Courthouse to Schoolhouse

Steven Perren’s lecture at Frank Intermediate School had been over for an hour, but 10 students remained in class, milling around the Ventura County Superior Court judge and peppering him with inquiries.

“Do you honestly feel justice was served during every one of your cases?”

“How do you get kids out of a gang?”

“Is there ever a middleman between the judge and the jury?”

The fountain of questions kept spilling forth. But that is, after all, what Perren is there for.

The former juvenile court judge is one of a number of court workers participating in “Taking the Courthouse to the School.” The program, started in the spring by Ventura County court officials, seeks to educate students about the justice system through a number of methods: classroom lectures, courtroom visits, brief mock trials, web pages on the court system, forums and debates.

“Often schools may teach matters such as the Constitution, but they don’t get behind the scene or tell the students what happened in the courtroom or why,” said Margie Borjon-Miller, the Ventura court’s deputy executive, charged with overseeing the program.

So far, court officials have been working with a handful of campuses--Mound School in Ventura and Adolpho Camarillo High School and Frank Intermediate School in Oxnard--but they plan to expand the program to other campuses once the fall semester begins.

Activities include allowing high school students to shadow a judge or other court workers for portions of trials. At the elementary schools, youngsters may debate cases such as “101 Dalmatians vs. Cruella DeVil” or “The People vs. Darth ‘E’-Vader.”

In addition, the court will provide teachers with a one-day session on how the justice system works.

“We’re not going to make them lawyers in one day, but we want them to better understand the legal system to discuss current events with the kids,” Borjon-Miller said.

Perren said his goal is to make the justice system less abstract for students.

“When I say justice, it doesn’t mean anything if I just say it. You have to put a face to it, a person,” Perren told the group of Frank eighth-graders. “[Justice] is an individual standing in court asking you to do the right things.”