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Representation Of A City: Bakersfield High
Topics: Bakersfield, ABC23, KERO, N.L. Belardes, BHS, Fight, brawl, violence in schools, Bakotopia
Posted by thenovelist Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:56:19 PST
Viewed 1022 times
0 responses 10 comments Location: 1241 G Street, Bakersfield, CA 93301

Representation Of A City: Bakersfield High
A progressive multi-cultural inner city school experiences on-campus violence on 1/25/08. What role should the media play? LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS!

By NL Belardes, Bakotopia.com contributor

Bakersfield High is a multicultural, inner city school.

It’s historic, with a grand theater that rivals the Fox Theater and old two-story classrooms that look like they’d fit more snugly in the Midwest, rather than Kern County.

You get a sense of pride and awe just driving by, even if you never attended the school.

BHS is a symbol of Bakersfield probably more than any other school in the city, because it represents diversity on all levels. It represents progress and growth, with kids both rich and poor; it represents natural teen angst and inner city turmoil. It heralds sports and carries on the city’s rich tradition in an array of competitive excellence. I say that even as a graduate of South Bakersfield High.

Yet BHS is a school that’s rough around the edges as most inner city schools are.

Bakersfield itself is diverse, multicultural, filled with angst and crime—and a lot of it in the inner city. It’s a city also of progress, whether you’re talking ingenuity in agriculture, or progressive oil production, where an ungodly amount of money is made from having pumped billions of barrels from Kern’s nearby oilfields.

Bakersfield High. They’re the only school I can think of with a mascot that truly represents the city’s roughneck history and working man culture.

You can be any color and work in the oilfields.

The streets around the school are rough as well. Like I said, rough around the edges. Not long ago there was yet another murder in the streets surrounding campus. Don’t wander on foot in the middle of the night. There have been murders in the apartments across California Avenue, and within the past year, a bat fight seen in the same street in broad daylight.

Still, many people don’t move from the area. It’s excellent and wealthy housing is one of the city’s proud tours of quaint houses, tall trees and flocks of Rose-Ringed Parakeets.

Oleander streets aren’t getting any rougher. They are rough. I lived in Oleander for several years. Petty thefts, brawls in the streets. You see them. You go back to sleep. You hear a gun shot every now and then. There’s crime. But then there’s a police station a block away.

That’s just the reality of where Bakersfield High is located.

Rough around the edges.

I have never been one to purposely give Bakersfield High School bad press unless I find a negative campus-related event newsworthy. And if anyone has covered positive events related to the school, the media has. I personally recently covered a huge BHS choir charity event, the BHS valley championship football game and got great press for last year’s BHS talent show on my Paperback Writer blog and on Bakotopia.com/Bakotopia Magazine.

By the way, there’s another Talent Show this Thursday night at 7 p.m. I’m expecting it to be a multicultural celebration like last year, a true showcase of the mighty talent of BHS students.

So when people say that positive high school coverage needs to take place. There’s the proof. It’s been done. But school officials downplaying events, downplaying crime on campus, or downplaying the riot-like event that occurred last week, well that’s just officials playing politics with the media and attempting damage control with worrying parents.

I remember reporting when BHS students covered crime on campus. Why not? If student reporters were concerned, then shouldn’t the community? I remember reporting on a blog 25-20 kids roaming and jumping kids on campus after a football game. The community deserved to know. I wasn’t scaring anybody from the school. My own kids go there and they were the ones who got jumped.

When 30-50 police showed up on campus and a student got shot by a Taser, that was also newsworthy. And whether defined as a brawl, a fight a ruckus or a riot, the fact of the matter is there was a newsworthy event on campus that the media has been trying to define.

I looked up the word “riot” on dictionary.com. Go check it out. You might just consider the event on campus a riot after you read the definitions. More than 100 kids being disorderly, police called in, mayhem in the corridors and on campus, and now Bakersfield.com reports that 40 students may be suspended? That’s a lot more than a few fights. What are these students being suspended for if not fighting? I called it a near-riot earlier in this blog. Maybe in the sense of rebelliousness that was displayed that was enough to call the situation a riot. For school officials, however, riot is a scary word.

Reports varied that day. Reports still vary. Word is, BHS even sent out an email to parents about the event. I’m a BHS parent. I received no email. But here’s the email that was forwarded to me that BHS Principal David Reese sent out to a number of undisclosed recipients:

From: David Reese ..
To: Undisclosed recipients:;
Sent: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:16 pm
Subject: Friday

I apologize for not getting this email out to all of you sooner. Let me give you the best description possible of what occurred.

