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The journey to Gompers Preparatory Academy .... a lot of hard work went into getting the doors of GCMS open in 2005.

WHY DID GPA CONVERT FROM A FAILED DISTRICT SCHOOL IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The primary reason Gompers Preparatory Academy converted from a failed district union school (under the SDEA) was to sever ties with the union therby escaping the failed bureaucracies that made Gompers one of the most dangerous and low performing schools in the city. Escaping the union was the best option, and it worked!

Find out more - The origins of Gompers Charter Middle School

One voice made all the difference!

See how......

History

In the Beginning -Before the Charter

Points below came from "Gompers Takes a Bow"

  • There were four principals in the two years that preceded Director Riveroll.
  • Violence reigned supreme at Gompers. The school sits in a neighborhood that is home to more than 50 known gangs, and gang culture wasn’t suspended at school. If anything, it was exacerbated by kids from rival gangs being thrown together on one campus.
  • Because of the gang violence this school used to have, these corridors were all lined with chain-link fencing, and there were gates so that when fights broke out these gates could be closed to isolate the behavior. The teachers and students would then lock themselves in classrooms. And we would have SWAT teams on campus.
  • Besides posing a physical danger to students, the nearly daily fights made Gompers an undesirable post for teachers. “We had a 75 percent attrition rate,” Strom says, “meaning three-quarters of our teachers were leaving every year. It was a scary environment for teachers as well as students. They didn’t want to be here.” (currently at GPA 85%-90% of teachers stay)
  • "Before, kids would come out, congregate, and fight. No one was on supervision,” Riveroll says. “The transitions were a madhouse: kids running, breaking windows, dipping in and out of classrooms, fighting, very loud. There were huge tardy rates for classes. Even if their class was five seconds away, they would be ten minutes late. Now look, this is the transition. Supervision is all around — everybody is on supervision. These are our students. They are our kids."
  • The transition to charter school was not easy, because San Diego Unified School District and the teachers’ union were against the change.
  • One attempt to solve the teacher turnover and vacancy problem involved dialogue with the teachers’ union, the San Diego Education Association, “to ask for waivers on the hiring process with Gompers so that we could hire teachers that wanted to be here and maybe do some incentive pay to come to this particular school. And the parents and the community were denied by the teachers’ union at that time.”
  • Several reasons were cited by the union representative. “It was against the union contract,” Riveroll says, “and the bargaining agreement. They were adamant that they couldn’t do something for one school and not do it for all schools. It broke parents’ hearts. I sat in that room and heard the parents pleading with a union rep from SDEA, ‘Please help us.’ And the union representative said, ‘I know this may sound hard, but my responsibility is to the teachers, not to the students.’ And parents just started to weep."
  • “One of the major roadblocks at this particular school was vacancies that weren’t being filled. So we went to the superintendent, we went to the district, and we went to the union to really find a way within the system to make these changes. And to have it be denied at every level broke the parents’ hearts. They saw the bureaucracy firsthand.” That was when the charter idea moved to the fore.
  • “The resistance was never at a community level,” Steppe says. “We were weary of our kids catching a bus to go somewhere else to get an education. It was at the district level and union level.”
  • “As soon as the work groups started moving toward charter,” Riveroll says, “that is when the district’s and the union’s full opposition emerged."
  • “There were three major issues that the community and parents decided were the main problems of the school,” Riveroll recalls, “the safety issue, the ability to recruit and retain teachers, and increasing parental involvement.” 

According to Gompers Preparatory Academy teacher retention was rate is 85%-90% each year.  Under the SDEA, teacher retention plummeted. As of September 2021, there are still 25 vacancies. 

Learn the History about GCMS/GPA

PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer - Featuring Gompers Charter Middle School

Week before the first day of school

Learning about the Charter

KUSI GOMPERS 2005

First Day of School 

KPBS Special on Gompers Charter Middle School

Gompers Preparatory Academy Success

Gompers Preparatory Academy, a UCSD Partnership School

Gompers Preparatory Academy Graduates First Senior Class 2012

2013 Gompers Preparatory Academy Graduation Highlight

The Gompers Preparatory Academy Story

Is it wrong for us to want good things?

Download PDF

Extreme Makeover: Two Failing San Diego Schools Get New Sta

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STUPID IN AMERICA ABC 20/20 JOHN STOSSEL January 13, 2006

start at: 28:00

at: LISA YOUNG (GOMPERS CHARTER MIDDLE SCHOOL): Our students are basically just dying in their seats at school. They're not getting the education they deserve. And the union puts up a barrier for that. JOHN STOSSEL: These San Diego teachers fought to make their schools charter. Charter means they're still a public school, but they're free of many of the rules set up by school boards and unions. Now when a teacher's hired, she knows if she doesn't do a good job, she can be fired. 

History

Gov. Schwarzenegger Welcomes Gompers Students on First Day of School

Note to School Board: Take the Next Step — Give Riveroll Back to Gompers

Gov. Schwarzenegger Welcomes Gompers Students on First Day of School

 

MARSHA SUTTON on Sep 7, 2005

Wednesday, September 07, 2005 | Describing how he went from body building to millionaire actor to governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger told ninth-grade students at Gompers Charter Middle School on Tuesday that everything they dream of is within reach with a good education and hard work. 

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Gompers Charter Reaches Out to the Community

Note to School Board: Take the Next Step — Give Riveroll Back to Gompers

Gov. Schwarzenegger Welcomes Gompers Students on First Day of School

 

MARSHA SUTTON on Jul 26, 2005

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 | For the first time in its 50-year history, Gompers is humming with activity during the summer. Staff, parents and children are on campus daily, helping to transform the old, drab, failing Gompers into the bright, new, successful Gompers Charter Middle School, set to open on Sept. 6.

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Note to School Board: Take the Next Step — Give Riveroll Back to Gompers

Note to School Board: Take the Next Step — Give Riveroll Back to Gompers

Note to School Board: Take the Next Step — Give Riveroll Back to Gompers

 

MARSHA SUTTON on Mar 10, 2005

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | On Feb. 8, in closed session, trustees for the San Diego Unified School District did the unthinkable – in a 4-to-1 vote, they removed charismatic leader and charter-movement champion Vince Riveroll from his post as principal of Gompers Middle School in Chollas View.

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Copyright © 2018 GPA Family - All Rights Reserved. -  This website is made independently by concerned Parents and Teachers in District E.  We are not against Unions however we are against SDEA because they continue to fail our teachers and students in District E.  (last updated: 8/2022)

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