Westchester High School’s Anita Barner is gone!
Great news has come out of Westchester High School. Principal Anita Barner has left the school and there will be an interim principal assigned to the school in the meantime. This will allow a new transition team under the new LMU/iDivision to develop a new job description and search for a new principal.
Since 1999, Westchester High Schools Academic Performance Index (API ) statewide ranking fell from a below average 4 to a 1 making it one of the worst in the state. Under the API system, schools can score as high as a 10 or as low as a 1. Other South Bay high schools perform significantly better such as El Segundo High School with a statewide ranking of 9 and Manhattan Beach’s Mira Costa High School with a 10.
I received news that our former principal Anita Barner is headed for Van Nuys Middle School. Stakeholders at Van Nuys have asked about her performance at the school. If any teachers and parents at WHS have any experiances that you would like to share on Barner’s tenure at WHS, feel free to comment.
Westchester’s fall from grace began under previous administrations. When principal Dana Perryman left in 2004, the schools state ranking fell to a 3. Under Barner’s administration the state ranking dropped all the way to 1, the bottom 10% of the states public high schools.
Boys at Westchester High School have been dropping out in increasingly greater numbers under both administrations.
During Perryman’s tenure, the male dropout rate rose from 40% to 55% and hovered there through 2003. In Perryman’s final year, the figure then jumped to 66.9% for the Class of 2004. Vice principal Anita Barner was named Perryman’s successor and under Barner’s administration, the male dropout rate remained 68% through 2006.
Two other vice-principals left earlier in the year.
Wow. We thought she had gone “downtown”, to push paper. Rather unbelievable.
She’s not as incompetent as she seems, she was just in way over her head. And had no control over hiring of APs, etc. A smaller (?) middle school might be better for her. The whole thing made me sad. LAUSD takes well meaning people, even with some skills, and gives them no support or training, so yeah, they sorta develop their own lemons.
But who knows, it might be an unmitigated disaster. I think VNMS needs to start threatening charter — it’s the only reason she was “moved on” from WHS.
The word was that she was pushed out. Anita wasn’t part of the reform effort, she was one of ‘many’ reasons for the reform effort. She didn’t return phone calls or emails and was often off campus. She undercut teachers when it came to discipline offering students easy ways out of their detention obligations. Good riddance.
Parents of Westchester High School students want what is in the best interest of their child(ren) and community as do all parents of students everywhere. As a WHS teacher, I understand the shortcomings and areas of concern of this school. Parents have the right to feel frustrated. What I don’t understand, however, is blaming the brunt of the problems on Anita Barner when she is just a piece of the puzzle of this dysfunctional school district.
Anita may have demonstrated some weaknesses as principal, but throughout her very long tenure at WHS as both a teacher and administrator she accomplished some noteworthy things and deserves credit for her contributions, not just criticism for her limitations. To publicly blast her “Great News……..Anita Barner is Gone” (anonymous) devalues the roles that she played for many years, and she doesn’t deserve that.
No one who has put in this amount of time in such varied capacities, has done everything wrong. I believe she truly cared about WHS and was always well-intentioned, even though not always effective. The information in this article could have been presented in a diplomatic manner–the way it reads makes it sound more like gossip, thus minimizing the credibility of this website.
The article doesn’t place the brunt of WHS problems on Anita Barner alone. Dana Perryman before her was also representative of the problem. (Along with Doug Waybright)
We know that in order to have a great school we need great leaders guiding them. Neither Barner or Perryman were great leaders. Both were ineffective leaders and dismissive of the community around them. Gossip is one thing, data is another. Both oversaw the dramatic fall in academic performance and high dropout rates.
Barner’s exit is tangible evidence to the community that a sea-change is coming to the high school.
Further changes are going to be necessary to convince W/PdR parents that WHS is a great school. Among those are an overhaul of the high school sports program that would give students living in the enrollment area priority over permit students from outside of the enrollment area as well as the district.
It would include a curriculum tailored to the requirements of the community and not focused almost entirely on intervention.
