Trouble at School : Neighbors Fear Facility for At-Risk Youths Will Spur Violence

A school in west Whittier, opened in October to keep troubled youths away from gangs, drugs and other problems, has enraged residents who do not want it in their neighborhood.

The residents say the 12- and 13-year-old students pose a danger to the neighborhood because they could become violent with each other and local gangs.

School officials believe the community fears are groundless. The school will keep pupils from dropping out, using drugs and joining gangs, they said.

The school, called the Whittier Community Day Center School, will serve as many as 34 students from the elementary and middle school districts that feed the Whittier Union High School District. It opened Oct. 21, has 14 students and operates out of four brown-and-white portable buildings on the former Benjamin Franklin Elementary School campus.

The students are troubled or have a history as troublemakers, officials said. They have been placed in the school through a juvenile probation program or because they are wards of the court. They may have fought, vandalized school property, skipped classes regularly, used drugs or brought a weapon to class, school officials said. Many had the choice of going to this school or being expelled.

This program is not for juvenile criminals, however, said Larry Springer, an administrator with the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“This is a prevention program,” Springer said. “They are headed down the road that would lead to suspension and expulsion. . . . They are not hardened criminals in a gang situation. They are local kids.

“Where would these kids be if they weren’t in school? They’d be out in the street making trouble. We need schools like this.”

Nearby residents are not persuaded. They describe their neighborhood as a borderline area fighting off gang dominance and decline.

“Our No. 1 qualm is that we don’t feel the school belongs in a residential setting such as ours,” said Anna Rosales, an elementary schoolteacher who lives near the campus.

The school is near the turf of two local gangs. Shortly after the portable classrooms arrived, local gang members painted their logos on them. The symbols were immediately painted over, but not before alarming residents who foresee a turf war.

“They know about this school,” resident Gilbert Mora said of gang members, who hang out in nearby Guirado Park and along Pioneer Boulevard. “They’re just looking for an opportunity to start something. It’s like putting red ants in a black ant colony.”

Organizers said they have gathered 550 signatures on a petition demanding the school be closed. They attended the last three Whittier City School District board meetings to protest the school, which is on district property.

More than 70 residents met Sunday at Guirado Park to plan a strategy that will include petitioning the school board, the Whittier City Council and the County Board of Supervisors. They also spoke of recalling school board members and picketing their homes.

They said the district never notified them that the school was to be placed in their neighborhood.

Because notices of the project were sent home with schoolchildren, households without children were not informed, Assistant Supt. Kirk Koehler said. The oversight was unintentional, he added.

The county operates 28 such schools, most of them for high school students. The Whittier school is for students in grades five through eight. The other schools also operate in areas with gangs, and they have not experienced major problems, said Janice Crawford, director of communications for the county education office.

Although none of the schools has been closed, public protest has shelved plans to place them in Woodland Hills and in the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District.

Closing down the west Whittier school would require the consent of the county education office and the Whittier City School District. Whittier City can close the school without county approval only if it needs the space for increased enrollment. The county has invested $250,000 in buildings and materials, and officials said they see no valid reason to move the school.

School administrators said they are sensitive to security concerns. Nearly all of the school’s 14 students are bused in and escorted by school employees from bus to classroom. A nine-foot, chain-link fence surrounds the site. Students are forbidden outside the fence. The bus driver has been told to avoid traveling along Pioneer Boulevard in front of Guirado Park. Students are not allowed to play in the park.

“The corner of that park is a gang hangout,” Assistant Principal Arlene Schoonhoven said. “We thought it was better not to take a chance.”

School opponents said that security is lax. They recently videotaped students walking to class without an escort. A resident also filmed a student talking to people in a stopped car before getting in his parent’s truck.

Officials said the security lapse would not be repeated. “We would like to work with the community, to try to make them feel more comfortable with our students,” Schoonhoven said. “We’re trying to be good neighbors.”

Students are aware of the neighborhood tensions. “People are driving by, giving us gang signs. It’s stupid,” said a 13-year-old named Jennifer. She had been getting into fights at her previous school and said she needed a different setting, with fewer students and more individual attention. “I like it. The teachers can help you more, and you can cope with your problems better.”

Gus, 13, said that local gang members had threatened him through the fence, but that he felt safe on campus. “I don’t like the neighborhood,” he said, “but I like the school.”