Friday was really starting out as a great day. We had our annual Winter sports rally. It turned out to be an AWESOME rally. It was even a blacklight rally where we turn the lights out (always nerve wracking for a principal) but the kids were great. Absolutely no problems at all.

Unfortunately I had to leave campus right before lunch because I had to take my wife to the Surgery Center for a medical procedure.

We had one reported altercation between two girls at the end of 9th/10th grade lunch. Two girls who were of the same race but did not like each other. That was broken up quickly and dealt with.

Another skirmish between 2 girls of the same race then got into it. Broken up quickly.

Unfortunately both altercations drew crowds.

All students went to their 5th period class.

Between 5th and 6th period another fight between 2 boys of the same race started and attracted a large crowd. At that point a group of students would not listen to adults on campus to disperse and they starting roaming around. There were no fights but “a group” mentality of refusing to follow commands. At some point the BPD was called, the communication to them was that there was a “riot” at BHS. They responded with 30 officers. As they arrived 1 last fight broke out between 2 boys of different races and that as the BPD officer broke it up a brother of one of the boys being subdued by the officer jumped into it and the police took their action. A couple of girls (same race) got into it and that was quickly ended by BPD.

Finally the group that was outside was sent to class.

I was on the cell phone with administrators at the scene. After things settled down we made the decision to keep students in their 6th period classes so that we had time to sort out the details. By the end of the day students were sent home and we had not further problems.

Our campus supervisors and many staff members did a great job.

Staff spent an hour debriefing and sorting out everything that occurred. There was total agreement that this incident could not be classified as a “riot” or “brawl”. Most importantly race was not a factor for entirety of the situation. There were never any weapons present. There was a serious act of civil disobedience by a 100 or so students, mostly 9th and 10th graders. The VAST majority of students were not present and they went to class like they always do.

I am deeply devastated and embarrassed for the students who gave BHS a black-eye. We do not have “fights every day” like it was quoted in the paper.

Do we have some kids who need assistance in figuring out how to get along? Yes

Do we have kids who are influenced by situations in neighborhoods and struggle in figuring out how to make right choices? Yes

We take this VERY serious, but I maintain that BHS is a VERY safe place to get an education.

Please pass the word.

Deeply disturbed? The principal should be. But at the same time, Bakersfield High, though mostly a safe place, is a school about pride on many levels.

I know my kids have been proud to go there.

But let’s be real. Bakersfield High is rough around the edges and that carries into the heart of the school at times.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE INCIDENT?
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS
BELOW!

Original Post On ABC23's Nick 2.0 Blog

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Comment From: deusexmachina

I think it's unfortunate. Every school has these issues and will continue to have these issues as Bakersfield's geographic areas continue to grow. Will they have issues as notable as this? Maybe. BHS has always been a school with this stereotypical reputation and it's students are living up to the stereotype. This incident should have never happened. And if there are students on campus who lack the self-control or the respect to keep from punching a cop in the face, then those students should be removed from the campus, from the District, and any other place where they get in the way of students who are there to learn. If BHS lacks security onsite, then there should be steps taken to increase security. If BHS holds a reputation of "an unsafe campus", then it is the responsibility of the staff and the High School district to put resources in place to CHANGE it. This isn't the responsibility of the media. This is a good example of the anticipated implosion of a campus whose staff, as clearly indicated by the lack of acknowledgement in the above mass email that went out to parents, have NO IDEA what's going on in these kids heads, what's going on  on their own campus, and seem to, non-chalantly, blame the interpretation of the incident on poor or inaccurate media coverage. Teenagers will always be teenagers. But the same cannot be said of the staff who we entrust our children to every day. Change starts with them. And realization is always the first step to recovery.

Comment From: brian

I don’t have children and never went to BHS myself. As a theater person I was always jealous of the Harvey. They used to have a yearly one-act festival. I remember playing there and enjoying the heck out of acting in an actual theater. I remember the troupe spontaneously breaking out into a march around the seats singing “No business like show business”. Until the teacher made us calm down. It’s really valuable to have schools that are big enough for facilities like that.

I went to Highland High when it first opened. It had purple tile roofs and nothing but fields on 3 sides. We all enjoyed the way it looked like an alien landing site. It doesn't look quite as cool now, there may be other differences. What I regret most is the lack of diversity. We had many latinos (called chicanos at the time) but except for May 5th they kept it on the down low. They did bus low income whites from Rexland acres to accommodate the diversity quotas of the time. My grand parents lived in Rexland acres so it didn’t provide that much diversity to me. There was one family of black people and I don’t remember them bringing any kind of different culture with them. But then again I never knew them. This brings me to my point. To this day I don’t know any black people well enough to have them as friends. (one girl I grew up with married a black guy, her kids are my friends)

These days I encounter a lot of people that don’t speak much or any english. Spanish, Hindi, Farsi, Korean etc. I think if I had more exposure to different people back then I would not be so puzzled by my some of these people today.

