Parents Will Watch Instead of Worry

Long before the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and the Jewish community center in Granada Hills, Irma Madrigal worried about her five children returning from school safely.

In Madrigal’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, gang shootings are all too common and residents fear that a routine walk to school can turn into a perilous journey.

With that in mind, Madrigal and about 50 other parents of students at Sheridan Street Elementary School signed up Wednesday as volunteers for Kid Watch L.A., a program aimed at protecting children as they walk to and from school.

“We live in an area that is dangerous and as parents we feel it’s a great opportunity to get together and protect our kids,” Madrigal said after filling out a volunteer application.

Kid Watch began in 1996 at five schools near USC. City Atty. James K. Hahn launched a campaign Wednesday to expand the program citywide, starting with Sheridan Street in Boyle Heights and Braddock and Stoner Avenue elementary schools in Mar Vista on the Westside.

The program’s concept is simple: Volunteers agree to watch from their front porches and lawns each school day as children go to and from school. If they see anything suspicious, the volunteers call police.

Next month, Hahn said his office plans to organize Kid Watch programs at two schools in North Hills. The expansion will continue as funding for staff becomes available, he said.

On Wednesday, Hahn made his pitch to parents in English and Spanish and showed them the T-shirts that each volunteer gets. Sheridan Street, in the heart of heavily Latino Boyle Heights, has an enrollment of about 1,600.

“We are confident that Kid Watch L.A. will have a dramatic effect on crimes against children,” he told about 60 parents. Nearly every parent in the room filled out a volunteer application.

Volunteers are screened for past criminal offenses, particularly crimes against children. But Kid Watch organizers assured the parents at Sheridan Street Elementary that their names would not be turned over to immigration officials if they lack immigration papers.

The volunteers at Sheridan said they primarily were motivated by one reason: The area is gang turf. So far this year, there have been more than 300 gang-related crimes and 26 homicides in the area, up from 23 homicides for the same period last year, according to police.

The two Mar Vista schools are in neighborhoods caught in the middle of a bloody gang war over drug sales, Hahn said.

“The key to neighborhood recovery is organizing the community,” Hahn said.

Hahn and other program supporters say that Kid Watch has been a great success at the five schools near USC, and they contend that it has contributed to a dramatic drop in crime against children in those areas.

“Crime is down in the area for the simple reason that people are watching out for the kids,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Raymond Marquez, who patrols there. “It has been working very well.”

According to a survey conducted by USC’s School of Social Work, 99% of Kid Watch volunteers felt the program has made students feel safer.

Kid Watch was created by USC, the LAPD and the Los Angeles Unified School District and began with about 35 volunteers. Today it has more than 500 volunteers, a computerized database, training programs and a newsletter.

The program is an offshoot of the citywide Safe Houses program, which provides homes and businesses, marked by special decals in windows, as refuges for students.