Grass Roots Cultivate Solutions : Sherman Elementary and Neighbors Join Hands to Conquer Crime

Students from Sherman Elementary School knocked on doors Monday morning. Accompanied by law enforcement and school officials, they talked to their neighbors about joining them in a school-neighborhood watch program.

The program was announced Monday, but some parents and school officials have been keeping an eye out for one another for years, said Cecilia Estrada, principal of the school.

“We want to take charge of the neighborhood again,” Estrada said, explaining that vandalism, theft and blatant drug dealing have plagued the neighborhood around Sherman for years. Four years ago, the school instituted an informal watch program, coupled with efforts from San Diego police through Adopt-a-School and the Walking Enforcement Campaign Against Narcotics.

Adopted the Community

“Since the partnership started four years ago with the Police Department, there has been less vandalism and not as much graffiti. They didn’t just adopt the school, they adopted the entire community,” Estrada said.

Yolanda Galindo, a nearby resident who has both a nephew and a grandson attending Sherman, said she has seen a lot of changes in the community, noting that “22nd and K (streets) used to be just a drug dealers’ home.”

“You used to see people shooting. One time someone ran across the schoolyard with a shotgun. . . . Now I really feel it’s a safer school,” Galindo said.

But Estrada said more participation from the community is needed.

“In the past it’s been just a few parents, but now we want everybody to get involved.” The watch program, she said, will do just that.

The program is the idea of Vice Principal Dennis Doyle, who says that, to his knowledge, such a program is unique.

“There’s Neighborhood Watch, but not a school-neighborhood watch,” he said.

A Two-Way Street

In return for neighbors watching the school, Estrada said, students and school officials will keep an eye on residents’ property.

“What we’re saying is that we have a responsibility to give back, and we will watch their homes,” she said.

Arturo Campa, community relations and crime prevention officer for the central police substation, said the program will “teach children to be the eyes and ears of our Police Department” and to “look out for themselves and their neighborhood.”

Campa said the department does not expect the students to become young vigilantes, but to “be the eyes and ears only and report the crime.”

Students, police and school representatives broke up into teams and went door to door Monday, asking neighbors to participate in the watch program. About 25 residents agreed to post in their windows red, white and blue stickers with the familiar Neighborhood Watch silhouette of a burglar with a line drawn through him.

“It’s a nice program,” said 10-year-old Edna Chavez, a fourth-grader at Sherman. “There won’t be more vandalism. When parents started helping, almost all the vandalism stopped.”

Third-grader Erica Cazares agreed. “I think if we have this school watch thing, there won’t be so much bad things around us and no more stolen things. And we’ll save money, because when things are stolen you have to pay for more.”