Examining Educators’ & Administrators’ Role in the Williams Case: A Case Study of Fremont High

• In Event: Resisting Educational Abandonment in Los Angeles: Recovering a Critical History of Activism in Williams

Abstract

Purpose
This paper examines the role educators and administrators from Fremont Senior High played in the class action lawsuit, Williams v. California (Williams). The suit alleged the State of California had reneged on its constitutional promise to provide an equal education to all public-school students (California Department of Education [CDE], 2012; Valencia, 2010). Very little is known about the student-, parent-, and teacher plaintiffs. Of particular importance for this study is to examine the role educators and administrators played in the fight for equitable education by illustrating what conditions they identified as issues impacting students.

Theoretical Framework
Drawing from a Critical Race Educational History lens (Santos et.al, 2107; Partida and Ramirez, 2023), which calls to interrogate the salience of race, racism and white supremacy in educational institutions, policies and practices. This methodology draws from the tradition of Critical Race Theory in Education (Solórzano, 1997), that gives way to the development of historical counternarratives that challenge dominant ideologies present in educational discourse, such as notions of “objectivity, meritocracy, color and gender blindness, race and gender neutrality, and equal opportunity” (Solórzano, 1998, p.122).

Methods & Data Sources
This paper uses historical inquiry to wrestle with questions centering educational inequities encountered by the educators and administrators of Fremont Senior High. This history of education study draws on archival research methods and relies solely on primary key legal documents. Specifically, we analyzed the declarations of 18 teachers, and 1 librarian, the largest set of declarations filed by educators at any single school involved in the suit. In addition, this study also includes the deposition transcripts from the five visits in which the principal and assistant principal were deposed. These legal documents help piece together the role each group played in the fight for equitable education and the ways they discursively framed the educational issues they identified as educational problems.

Results
Preliminary findings indicate mixed roles between educators and administrators. In the case of educators, which included teachers and staff members, their declarations illustrate how they actively pushed back against poor conditions, unfair policies, and lack of instructional materials. Fremont administrators on the other hand were dealing with high turnover rates that often lead to inconsistent leadership. A 2001 deposition established that 4 out of the 5 principals at Fremont High that academic year only had one year in the position, creating an environment ripe to reify unequal schooling conditions.

Author

• Lluliana Alonso, California State University - Long Beach