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South L.A. Teacher Struggles to Reconcile Charter School’s Conditions With Wealthy Founders

A parent and two students walk in front of Today’s Fresh Start's Inglewood campus in an undated photo. (Credit: Mel Melcon and Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles.

Though she was fresh out of college, she was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for the school to churn so quickly through teachers or to mount surveillance cameras in each classroom. Old computers were lying around, but the campus had no internet access. Pay was low and supplies scarce — she wasn’t given books for her students.

She struggled to reconcile the school’s conditions with what little she knew about its wealthy founders, Clark and Jeanette Parker of Beverly Hills.

When Kawamoto saw their late-model Mercedes-Benz outside the school, she would think: “Look at your school, then look at what you drive.”

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

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