the campus safer, the principal is accused of using “intimidation tactics” against those who dare to complain. As an example, the parent of the student who received the gun threat says that they were asked by the principal if they “belong to a gang…because that might be a problem.” The parent also alleges that the principal asked their child “to sign a harassment form without [their] consent or [them] being present. They say that they were told that this was so they “would not press any charges or blame the other child for anything because the principal would look into it.” The parent says that they have still not received a copy of this form.

Parents who have tried to resolve these issues say that their efforts were rebuffed by the principal of the school, local district staff, and their school board member. Wanting authorities to “pay more attention to [their] children’s pleas for help”, they organized protests and called a…