CV open lunch policy on agenda

Glendale Unified officials are slated to take another look at Crescenta Valley High School’s lunch policy, two months after announcing that they would consider closing the district’s sole open campus.

Deputy Supt. John Garcia is scheduled to present data to the school board tonight on absences and tardies this school year during fifth period, which immediately follows the midday break, said district spokesman Steve Frasher.

“The information that will be presented is the update as promised at the early presentations to enable the board to consider what it wants to do,” Frasher said.

Officials will also sketch out an approximate timeline for further community discussions, he added.

“There will be some kind of open forum community meeting at CV High School sometime in December, so that will happen,” Frasher said. “But the date hasn’t been finalized yet.”

During the 2010-11 school year, unverified absences during fifth period far outstripped those from periods one through four. Garcia has said previously this indicates some students are simply choosing not to return to campus after lunch.

The La Crescenta campus is the only Glendale Unified school that allows students to leave at lunch. Hoover and Glendale high schools closed their campuses in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and Clark Magnet High School has never had an open lunch.

Crescenta Valley High School also has the highest drug-related expulsion rate – 41 during the last five years, Garcia said.

Several neighboring districts allow students leave campus. La Cañada High School has open lunch, while at Burbank and Burroughs high schools open lunch is limited to upperclassmen.

The debate surrounding the policy has touched a nerve in a community bothproud of its high-performing school, but also conscious of drug use by some students.

At a Crescenta Valley Town Council on Sept. 22, community members appeared split on the issue, with some arguing that any change would punish the entire student body for the bad deeds of a few, while others criticized district officials for not acting more quickly to close the campus.

Some stakeholders also noted that closing the campus could hurt La Crescenta businesses heavily dependent on the patronage of students. This, however, was belied by the experiences of some local merchants.

Nick Patel, manager of a Walgreens on Foothill Boulevard near Ramsdell Avenue, said he would like to see the open lunch policy continue, if only for the upperclassman. But students make up no more than 4% of his daily business, he added.

“If they do close it, day to day I don’t think it will make too much of a difference [to my sales],” Patel said.

Evelyn Hernandez, assistant manager at the Mexican food chain Baja Fresh at Foothill Boulevard and Rosemont Avenue, said that closing the campus would have a negligible impact on her sales.

“We don’t have a lot of students coming here at lunch time,” Hernandez said.

While no vote on the issue has been scheduled, some school board members have already expressed support for eliminating the open lunch policy.

“We are on the school board, and these kids are our responsibility,” board member Mary Boger said during a Sept. 13 discussion. “I think they would be safer at school.”