L.A. Effort Proposed to Assure Jobs for Seniors Who Graduate

Two influential community groups in East and South-Central Los Angeles announced Saturday an ambitious jobs program for high school seniors that educators and neighborhood leaders hope will help coax students in the two communities to stay in school.

Leaders of the United Neighborhoods Organization and the South-Central Organizing Committee, which together claim a membership of more than 140,000 families, said the program would guarantee jobs for students who graduate from six local high schools with a 2.5 grade-point average and a 95% attendance rate over the last three years of school.

The program, which educators say would be the first of its kind in Southern California, is modeled after cooperative job efforts between businesses and schools in several East Coast cities, including Boston, where a similar program is regarded as a success.

Los Angeles school district officials and several community leaders said Saturday that the local proposal, if extended districtwide, could be one answer to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s estimated 40% dropout rate.

“Part of the problem we discovered in talking to families was that there was no guarantee that a high school diploma meant anything,” said Lou Negrete, a UNO member who helped interview hundreds of residents in researching the program. “We need to compete with the attraction of the quick money these kids can get from unsavory practices outside of school.”

The program, designed with the help of teachers and school administrators, has been endorsed by United Teachers-Los Angeles, a teachers’ union, and the three school board members who represent the predominantly Latino Eastside and the predominantly black South-Central neighborhoods represented by UNO and SCOC. The school board is expected to vote on the plan when it meets Monday.

“We are tired of our children dropping out, so we decided to do something about it,” said Rosalinda Lugo, vice president of UNO. “We hope that the business community will give our kids a chance. Right now they have no chance to compete with kids from other areas.”

At a press conference announcing the program, UTLA President Wayne Johnson and school board members Larry Gonzalez, John Greenwood and Rita Walters endorsed the effort. But representatives of the Los Angeles Area Chamber Commerce, who were invited to attend and whose cooperation would be essential for the program to succeed, were not present.

“We are disappointed in this, but we don’t see this as a sign that they don’t support us,” said Faynessa Armand of the SCOC.

Ray Remy, president of the 2,500 member chamber, said in a telephone interview that the group is interested in the plan but is still studying it.

“We are in the process of reviewing the proposal, taking a look at what the elements of the proposal are and what the alternatives are,” Remy said. “We are approaching the subject on the basis that it is an important issue and we want to have a positive response, but there are some questions that have to be answered.”

Remy said the chamber’s education committee will meet March 26 to discuss the program, and will make a recommendation to the group’s executive board next month.

“The major thing is not the speed in which we embark on the program, but the commitment to make the program a success,” he said. “We recognize that there is an important problem that needs to be addressed and we are looking for the best way to do it.”

Under the program, which UNO and SCOC have called “Genesis,” students from six high schools--Garfield, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, Locke and Manual Arts--would be eligible for jobs beginning next year. Organizers said they would be seeking 1,500 entry level jobs to accommodate the first group of eligible graduates. If the program succeeds, organizers said, it would be expanded throughout the school district.