Students Get Down to Business, Join Local Chamber

Milkshakes and fries may be just as appropriate as the wine and hors d’oeuvres that are already on the menu for next week’s Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce membership mixer.

The reason? Twenty-six hundred teen-agers joined the West Valley business group Tuesday afternoon.

Eager to improve relations between their campus and the community, the El Camino Real High School student body signed up and paid this year’s $150 chamber dues during a noontime luncheon in Calabasas.

The move came on the next-to-last day of school for the students, many of whom probably believe that El Camino Real paid plenty of emotional dues this year through a pair of highly publicized police raids.

Last semester, 16 students were arrested on suspicion of selling drugs to undercover officers on campus. This semester, police broke up a 30-student campus betting ring with the arrest of two alleged ringleaders.

Move Seen as Beneficial

“We felt bad that people said so much about us and we got hit with it,” said student body president Scott Brown. “But we still figure we’re OK. We felt that, by joining the chamber, we could reach more broadly into the community.”

Brown, an 18-year-old senior who graduates tonight, said next fall’s El Camino Real student body government will actively participate in chamber activities and events.

The student membership was suggested by Principal Lawrence Foster, who in the past has escorted student government leaders to occasional chamber events. Foster said he has maintained his own individual membership for three years.

“I think the dues will be well spent,” Foster said. “The opportunity for things like summer jobs is just one possibility for the students.”

Chamber officials said they were surprised when students approached them about joining. The organization’s dues structure requires a $550 yearly fee for member companies with up to 299 workers, but a special student discount rate was adopted to give the student body a full membership with one vote. The money came from a student activity fund.

1 Other School Membership

Before Tuesday’s meeting, chamber officials said they surveyed other San Fernando Valley chambers of commerce and found that only the San Fernando chamber lists a student body on its membership rooster.

Lucki Baxter, executive vice president of the 500-member San Fernando group, said San Fernando High has held a membership for 10 years. An adult administrator represents the school at chamber meetings, Baxter said.

Roger Stanard, president of the 700-member Woodland Hills chamber, said that, although no other West Valley students have contacted his group about joining, “They may after this.”

Students from several other campuses were watching, in fact, when Brown submitted El Camino Real’s dues check Tuesday. The students were receiving awards for winning a chamber-sponsored spelling bee.

‘A Good Influence’

One of them, Taft High School ninth-grader Daniel Lee, said the student membership idea had merit. “I think Taft should join. We’re in Woodland Hills. I think businessmen would be a good influence,” said Daniel, who is 15.

The luncheon speaker, Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub, also endorsed the idea.

“I think the business community really needs to know what kids are thinking today,” Weintraub said. “You hear so many bad stories about kids. And, when you see these kids, you know it’s not true.”