Rewards for Tattlers Questioned by Panel

Two Los Angeles school board members expressed reservations Thursday about a plan to reward students who turn in classmates for carrying weapons or drugs, or vandalizing campuses, saying they need more information and feedback on the crime-tip hot line proposal before taking action.

At a school safety committee meeting, board members Barbara Boudreaux and Julie Korenstein said they are uneasy about the plan to reward students for tattling on campus rule breakers and want to find out how other anonymous reward hot lines work.

The proposal was sent to the board’s student affairs committee and a districtwide school safety group for further input. The hot line would not be started until it receives approval from the seven-member Board of Education.

The proposal was initiated last October by the San Fernando Valley chapter of Safari Club International, a nonprofit group of sport hunters, which has pledged $15,000 to the school district over the next year. School district police, who back the idea, developed the plan to give students up to $75 in gift certificates and merchandise for information leading to student arrests.

Korenstein said she feels uncomfortable with a hunting group underwriting the plan and questioned whether such a hot line could be successful because of students’ fear of retaliation.

“On paper, it might sound very good . . . but it makes me nervous,” Korenstein said. “I’m not sure this is the end-all and will take care of the problem of weapons on campus.”

Bill Gillespie, program chairman for the Safari Club’s Valley chapter, told the board panel he believes the program could be a successful model for school districts around the country.

“I think the issue should be: not who we are but how we are willing to help the school district resolve these issues on campus,” he said.

Under the proposal, students would be given gifts such as concert tickets, clothing and compact discs for anonymously providing authorities with campus crime information. To protect hot line callers, students would be identified by a case number, not by name.

Boudreaux said she thinks the proposal should be modified to eliminate student rewards in favor of donations to individual schools. She said students all too often brag about new clothes or shoes, increasing the chance that they could be singled out for snitching.

Further, she said, students should be taught to report crimes without reward incentives. “I think . . . our students shouldn’t be taught to receive a reward for doing the right thing,” Boudreaux said.

Board member Victoria Castro, who chairs the safety committee, said she generally supports the hot line idea because students have valuable information but need an incentive to disclose it.

School district police Lt. Walter Nelson, who developed the hot line proposal, said he believes more weapons could be recovered and other crimes stemmed if students are given a reward.

“What we’re doing is basically encouraging kids to help make their campuses more secure,” Nelson said.

Michael Romo, a teacher at Norwood Street Elementary School near Downtown and chairman of the teachers union violence prevention and school safety committee, spoke against the proposal. “I think a more effective way of getting these weapons out of our communities is by instituting strict and enforceable gun control laws,” he said.

The school district currently has an anonymous crime-tip hot line, 1-800-954-HELP, but calls have dwindled to 21 in the last six months.