Representation Of A City: Bakersfield High, A Progressive Multicultural Inner City School - By N.L. Belardes

Image From BHS Tuesday Sent By Student

Bakersfield High is a multicultural, inner city school. It’s historic, with a grand theater that rivals the Fox Theater and old two-story classrooms that look like they’d fit more snugly in the Midwest, rather than Kern County.

You get a sense of pride and awe just driving by, even if you never attended the school.

BHS is a symbol of Bakersfield probably more than any other school in the city, because it represents diversity on all levels. It represents progress and growth, with kids both rich and poor; it represents natural teen angst and inner city turmoil. It heralds sports and carries on the city’s rich tradition in an array of competitive excellence. I say that even as a graduate of South Bakersfield High.

Yet BHS is a school that’s rough around the edges as most inner city schools are.

See a discussion of this blog article on ABC23:



Bakersfield itself is diverse, multicultural, filled with angst and crime—and a lot of it in the inner city. It’s a city also of progress, whether you’re talking ingenuity in agriculture, or progressive oil production, where an ungodly amount of money is made from having pumped billions of barrels from Kern’s nearby oilfields.

Bakersfield High. They’re the only school I can think of with a mascot that truly represents the city’s roughneck history and working man culture.

You can be any color and work in the oilfields.

The streets around the school are rough as well. Like I said, rough around the edges. Not long ago there was yet another murder in the streets surrounding campus. Don’t wander on foot in the middle of the night. There have been murders in the apartments across California Avenue, and within the past year, a bat fight seen in the same street in broad daylight.

Still, many people don’t move from the area. It’s excellent and wealthy housing is one of the city’s proud tours of quaint houses, tall trees and flocks of Rose-Ringed Parakeets.

Oleander streets aren’t getting any rougher. They are rough. I lived in Oleander for several years. Petty thefts, brawls in the streets. You see them. You go back to sleep. You hear a gun shot every now and then. There’s crime. But then there’s a police station a block away.

That’s just the reality of where Bakersfield High is located.

Rough around the edges.

I have never been one to purposely give Bakersfield High School bad press unless I find a negative campus-related event newsworthy. And if anyone has covered positive events related to the school, the media has. I personally recently covered a huge BHS choir charity event, the BHS valley championship football game and got great press for last year’s BHS talent show on my Paperback Writer blog and on Bakotopia.com/Bakotopia Magazine.

By the way, there’s another Talent Show this Thursday night at 7 p.m. I’m expecting it to be a multicultural celebration like last year, a true showcase of the mighty talent of BHS students.

So when people say that positive high school coverage needs to take place. There’s the proof. It’s been done. But school officials downplaying events, downplaying crime on campus, or downplaying the riot-like event that occurred last week, well that’s just officials playing politics with the media and attempting damage control with worrying parents.

I remember reporting when BHS students covered crime on campus. Why not? If student reporters were concerned, then shouldn’t the community? I remember reporting on a blog 15-20 kids roaming and jumping kids on campus after a football game. The community deserved to know. I wasn’t scaring anybody from the school. My own kids go there and they were the ones who got jumped.

When 30-50 police showed up on campus and a student got shot by a Taser, that was also newsworthy. And whether defined as a brawl, a fight a ruckus or a riot, the fact of the matter is there was a newsworthy event on campus that the media has been trying to define.

Raw Video From Day Of BHS Fights:



I looked up the word “riot” on dictionary.com. Go check it out. You might just consider the event on campus a riot after you read the definitions. More than 100 kids being disorderly, police called in, mayhem in the corridors and on campus, and now Bakersfield.com reports that 40 students may be suspended? That’s a lot more than a few fights. What are these students being suspended for if not fighting? I called it a near-riot earlier in this blog. Maybe in the sense of rebelliousness that was displayed that was enough to call the situation a riot. For school officials, however, riot is a scary word.

Reports varied that day. Reports still vary. Word is, BHS even sent out an email to parents about the event. I’m a BHS parent. I received no email. But here’s the email that was forwarded to me that BHS Principal David Reese sent out to a number of undisclosed recipients:

From: David Reese ..
To: Undisclosed recipients:;
Sent: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:16 pm
Subject: Friday

I apologize for not getting this email out to all of you sooner. Let me give you the best description possible of what occurred.

Friday was really starting out as a great day. We had our annual Winter sports rally. It turned out to be an AWESOME rally. It was even a blacklight rally where we turn the lights out (always nerve wracking for a principal) but the kids were great. Absolutely no problems at all.

Unfortunately I had to leave campus right before lunch because I had to take my wife to the Surgery Center for a medical procedure.

We had one reported altercation between two girls at the end of 9th/10th grade lunch. Two girls who were of the same race but did not like each other. That was broken up quickly and dealt with.

Another skirmish between 2 girls of the same race then got into it. Broken up quickly.

Unfortunately both altercations drew crowds.

All students went to their 5th period class.

Between 5th and 6th period another fight between 2 boys of the same race started and attracted a large crowd. At that point a group of students would not listen to adults on campus to disperse and they starting roaming around. There were no fights but “a group” mentality of refusing to follow commands. At some point the BPD was called, the communication to them was that there was a “riot” at BHS. They responded with 30 officers. As they arrived 1 last fight broke out between 2 boys of different races and that as the BPD officer broke it up a brother of one of the boys being subdued by the officer jumped into it and the police took their action. A couple of girls (same race) got into it and that was quickly ended by BPD.

Finally the group that was outside was sent to class.

I was on the cell phone with administrators at the scene. After things settled down we made the decision to keep students in their 6th period classes so that we had time to sort out the details. By the end of the day students were sent home and we had not further problems.

Our campus supervisors and many staff members did a great job.

Staff spent an hour debriefing and sorting out everything that occurred. There was total agreement that this incident could not be classified as a “riot” or “brawl”. Most importantly race was not a factor for entirety of the situation. There were never any weapons present. There was a serious act of civil disobedience by a 100 or so students, mostly 9th and 10th graders. The VAST majority of students were not present and they went to class like they always do.

I am deeply devastated and embarrassed for the students who gave BHS a black-eye. We do not have “fights every day” like it was quoted in the paper.

Do we have some kids who need assistance in figuring out how to get along? Yes

Do we have kids who are influenced by situations in neighborhoods and struggle in figuring out how to make right choices? Yes

We take this VERY serious, but I maintain that BHS is a VERY safe place to get an education.

Please pass the word.

Deeply disturbed? The principal should be. But at the same time, Bakersfield High, though mostly a safe place, is a school about pride on many levels.

I know my kids have been proud to go there.

But let’s be real. Bakersfield High is rough around the edges and that carries into the heart of the school at times.

This blog article was also posted on Bakotopia.com.