The mixture of people at BHS by it’s nature and by the hormonal and “searching for identity” nature of teenagers is going to boil over at times. This involves risk. Some parents like Mr Belardes have a larger view, most however these days will want to grow their children in a hot house. Having been grown in a hot house myself I have done quite a bit of wilting on my way to living in the real world after high school. I have only listed one unnecessary cost to me.

The TV stations need ratings. The Californian is in the business of selling newspapers. The reporters know about the helicopter nature of many parents and how titillating a story about school violence can be for them. People know this about media and shouldn’t be shocked that it happens. When I was in Denver a few years ago I had to stop by and look at Columbine High. Prurient, yes, but it is human nature.

I am reminded of the time in 2000 when I took a very small part in producing the Bakersfield girls calendar. It was reported in the paper as something people were shocked and offended by. This concerned us so we tried to find out what the objections were. We couldn’t find anyone upset or even surprised by the calendars. All we could figure was that saying it was shocking made it newsworthy or had to do with some other agenda of the reporter or editor. I wouldn't be surprise if this “controversy” came down to a single comment or two or none at all.

Comment From: unodistical

As a fellow Driller racial fights happened since '97. I wasn't on campus that day but I kno that the press can twist certain parts of the news everyday. As I read Mr Reese's statement my thoughts of this fight being racial diminished. I just think there was so many students outside that it was hard to subdue them all. On the other hand, my thoughts on the mentioning of crime issue around this campus worries me. No one ever mentions the fact that this school is in the heart of Bakersfield (where theres already a high crime rate) or the fact that some of the other schools areas have the same crime rate. They also have murders, break-ins, racial paraphernalia. No matter what I still love Bakersfield High and I stand behind the principal. I dont want the younger generation jackasses ruining our reputation. Comment From: Mystrish

I was a student of Foothill High School and East Bakersfield High, as well as a Continuation school in Bakersfield. I also attended a high school in San Antonio, Texas. Every school had racial issues, drug issues, and sexually active teen (in restrooms, gyms, lunch rooms) issues. As schools become over-crowded, these problems are persuing in a multitude that is unbearable for most faculties in Bakersfield. Respect is low, not only from student to faculty member, but also from the "adults" toward the students in some cases. While I was attending high school (not too long ago, ahem), I noticed teachers using and selling drugs with students. One parent went to the lengths of getting into the school pretending to be a student to see for herself if she could actually purchase drugs in a school. She succeeded. Of course, in my high school days there were no gates surrounding the schools, as there are today. Sometimes, they are there with the sense of false security. Don't feel too safe with your kids behind those bars. As a parent, it is our job to ensure our childs education and safety by simply, well, being a parent. Comment From: DevaW

I attended BHS and I loved it. I was very involved in the theatre program my Junior and Senior year. I had so much fun and BHS opened me up, helped me out of my shell in a way. I was in 2 mainstage productions on the Harvey stgae. Everytime I get back on that stage, it feels like home. I miss it. I graduated in 2006 and when I went there, there were fights, of course, every school has them. But when I read the article online about what happened at BHS, I was shocked. I couldnt believe that kind of stuff happened at the school where i went, where I found myself as a person. I never would have imagined something like that happening there. It makes me sad, how BHS is getting this negative attention...but then again, this DID happen, so it WILL get the attention. I don't care what happens there, I felt safe when I went there, I would go there again if I had the chance. BHS is still a fantastic school, the staff is great, altho the security guards could be a BIT better. Fights are gonna happen regardless, but let's hope next time its just not that bad. Comment From: mich

I am happy to see Bakotopia addressing a real issue. FINALLY!! I sure do miss The Blackboard. Comment From: thenovelist

There are so many great comments on here. A bit different than some of the comments on Bakersfield.com and ABC23 where the same blog article has been posted... Thanks everyone for commenting, and don't forget tonight is the BHS talent show at 7pm at the Harvey Auditorium, Bakersfield's other Foxy Theater. Comment From: thenovelist

And don't forget Bakersfield High was also on front page news recently for housing homeless after a downtown hotel fire. That's another positive school-related news story! Comment From: matt

Nick did a great job with this article as a parent who knows the school well! Great comments peeps!

For Mr. Mich three comments up - Bakotopia doesn't like to take itself too seriously all the time - we actually like our city. Oh snap!!!!

Comment From: andreea123

My sister just finished Bakersfield High and as far as I know she really liked studying there. A lots of students share this opinion with her, so I don't see the problem. ____ Mortgage Calculator