The Gazette on Einstein Positivity

We talked about the demonstration and meeting of Hispanic parents last week at Albert Einstein High School after some negative publicity was generated following a gun incident, and I thought it would be nice to link you to today's Gazette article on the topic. The reporter went to some trouble, interviewed a number of people (including me, but they didn't quote me), they give more background than I could.

A gun incident at Albert Einstein High School last month is spurring the school’s Latino community into action.

A group of Latino parents has been meeting weekly to address the issues of gangs, race and academic achievement since an April 9 incident involving several Latino students resulted in a police lockdown after a gun was fired in a school bathroom. On Friday night, the group held a march prior to a planned community meeting with Einstein Principal James Fernandez and state and county lawmakers.

‘‘We need to be part of the solution, not just waiting around for them to tell us what the solution is. We have to act as a community,” said Alex Colina, an organizer of the parent group ‘‘El Comite Latino.”

About 80 mostly Latino parents marched along Newport Road from Newport Mill Middle School to nearby by Einstein carrying signs written in Spanish that translate to English as: ‘‘Safe Schools Now” and ‘‘Parents involved in education = sons with success.”

‘‘It could be very easy to isolate ourselves back into our own community after something like [the gun incident],” said Ray Moreno of Silver Spring. ‘‘We have questions. How can we be more involved? We want to play a bigger role in our kid’s lives at school.” Latino parents unite after Einstein incident

This is an interesting, positive development. It's a nice story of Hispanic families, including recent immigrants, trying to get more involved in the community around them, participating in the processes, they want to be responsible for making things better.

All the TV stations had trucks outside the school when a gun went off in the boys' room, there were anxious references to gangs and those Spanish surnames were thrown right out there with all the negative stereotypes they could imply. As far as I can tell, only The Gazette carried this story of the families of Einstein coming together to make their life in the United States a good one.

The rest of this story is good, follow the link. Let's watch what happens here.