Compton teachers are frustrated by Rep. Maxine Waters on the school bond

When Unified School Board President Micah Ali checked his mailbox last week, he was shocked.

The school district has been making headlines as a state and national leader in student performance gains, and has been upgrading and changing its aging campuses to help fuel that growth. Next week’s vote includes a $360-million bond measure called CPT, which would keep that momentum going and replace Dominguez High School.

So when Ali opened a slideshow titled “Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ Sample Ballot and Voter Recommendations,” she didn’t believe his advice about Measure CPT.

Vote “no.”

Given Waters’ 35-year tenure as a congressman, Ali said, his slates could change the results.

“Yes, there is weight,” Ali said, and the thumbs-down recommendations “could cripple our ability to pass on this responsibility.”

Ali was doubly surprised because the mailers went out to the polls just weeks after Waters attended the convention. unveiling ceremony of the new Compton High School campus. Compton High alums and hip-hop legends Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre joined them celebration, and the latest honored for his $10 million donation to a new performing arts center.

The second high school in the district, Centennial, is being replaced with a modern campus, and district officials hope that Measure CPT passes so that the students of Dominguez are not left behind, but also because other schools in the district will receive many improvements and repairs, from infrastructure to classrooms to sports fields.

I met Ali on Wednesday afternoon at Dominguez, along with Principal Caleb Oliver. The school turns 70 this year, and it shows. The grounds are dirty, the wiring and plumbing are outdated, the gymnasium’s air conditioner has been out of service for years. Walking the campus is a step back in time – for the Eisenhower administration.

While we were talking, Oliver called over the elderly Angelina Ramirez, referring to her as a star student. I asked Angelina what kind of campus development I could use.

Dominguez High School Principal Caleb Oliver.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“Well, I like to use the restaurant as an example,” he said, pointing to where it used to be.

What happened to it?

“It burned,” he said. A power problem was suspected to be the cause, added his principal.

It was more than three years agoand as of 2023, the restaurant was an outdoor plaza.

“I think that really affected the students,” said Angelina.

The big question is why Waters’ campaign committee – Citizens for Waters – recommended a no vote.

I’d like to tell you why a rapper wrote a $10 million check to support Compton students while a congressman told them to fly a kite. But I have asked by phone, text and email, and I still have no answer.

After contacting Citizens for Waters, who referred me to Congress, I called his office and emailed his press office, which sent me this response at 7:43 pm Thursday:

“According to US House Ethics rules, we cannot respond to your request.”

I don’t know what the rules are, but the law needs to be rewritten if a congressman can’t answer a simple question about why his campaign dispatcher is recommending a vote against the school bond measure.

“We don’t know, and we are confused,” said Ali. “Who would oppose building a new school in a community like Compton?”

In the working class community, the student population is approximately 84% Latino and 14% Black.

I suggested that Ali imagine that the students marched to the Waters district office and asked for an explanation.

“We’d rather have these kids sitting on their backs and learning,” Ali said, adding that “we need to … continue to raise these test scores.”

Compton school board member Tana McCoy talks with school board President Micah Ali about the mailer.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

It’s not like there isn’t a reasonable objection to Measure CPT. These types of bonds cost taxpayers real money over the years, and the CPT will add about $60 per $100,000 of assessed property to annual tax bills.

That would affect working people and retirees with an additional tax burden of between a few hundred and a few hundred dollars a year. And taxpayers have been paying for two previous issues of school improvement bonds, one passed in 2015 and the other in 2022.

In addition to the financial burden, according to district parent Anthonia Limon, who wrote a statement against the CPT sample of LA County, security problems have undermined public trust in district leadership.

“Infrastructure alone does not create safe schools,” Limon wrote.

If Waters has similar concerns, that would be one thing. But as far as I know, and Ali’s, there has been no public explanation for recommending a vote. And reading the well-written text on the flyer, which advises voters to “go with the recommendations of Congresswoman Maxine Waters to vote,” raises more questions.

“This document was prepared by Citizens for Waters, not an official party organization. Appearing in this post does not necessarily imply endorsement of others appearing in this post and does not imply approval of, or opposition to, any issues raised in this post,” it said.

Huh?

Is it a recommendation or not?

The Times reported in 2004 that the lawyer’s daughter, Karen Waters, “charged candidates with spots on her mother’s ‘slide mailer,’ a sample ballot that many South Los Angeles voters use to guide their decisions.” Last year, the Waters campaign paid a $68,000 fine for campaign finance violations following a Federal Election Commission investigation involving Citizens for Waters.

Sender of the slide of Rep. Maxine Waters.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

And in good notes to the current sender:

“Appearance is paid for and endorsed by each candidate and the polling rate determined by” the star.

So is this sponsored or paid ads? There is an asterisk on almost every postman endorsement, from the city council to the governor to the judges to the Mela CPT. The way I read this is that different groups paid for endorsements, but the mailer doesn’t reveal who paid, or how much they paid. Such mailers, by the way, are not common in California, according to election law experts.

“I think this misleads voters,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school. While he thinks the authorization is a form of protected protected speech, he said it “shows a deep problem in our election with black money, where we don’t know where the money is coming from.”

On Thursday, I visited Tana McCoy, a Compton High graduate and retired city employee who is running for the Compton Unified school board. He showed me the slide mailer that was delivered to his home, but said he would vote yes on the CPT despite Waters’ recommendation.

“Kids need to feel good about where they are, because that’s all part of their mental health,” said McCoy.

In Dominguez, where graduates have a 96% college acceptance rate, according to district officials, junior Zaiden Ross gave me a tour that included a stop at a gym fountain he said hadn’t worked in years. Some wells are contaminated, he added, “and some pipes in the facility produce water with, for example, very high levels of lead and magnesium.”

Student Zaiden Ross shows a sink that doesn’t work in a bathroom on the campus of Dominguez High School in Compton.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Zaiden took me to the classroom to show me the water samples he was testing. Then we visited the robotics class, where they turned on the faucet, and the flow was closer to the color of apple juice than water. The air conditioner was whining, and teacher GC Esiobu, who heads the engineering and robotics club, said there was an “urgent” repair to the broken system. Zaiden gave me a quick list of modern computers and other equipment that students use to design drones and robots.

Yet despite all that, the display case was full of awards. In competitive matches, Esiobu said, “we were winning by little or nothing.” On the development of the equipment, he added, “Just imagine the rate at which we will go.”

There is still time, before Tuesday’s election, for Waters to visit Dominguez High and perhaps get a visit from Zaiden and Esiobu.

If he does, he may reconsider that authorization.

steve.lopez@latimes.com