A music teacher at the Daniel Pearl Magnet High School, a public school focused on journalism, was reinstated on Sept. 23, a week after the school had made plans to remove him and a Spanish-language teacher from their positions during district budget cuts.
Students who staged a protest Monday found out later that same day that music teacher Wes Hambright would be reinstated by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“Of course, it is so exciting,” student Nadia Buer, a protest organizer, told The Epoch Times Tuesday. “We’ve gained another member of our family back, but our work isn’t over yet.”
The student-organized walkout at the school Monday drew about 70 students, parents, and teachers, according to Buer.
The group plans to continue protesting until Spanish-language teacher Glenda Hurtado is also reinstated.
Both instructors were set to be transferred to other schools after district representatives counted students at the campus to assess student-to-teacher ratios on Sept. 13, according to a district spokesperson.
The student count is conducted every year during a school day several weeks after the fall semester starts, to “ensure that resources follow students,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
“This allows districts to expeditiously shift resources as necessary to meet student needs district-wide,” the spokesperson said. “The District works collaboratively with each school to minimize disruption and to mitigate immediate impacts to affected schools, however we understand that [it] can cause disruption to the staffing in some school communities.”
The school is located in the Lake Balboa neighborhood, about 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It’s the “smallest stand-alone comprehensive high school” in the district, according to the school website.
The school was named in honor of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist who worked for The Wall Street Journal and attended Birmingham High School in Lake Balboa. He was covering the war on terror after 9/11 when he was kidnapped in 2002 and killed four weeks later by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan.
The high school offers a comprehensive education but is also focused on journalism and communications. Students have a chance to run a student newspaper, perform in the music program, and play sports, the website states.
The district spokesperson didn’t say whether the Spanish teacher would be reinstated. The school’s principal Armen Petrossian was not available to talk with The Epoch Times about the teachers, saying it was a personnel matter.
Hurtado posted a message on the district’s Schoology site for students and parents after finding out she had been displaced.
“It is with a deep sadness to announce to you that my position as a Spanish teacher was terminated at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School as of today due to low enrollment,'' Hurtado wrote.
The teacher who had started at the school when it was part of Birmingham High School 17 years ago told students in the note she would be reassigned to another school.
However, Hurtado has returned to Daniel Pearl as a substitute teacher for her own class, according to student protest organizer Buer, a sophomore at the school.
Taking Spanish is mandatory for graduation, so the class wasn’t canceled when the district dismissed Hurtado. According to the district, Spanish classes at the school will be switched to online only.
The effort to get their teachers back has brought the school together, though, Buer said.
“Our school has really come together to make all of this happen,” she said. “It’s really beautiful. There’s an optimistic way to look at this situation.”
The group plans to possibly gather again for another walkout Wednesday afternoon, after another district administrator may visit the school.
Student leadership canceled spirit week and homecoming events after finding out that Hurtado and Hambright had been displaced.