It must also include a concise road map on how to graduate (See Comparing Apples to Oranges) and pallet of meaningful electives to keep students interested.
I just graduated in June, so I left along with Mrs. Barner. I have to say, I probably saw her about 5 times in the 4 years that I was in that school. Half of the students were confused with who our principal actually was! It is absolutely wonderful news to hear she is gone.
Anita Barner did a lot of good for WHS, the teachers there, the students, the office staff, and the parents as well but no one wants to talk about that.
She is dedicated to helping young people and is a compassionate person. It’s easy to look from the outside and criticize but I was there on the inside working as one of her teachers and I saw more than the average parent or student. She did a lot of good for many people. it’s unfair to hold one person accountable for something that requires many hands and many minds to properly function.
Do you hold yourself solely accountable for all the failures of your children or a previous job or a previous marriage? Of course not because other people played a part too.
Don’t be so judgmental. Imperfect people shouldn’t demand perfection of others.
You can tell by the many negative comments that few individuals or none have done their homework. Many studies document the fact that there are several reasons for the high percentage of African American male high school dropouts. There is no ‘one’ single reason but many reasons. Take a look at the truthful history of the African American in this country. Slave mentality, it was against the law for African Americans to be educated. Take a look at the parent’s role in this dilemma, the teachers and society as well as the students themselves. Mrs. Barner did not have that much authority and power! Try interviewing some of the African American males that have dropped out of high school and see if maybe, single parent homes (no father), poverty, drugs and or peers played a significant role in this tragedy. Lets see who in the village will step up to the plate to ‘fix’ the situation.
If not, I value the concept… “If, you do not have anything good to say, shut your mouth’”
Carol,
To a minimal degree, we can agree. There were some areas where Barner had little power or authority, however she did sign off on the WASC self-assessment that provided phony graduation rates that were totally out of synch with dropout rates. Barner never followed through on improving the curriculum, dropouts continued to rise and the API continued to fall during her tenure. Following Perryman’s footsteps, she was simply more of the same. Barner, like many principals in the LAUSD system are “loss managers.” They accept what is handed to them from downtown and they might try to minimize the losses. They don’t challenge the system. They don’t advocate for the students and their families. They spin the truth.
When California eliminated the vocational path to a diploma back in 1998/1999 it signed on to the most devastating, career killing and alienating policy change in the history of education. Today’s dropout rate is a result of that change. Similarly, so is fall of our country’s productivity and manufacturing.
A country can only be so productive sitting behind a desk or a counter and you can only engage so many kids with that prospect of their future.
Westchester Dad,
If everything that you have said is true; we do not want to take our time and effort to point out Ms. Barner’s mistakes, but rather to fix them. We are all at fault in some way or another. Let’s fix the situation and teach our children a better way. If not we simply perpetuate a negative process for them to emulate. I challenge the negative to suggest or encourage the positive in this situation. The high rate of African American male high school dropouts is not just prevalent at Westchester High School but all over the country.
Westchester Dad,
I will gladly volunteer my time to help turn this dropout situation around. I am very concerned about the circumstances that continue to cripple our youth, especially the African American males.
Dear Mr. Carson -
There are many volunteer opportunities at the High School and all throughout our Family of Schools.
If you really want to work with the High School, the Governance Council meetings are open to the public and a great place to start. There you will see administrators, teachers, parents and community members working side-by-side (sometimes more in agreement than at other times) to improve our school for all the students who attend now – and in the future.
Call the school directly to find out the schedule – and then you can find the various committees that are dedicated to the specific area that you are interested in volunteering for.
Thanks for your support and help!
FORMER WHS STUDENT
I went to Westchester in 1997 and I must say that i saw the deterioration of the school during my high school years. Westchester’s fall is not due to Anita Barner, it is due to influx of students who come from LA’s notorious east side. Yes unmotivated students who rather gang bang than go to school. SMH..Im not saying all students who come from area are like this..but the one’s who were being transported to Westchester were.