LA Weekly: Features: Locke Down -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 2/7/2003
Last Visited: 2/7/2003
One longtime teacher, a good friend of Webb's assigned to Motevalli as a mentor, laid it out for her.
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Once, while hundreds of students were attending an assembly, principal Annie Webb announced that someone had tagged up one of the boys' bathrooms, and that every single student would be searched for spray paint as they filed out of the auditorium.
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Webb told him he would be arrested, he says, if he didn't either cop to the crime or tell her who did it.He refused, and nothing came of it, but their relationship, which had once been fairly genial - she had at one point talked to him about redesigning the school's logo and repainting the faded lettering on the gym - went permanently sour.
From then on, says Zuno, obviously still hurt by the accusation, Webb saw him as just "part of the mix, part of the crowd that didn't care, that didn't have a plan in mind."
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Webb refused student requests for a memorial vigil on the grounds that Anderson was not a student at Locke.
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The second time, in January, they called Webb, who sent Motevalli to wait in her office.
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Webb was furious.She accused Motevalli of instructing the students to disobey her, and warned her that she would likely be suspended for her insubordination.
By March, the LSU had condensed their concerns to 10 demands.First on the list was "an immediate end to brutality toward students, including illegal searches and seizures, unlawful arrests, constant surveillance, and excessive use of force."They demanded qualified teachers in every class, and that teachers stay awake and not talk on cell phones.They demanded books and materials, the hiring of additional counselors, more extracurricular activities and sports, a well-rounded curriculum.
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Webb soon began to keep a log on the activities of "the 'so-called' Student Union," or, as she also called it, "the underground group."Between the lines of the log's cursive scrawl, it is clear that Webb took the LSU's organizing efforts not as an impassioned plea for a livable, functioning school, but, with typically authoritarian paranoia, as a personal attack.Notably, Webb included the log in a "Staff Relations File" - from the start, she refused to believe the students were acting independently.On March 6, the day after she first recorded seeing a copy of the LSU's demands, she raised the matter at a faculty meeting.She announced, according to the log, that "students are being used to promote adult agendas.I also said that if any of you are involved with this you are walking on thin ice."
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By the end of that week, the LSU had sent Webb a letter asking her to come to their next meeting to address their demands.She didn't respond, at least not directly.But from that week onward, the students say, life at Locke got harder.School staff stopped them in the halls to grill them on who else was involved.Teachers loyal to Webb lectured them in class on the futility of their efforts, saying, Cuevas remembers, "'You guys aren't gonna get anything done.
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The afternoon before the LSU's first open meeting, the students who had signed the LSU's letter were summoned to the principal's office, where they found Webb and three assistant principals waiting.Webb wrote in her log: "I stated that the purpose of the meeting was to provide an opportunity for them to meet with me and share their concerns and suggestions."
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"I addressed each of the demands on the list," Webb wrote."Many of the students clearly did not understand what they meant.I told students that I was aware the demands were not their issues based upon the wording and interpretations of the meaning.Lucia [Ortiz] said, 'What, Ms. Webb, you don't think that your students can think like this?'
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Not only had Webb instantly denied them everything they had asked for, she would not even accept that they had the vocabulary to articulate their needs.
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The LSU's meeting went on as planned, and though Webb did not attend, about 100 others did - students, parents, teachers, community members.
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On April 2, posters appeared in the halls announcing that a school-sponsored community meeting would be held at Locke the next day and that McKenna and Webb would be there to address student concerns.
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That same day, Motevalli met with Webb to discuss her punishment for her earlier insubordination.
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Excited by the prospect of a public audience with Webb and McKenna, the LSU had invited Los Angeles Times reporter Solomon Moore, a representative from the ACLU and about 20 supporters from the neighborhood.
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Webb told them the event, though billed as a community meeting, was open solely to Locke High School staff, students and parents.She personally escorted Ivan Zuno out of the room, and handed him over to school police.
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According to students, parents and teachers present, Webb and McKenna refused to allow any LSU members to speak, or even to ask questions at the end of the meeting.
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By November of 2001, Annie Webb had been relieved of her duties at Locke - she is currently on medical leave from the district, and will fill a yet-to-be-determined administrative position when she returns.Other administrators were transferred out, and more left of their own accord.
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Among the few officials who were willing to talk about Locke at all, none was particularly eager to speculate about how the school could have been allowed to deteriorate so disastrously, to accept responsibility, or to assign it to anyone other than past administrators now safely out of the way. (And there were precious few who were willing - Superintendent Romer declined to be interviewed for this story, as did Webb, through her attorney; Rousseau was unwilling to comment at all on Locke's past, which limited somewhat her ability to speak sensibly about Locke's present; Garrett did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.)
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But even Locke's former students know better than to lay all the blame at the feet of Annie Webb, or any other individual.
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