SIMI VALLEY : School Program Steers Students Onto Right Path

At the tender age of 12, Alana Romero started getting in trouble.

As a sixth-grader, the Simi Valley girl started drinking and running with the wrong crowd.

“I really wanted to turn around and go down the right path,” she said Tuesday, explaining how a new summer school program at Hillside Junior High School has helped her with that journey.

“Here we talk and share our feelings,” she said.

“That’s what makes it neat--(the teachers) care.”

Alana is one of about 30 youngsters enrolled in a two-week program called Project SAFE--Safe Alternatives For Empowerment--being offered by the Simi Valley Police Department and the Simi Valley Unified School District.

The fledgling program is designed to teach junior high school-age youths how to avoid drugs, campus violence, sexual harassment and gangs while building the students’ self-esteem.

“We’re trying to teach them that they have choices and that those choices have consequences,” said Jane Troy, one of two teachers running the program.

Many of the youths enrolled in Project SAFE are like Alana: good students who are struggling against preteen pressures such as drugs, gangs and violence.

“That is the time when the pressure and the choices are the most difficult,” said Shirley Blough, the other instructor for Project SAFE.

And the students agree.

“After I graduated from sixth grade I felt really nervous about seventh grade,” said 12-year-old Jennifer Vermilyea.

But after spending a week talking with other anxious 12-year-olds about their worries, Jennifer said: “I feel better.”

The new program offers three two-week sessions in June and July at no cost to students.

In addition to daily four-hour classes, the youngsters take two field trips: one to the California Youth Authority and one to the Simi Valley Courthouse, which the group visited Tuesday.

Project SAFE was formed, in part, because of a growing concern in Simi Valley about campus violence after the fatal stabbing of a junior high school student earlier this year.

But Troy said the incident has not entered into classroom discussions.

“What we’re here for is not to dwell,” she said.

“I think what we are doing here is saying, ‘Let’s prevent it from happening.’ ”