“You fat bitch.”  The middle school student was addressing his female PE coach who was taking attendance.  I was so angry I was tempted to pick the student up and toss him twenty yards to teach him some manners.  As a substitute teacher I was taking role of my own class which was seated next to hers.  There are 700,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  Only ten percent are Caucasian.  Seventy percent are Hispanic with most of these students being Mexican.  A direct result of the massive invasion of Mexican nationals pouring across our border illegally and settling in Los Angeles.

As class ended and the students were filing into the locker room, I entered the PE office with the female coach following close behind.  She locked the door, went to her desk, put her head down and started weeping.  For five minutes she cried and only when the bell rang signaling the start of the next class did she stop.  Lifting her head with tears streaming down her face she said, “I can’t stand the disrespect any longer.  I’m quitting teaching.”

I knew the statistics.  One third of all new teachers in LAUSD quit within three years.  Fifty percent resign within five years.  All because of student behavior.  Non white students behavior.  I asked how long she had been teaching.  She said, “Three years.”  Right on target, I thought.  She mentioned she had an interview next week at a middle school in Santa Clarita.  Santa Clarita is teacher code for “White Students” as Santa Clarita is a mostly Anglo suburb north of Los Angeles.  If she is offered the job she may stay in teaching but if not she’s quitting.

I was back at the school the following month.  In the faculty cafeteria I ran into the teacher.  She was positively beaming.  “I got the job in Santa Clarita.”  She told me she had to spend the day observing at the school where she interviewed.  While the regular teacher was taking attendance, “It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.”  I knew she was referring to the incident I had witnessed.  Because of LAUSD legal contractual restrictions she had to stay until the end of the school year before being granted parole.

I was happy for her.  Someone had escaped Devil’s Island.