Shalimar on track to reopen

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Shalimar Learning Center is on track to reopen after

dozens of community members expressed their support for the after-school

tutoring program at a meeting Monday evening.

Children held up signs in support of the center and Shalimar’s teen

leaders also asked for a reopening, saying they think of the center as a

second home where they can get advice, information and supplies often

unobtainable at their real homes.

“We have listened very carefully tonight and it is very clear that

there is not one person in this room who wants the center to be closed,”

said Rev. Bill Flanagan of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport

Beach, speaking for the center’s sponsors. “We’re going to work very hard

with you to open the center again.”

Cheers and applause greeted the announcement.

Randy Barth, volunteer chairman of Think Together, the organization

that oversees Shalimar and five similar learning centers, said staff

members will meet later this week to begin the process of reopening.

The 6-year-old center shut its doors this month after children and

parents protested the Sept. 12 firing of Maria Alvarez, a longtime staff

member.

Barth said the decision to close the center was made because staff

members felt threatened by the angry protests of the community.

Alvarez was let go because she failed to follow a new schedule for the

tutoring program, Barth said.

The learning center rents three apartments for its program, which

serves about 300 children. Because of space limits, the program

established “teams” of students who were scheduled to come to the center

at different times.

Alvarez has said that she didn’t agree with the scheduling, but did

not refuse to follow it.

Many people at the meeting spoke in support of Alvarez, who did not

attend.

“Many of us, the parents, ran to Maria when we had a problem or got

papers we didn’t understand,” said area resident Marisol Canas. “Children

turned to Maria for help because no one helped them like she did. She

talked to them and always asked them if they needed anything. We want

Maria back because the children want Maria back.”

No decision concerning Alvarez was made at the meeting, but Barth

asked for forgiveness and apologized for “any remarks I might have made

that are hurtful to the community or to Maria.”

All who spoke at the meeting said the main concern was the center --

and its students.

“Education is the most important thing we can provide to our

children,” said Karen Robinson, a Costa Mesa City Council candidate. “The

closing of the [center] has been devastating to this community. While

there is always two sides to a story, it is very important to remember

who is suffering each day the center is closed -- these children right

here.”

Another major theme was reconciliation between the community, staff

members and volunteers.

“We are not perfect people,” Flanagan said. “We come together

representing different cultures, two languages and often two different

ways of looking at the world. Because of that, we often have not

understood each other. We need to work harder, to learn to listen before

we talk, think before we act and pray before we lose our tempers.”