Students and parents mobilized in support of Culver City High School English and Drama teacher who was not recommended for re-hire.
ABC7 covered a protest on Thursday when students picketed in front of the school in support of Sheila Silver. Concerned parents mobilized as well. About a dozen parents met later that day in a private session with CCHS Principal Pam Magee and Human Resources director, Leslie Lockhart. Newspaper editors without children at the school were told to leave.
Multiple sources told the News that Silver was informed that she is “not a good long term fit for the high school and even more so not a good fit for the [Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA)].”
CCHS student Kevin Mitchell described the school’s decision as a “gross injustice.”
In a written statement, Mitchell explained, “Sheila Silver is one of the most inspiring, productive, active and caring teachers we have ever had. She has led us to earn substantial theatrical awards that have put us on the map for high school theatre in California. In addition, she has fostered genuine growth and interdependency within AVPA theatre and her daytime classes. In the short time she has worked with us, we have become a tight-knit family where people look after each other, create together, and, most of all, work together through whatever personal problems we may have to put out the best work possible. In short, Sheila Silver has done the job she is hired to do and more.”
In a letter to Magee, concerned parent David Wally wrote: “It is exceedingly rare to find a teacher as capable, devoted and talented as Sheila Silver. And it is rarer still to find a teacher who can so successfully inspire their students to work passionately to attain the highest possible quality of work.
And it is truly inconceivable – unfathomable really – that any administration could choose not to
retain such an outstanding teacher.”
Wally said that the administration ought to consider the best interests of the children.
Parents and students have vowed to continue to urge the administration to reconsider its decision regarding Silver.