In harmony, the pricey thirty-six-year-old school and the families of Turning Point strongly prefer it that way.
Sealed off from commonplace public visibility at the hugely busy corner of National Boulevard and Wesley Street, it may be less known in Culver City than a blue collar worker whose only transcribed activities are his birth, marriage and death.
Where Was the Point?
Wesley Street was emblazoned across the top of the news four months ago as the heavily disputed location of a temporary ground-level terminal for the promised light rail line.
Turning Point’s proximity, however, never was mentioned.
Extremely conscious of image, as private persons and institutions are, the Turning Point families are well-to-do, influential in their professions, deeply immersed every school day and holiday in the academic and personal regimen of their children.
They are vocal at all times and exceedingly disciplined, reflecting the mode and attitude of the tightly managed school.
Students come from far -flung regions of the Los Angeles Basin.
Turning Point is reputed to be a universal model of prolific, meaningful, consistent communications. The administration is in regular, hourly if needed, contact with parents. The same is true in the opposite direction.
Few strangers on campus. Everyone knows everyone else.
Through a stream of broadly based activities, the families commonly interact with each other. They know the names of other parents.
When Tragedy Is Not Invited
But what do you do when tragedy abruptly intrudes?
At this fragile, suddenly emotional intersection that had been thrust upon them, surely many were grateful for the school’s carefully selected lifestyle. In their moment of deepest grief, Turning Point officials were determined to keep their faces hidden and their voices muted. With dignity.
In the quiet hours following the tragedy involving fatally injured teacher Carrie Phillips and eight of her students, longtime Culver City residents were asking where Turning Point was.
Some told thefrontpageonline.com they never had heard the name.
The anonymity of Turning Point died, locally and perhaps more widely, on the afternoon that Ms. Phillips was so freakishly killed.
Media by the truckload streamed to the National Boulevard site of the tragedy, and then several blocks further north to the typically modern urban campus.
In the main, the campus is strictly sculpted in concrete.
One storyline that emerged from Wednesday afternoon was the reason that Turning Point students — kindergarten through the eighth grade — are drawn to Kronenthal Park. The old McManus Park is rich in the grass, which the otherwise bountiful school does not provide.
A Parade of Wheels
Judging purely by the traffic of families dropping off their children yesterday morning after passing through a well-guarded set of iron gates, Turning Point is for the affluent.
Virtually every entering, slow-rolling vehicle was an SUV. They carried the most fashionable brand names, Lexus, Range Rover, BMW, Mercedes Benz.
As a private school, they are, of course, selective. Tuition fees tend to weed out the masses.
In their fifth year at the Hayden Tract intersection, Turning Point’s tuition is $17,460 for the lower grades, $18,980 for the upper grades.
In throngs, the media came to — well, not quite — the doorstep of Turning Point on the morning after. The journlists were hungry for a crumb of comment, even a glancing look at the inside.
Never happened.
The tidy, attractive but hardly gaudy two-story building with nine grades may as well have been a fortress.
No one was allowed to crack the iron gates. And so, the journalists, their cameras, trucks and more modest vehicles lined the south side of slender Wesley Street. They took up posts nearby, rarely allowing their piercing gaze to stray from the compact, enclosed campus.
Word soon circulated that the Police Dept. would stage a news conference, at the station on Duquesne, in two hours at ten o’clock.
As time passed, the journalists became increasingly agreeable to accepting even a reed-thin ray of news.
While they waited patiently, a fascinating cultural scene played out. Without exception, entering parents were grim-faced, tight-lipped. Their more innocent children, fully aware of what had happened, were in a playful mood despite the backdrop of an appalling, needless death of one of their well-known teachers.
Dealing with fewer psychological impediments than their elders, the children blithely went on with their regular lives.
A Science Fair Today
Who knows when, or for how long, to mourn?
The school calendar called for a Middle School Science Fair to be held today. It is not known whether the event will be held.
Finally, at 8:40 a.m. yesterday, as the regular school day was moving forward, a Turning Point representative stepped through the school’s main doors, through the parking lot and out into Wesley where the small army of journalists still were assembled.
She distributed a few copies of a prepared statement on Turning Point letterhead:
An explanatory paragraph was followed by a statement from Deborah Richman, who is Head of School.
“At this moment, the faculty and administration of the school are concentrating our attention on our students. Please accept this statement from us in lieu of a personal appearance.”
Ms. Richman said: “What occurred yesterday is a terrible tragedy. We are doing everything necessary to address the emotional needs of our students and faculty. Grief counselors are at the school today to provide assistance and support as needed. We have been in communication with the parents of our students and, of course, will continue such communication. Our thoughts are with the students and their families who suffered injuries, and we are in touch with all of them. We are in the earliest stages of mourning for our beloved teacher whom we lost.”