A Bill of Rights

As his classmates cheered, an Eastside second-grader who found a $100 bill and then turned it in was praised for his honesty Monday--and awarded the cash.

Nobody claimed the crisp $100 bill that Alberto Arredondo spied lying outside the gate of Albion Street Elementary School in Lincoln Heights on March 1. So it’s his.

“I’m going to save it,” said the beaming 7-year-old, who is missing his two front teeth.

Alberto was walking to school when he found the money on the sidewalk. He said he briefly considered stuffing it in his pocket: “My friends said keep it.”

But he decided to turn it in to teacher Melanie Pruitt.

Word quickly spread about Alberto’s find after Pruitt turned the money over to Principal Julie Gallonio. Within days, five people from the working-class neighborhood around the school called to claim the cash, Gallonio said.

She decided to take the $100 bill out of the school’s lost-and-found and turn it over to school police.

“I didn’t want to make the decision as to who should get it,” Gallonio said. “Even if you don’t live around here, $100 is a lot of money.”

Authorities said that none of those seeking to claim the cash could accurately describe where they had lost it. After holding on to the money for the three months that the law requires, officials decided to return it to Alberto, said school police Officer Louis Smith.

It was Smith who organized Monday’s ceremony. He presented Alberto a proclamation signed by Los Angeles school board members saluting his “honesty, integrity and good citizenship.”

“Knowing you have these qualities is usually enough of a reward,” Smith told the boy as pupils lined up on the school playground watched.

But getting the cash returned to you makes it even sweeter, suggested Smith.

“Most people would probably have bought everybody lunch or something. But Alberto did the right thing,” he said.

The boy’s parents said they were proud of his actions.

Josefina Arredondo said she hugged her son and assured him he did the right thing when he came home from school and described how he found the money as he walked along, looking at the ground.

“I’m glad he acted correctly,” said the boy’s father, Alberto Arredondo Sr., a jewelry polisher.

On the playground, classmates had plenty of ideas of how their friend should spend the money.

“He should give it to people who need food,” said Crystal Pickens, 8.

“Yeah, he should give it to poor people,” agreed Melody Salvatore, also 8.

From the edge of the crowd came another suggestion.

“He should go to Raging Waters,” chimed in 8-year-old Jonathan Martinez.