Student Rewarded for Peace Efforts at Troubled School

The hand-painted posters that hang high along some hallways of L.A. Unified’s newest high school offer hopeful messages: “We Want Peace/Let Us Unite,” “1 Love/Peace Between the 2/Black and Brown Pride.”

The brainchild of ninth-grader Gabriela Olguin, the signs are part of an ongoing student-led movement to ease racial tension at South L.A. Area High School No. 1, which since opening in July has become known as one of the most dangerous campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Among the more notable incidents, lunchtime melees in December resulted in 34 arrests and sent 10 students to the hospital.

Gabriela, known as Gaby, has been working with others in her leadership class since early in the school year to reduce violence at her school. One brainstorming session led to November’s Peace and Unity Week, a series of student-run activities for which Gaby on Wednesday received the 2006 Princeton Prize in Race Relations, an award for high school students who increase racial understanding and respect.

In designing Peace and Unity Week, Gaby and her classmates wanted fellow students to avoid stirring up trouble and instead come together through poetry readings, hip-hop and folkloric dance performances, peace rallies and an anti-violence symposium.

“We would be doing activities during lunch ....So that would attract students into those activities instead of causing trouble,” she said.

The lunchtime pep rallies brought students together at a time when divisiveness roiled the 2,900-member student body.

Gaby’s contributions and leadership in planning and running Peace and Unity Week persuaded social sciences teacher Jose Lara to nominate her for the award. The prize, sponsored by Princeton University’s Alumni Council, was available to students in 10 metropolitan cities. Gaby is the first student in Los Angeles to win the award.

“It’s very telling that the winner would be from a high school that has reported a lot of disturbances just in its infancy,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, a Princeton alumnus and trustee who presented the award to Gaby at the high school.

The school, in one of the toughest areas of the city, was created to relieve crowding on neighboring campuses, including troubled Jefferson High.

At first blush, Gaby didn’t appear to be an outspoken campus activist. The soft-spoken, calm 14-year-old surprised her friends and teachers when she became a student leader. Now she is talking about running for student council.

At school, Gaby initiated “speak-outs” during Peace and Unity Week to provoke student discussions about the problems at the school. Working in pairs, leadership students visited six classrooms and discussed the lockdowns that had plagued the school since its summer opening.

The leadership students said that at first, some fellow students seemed indifferent to discussing their thoughts about fights erupting on campus. But once Peace Week organizers opened up about how racial tensions had personally affected them, their peers began lively conversations about what they believed was causing the violence.

Co-principal Vince Carbino said he hoped Gaby’s winning of the Princeton Prize would help defeat stereotypes about the kinds of young people who attend the school.

Gaby got more than recognition: She also received $1,000 in prize money. She said she would use it to help her mother, whose 1994 Ford Tempo is in desperate need of repairs.

Meanwhile, Gaby, a freshman starter on the sophomore basketball team, said she was going to work on her free throws to improve her game. As with Peace and Unity Week, she realizes that success comes from dedication and collaboration.

“No matter if you get mad at your teammates,” she said, “you’ve got to keep on playing.”