A Gap in Child Safety : Protective ‘Corridor’ Plan Should Include Valley Students

San Fernando Valley parents who have been able to look beyond the conditions of their homes and places of work are probably thinking of only one aspect of education right now. Parents undoubtedly are most concerned about the conditions of their children’s schools after the Northridge quake and when they might reopen. More than two-thirds of the school buildings that sustained significant damage in the quake were located in the Valley, and they have been closed indefinitely.

In the coming weeks, however, when some semblance of normalcy and routine returns to the lives of Valley parents and their school-age children, parents will learn that they have been denied a chance of participating in a pilot program that seemed to be tailor-made for their needs.

Yes, high-ranking police officials, educators and politicians have announced the creation of so-called “safe passage corridors” in which police, community leaders and school officials identify and patrol school travel routes to help keep children safe. But the pilot plan for the Safe Corridors program will be launched at Dorsey High School in the LAPD’s southwest division and at Lennox Middle School. We do not suggest that the choices of Dorsey and Lennox were improper. We do strongly suggest that the addition of a third school--in the San Fernando Valley--would have been most appropriate.

Lest anyone forget, there is still a serial child molester on the loose in the Valley. His distinct method of operation has included attacks on school-bound children only during the hours before school.

This case was once considered serious enough to warrant the assignment of 150 officers, including several transferred from narcotics and auto theft assignments. Surely it warrants the Valley’s inclusion in any “safe passage corridors” pilot program.

This is particularly true now because the Valley suffered the brunt of the damage and disruption from the quake. Commute times for working Valley parents will be much longer for months and perhaps years to come. That and other quake-related disruptions only lessen the chances that parents will be able to safely see their children off to school, or get home in time to meet their children on the way back from classes.

The good news here is that police in the West Valley are pushing a program that has equal merit: so-called safe houses that are clearly marked as havens for schoolchildren who find themselves in sudden danger. It is an excellent idea that ought to be expanded to every school in the region, and not just to those in the West Valley.

Safe houses are modeled after an admirable program at Erwin Street Elementary School in Van Nuys. It was established by police and by parents in November, 1992. In it, trusted adults who have cleared a police criminal records check and who have two recommendations (preferably from neighbors) have a large, green triangle on a window of their homes and another on the curb of the street out in front. Those adults have agreed to remain at home from 7 to 9 a.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m.

That will be even more important now, with so many schools damaged by the quake and with the heightened possibility of widespread transfers and a return to year-round classes.

Leaving the Valley out of the Safe Corridors pilot program was a great and insensitive mistake, one that should be corrected soon.