L.A. Board Votes to Expel Students With Firearms

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday night adopted a much-toughened stance on campus violence, including expulsion of all older students who bring firearms to school.

Effective immediately, any secondary-level student will be kicked out of the Los Angeles Unified School District if caught with a firearm, or if he or she assaults another student in a way likely to cause serious injury. The rules also apply to any older student who batters anyone at school.

“My first priority is to make sure our schools are safe for all the children that attend them,” said board member Julie Korenstein, whose measure was approved 6 to 1.

Board member Rita Walters, who cast the only no vote, said the district should not abandon troubled youngsters, but instead teach them to “write and read and compute . . . so they have a sense of belonging.”

Secondary students are usually defined as those in grades seven through 12, but district officials said they intend to include sixth-graders attending so-called middle schools.

The measure does not apply to BB guns or similar weapons, but only to devices that use gunpowder to discharge a metal object.

Expulsions, which can still be overturned by the board, are effective for two semesters, after which a student can apply for reinstatement.

“I have no illusions about this. . . . This will not make campuses any safer,” Board President Jackie Goldberg said. Nonetheless, she voted for the measure, saying she does not want people to think the board looks kindly on violent behavior by students.

As a former teacher in the troubled Compton Unified School District, Goldberg said she learned that expelling youngsters merely “gives them 24 hours a day to be around us with their weapons.”

Korenstein’s proposal was supported by a leader of a district-wide task force on campus safety, which sparked board debate earlier this year with the release of a report urging stricter policies.

The task force also recommended several ways to help the offending youths. But the serious financial problems the district faces make it unlikely that many of those ideas can be implemented.

Much of Monday’s debate centered on whether the district should cut off the offenders in order to make schools safer for the majority of its 610,000 students.

Until now, expulsion decisions have been made case by case by special committees that include a school psychologist and counselor. The decisions are reviewed by the board which, historically, has adhered to the philosophy that troubled youngsters can and should be rehabilitated.

While district policy has recommended expulsion of students bringing weapons on campus, it has allowed many of these students to attend alternative programs or to transfer to other schools, rather than put them out on the street.

Last month, the board rejected, 6 to 1, a proposal by board member Roberta Weintraub to expel any student caught with any kind of weapon on campus.

Most board members said the measure was too broad. The members got many angry comments from people who felt the board was soft on violence.

Two weeks after Weintraub’s proposal was rejected, students walked out of classes at Eagle Rock High School to protest increasing campus violence there. Some of their parents turned out Monday night to urge approval of Korenstein’s measure.

“We need to do more to protect these kids--the ones without the guns and knives,” said parent Jeanine Potter.

In the 1988-89 school year, more than 400 students were considered for expulsion for bringing weapons, explosives or other “dangerous objects” to district schools. Most were allowed to transfer to special programs, and many of those were returned to regular schools after two semesters.

Expressing concern that expelled youngsters will get into even more serious trouble if nothing is done to turn them around, representatives of the two PTA districts that cover the school district urged board members to find better solutions.

“You’re just putting a Band-Aid on a festering wound,” said 10th District PTA President Diane Brahams. If nothing is done for these youths, “society will pay dearly later,” she added.

PAY CUT URGED--L.A. city school employees are being asked to take a one-time 4% pay cut. B1