School might find boycott to its liking

If the protest is effective, it could bring about a new way for administrators to pick school principals. Just ask the Latino community which person would inspire a boycott and then hire him or her immediately.

Silverio Garcia, who, until he quit, was education chairman of Arizona's chapter of League of Latin American Citizens, has called for a boycott of Maxine O. Bush Elementary School in south Phoenix.

He's asking parents to pull their children out of the school to protest safety concerns. "We want the school shut down," Garcia told The Republic last week.

All that's left to decide is the exact date of the boycott and whether to have the kids meet at a park or stay home.

The idea is to pressure the school into changing principals. The current one, Waldorf Jenneford, supposedly is not doing enough to stop campus violence and bullying of Latinos.

The protest will work on one level: With no Latinos in school, they can't be bullied.

It also might help the state solve education funding problems.

Latinos make up nearly 70 percent of the student body. With them gone, the school now has instant smaller class sizes, with near-ideal teacher-to-student ratios.

The district might not want the Latino students to come back.

Other heavily Latino schools might adopt this as a model.

Because, as the inequities in funding, the bilingual education ban, and the systematic siphoning of cash from public education show, the idea of not educating Latino kids doesn't scare anybody.

Reach Ruelas at (602) 444-8473 or richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com.