VIEW FROM HERE - Recently, we were all shocked and dismayed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s findings regarding the “willful disregard” of the safety and health of the child victims of Jerry Sandusky by the highest officials of Penn State University. Freeh reported that under the “Penn State Way” college football was protected to the extreme detriment of child victims of 14 years of sexual abuse at the hands of a suspected but un-convicted child molester.
One civil attorney commenting on the Freeh Report said the findings of “willful disregard” clears the way for Penn State to face punitive damage awards to the victims of Penn State’s reckless conduct. Can our local Los Angeles officials take any lessons here?
For several years, officials like LA Community College District Chancellor Daniel LaVista and LACCD Board President Steve Veres have been silent as a charter high school operated by former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire Eli Broad’s foundation have occupied the Van de Kamps Community College Campus alongside adults in workforce development programs funded by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Some of the workforce adult programs serve and are even specially tailored for ex offenders (include sex offenders).
Is it a good idea for 9-12 grade youngsters to intermix on the Van de Kamps campus with programs that also, in part, serve adult sex offenders? The Van de Kamps Coalition has emails of LACCD officials and Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools discussing this “proximity problem.”
We also know that regular schools such as LAUSD are prohibited by state rules to allow such proximity. But charter schools claim they are exempt from such “bureaucratic” rules. Ask yourself if at least some basic health and safety rules in the state Education Code should not also apply to charter schools – like those that say children should not be mixed with adult students.
As far as we know, the proximity issue was never resolved at Van de Kamps. (We saw no email describing its resolution and no one has challenged the legitimacy of our concerns as we have raised this issue publicly.) LACCD went ahead and leased one half of the Van de Kamps campus to Alliance Charter School and one half to the City of Los Angeles where officials knew some workforce grants would be used to serve ex offenders at the same campus.
If the issue was resolved, perhaps Chancellor LaVista could explain to an interested public in this forum how LACCD rationalized co-location of minors in a charter high school and ex offenders in workforce training programs.
We also wonder if the CEO of Richard Riordan and Eli Broad’s Alliance Charter School, Judy Burton, has fully disclosed to parents enrolling their children at this school that there remains a higher-than-usual risk that their children will encounter ex offenders in the common courtyard, the parking lot, the common sidewalks, the bus benches, or the adjacent Denny’s and Pollo Loco Restaurants that occupy land owned by LACCD?
Has there been any disclosure or discussion of this issue with the many Spanish-speaking parents who have entrusted their children’s safety to Ms. Burton and her Alliance Charter School Board of Directors? We found no such disclosures on the Alliance School’s website.
Does any written notice to parents disclose that their children attending this campus with mixed child and adult programming? Do parents fully understand some of the workforce classes that are offered in programs funded by Mayor Villaraigosa’s office may include clients learning how to expunge criminal records in order to increase job marketability? Do the parents understand that some of these clients are felony probationers, high-risk gang diversion program members, and ex offenders, including those previously convicted of sexual offenses?
We are very concerned that this rush to lease to tenants on the part of LACCD, Alliance and the Mayor is with “willful disregard” to the safety of innocent charter school children.
We are baffled at the seeming lack of concern of all these officials and organizations who are entrusted with the safety of young people. We know these entities and key individuals are aware of this hazard, from emails we read and from our own communication with them.
We can only assume the parents have been kept in the dark, as it would seem unlikely that a campus with this mixture of populations would be a top choice by any parent for their children to attend, no matter what the other advantages it might offer.
This would seem especially true now that a second Alliance High School has opened just blocks away at the Sotomayer High School – a school built with K-12 bond funds to serve minor children such as those now endangered at Van de Kamps.
We and the communities of Northeast LA support and value the workforce and second opportunity programs being funded by a massive infusion of funds from the Federal government. These programs are properly placed at more than 18 Worksource locations throughout the county including one a mile down San Fernando Road from Van de Kamps. None of those Worksource centers are immediately adjacent to, or in the same buildings where young ninth grade high school students are present.
There are some of these programs as part of the offerings at college campuses, but they do not make 50% or more of the campus (like at Van de Kamps). Community colleges are inherently institutions for adults, albeit young adults. High schools are not. Yet here at Van de Kamps we have a dangerous mix that may continue if LaVista and Veres let it happen.
We hope the parents and students become aware and demand answers about who thought up such a plan. If they read this they now know it was the Mayor, Alliance Charter Schools and LACCD officials who cooked this up. We hope that it will not take an injury to a student to shock everyone awake, like the Jerry Sandusky case did. That would be a tragedy, especially when we know this is a dangerous situation that can be fixed by Chancellor Daniel LaVista or new Board President Steve Veres.
And what are the taxpayer/voters of Northeast Los Angeles thinking as they write their check to the County Tax Collector? They already know that LACCD staff illegally used $7.1 million of community college bond funds to DESTROY CLASSROOMS at this site so that the Mayor’s program administrators could have their own private executive administrative office space in the historic Bakery Building.
Are they wondering if they will be writing huge checks for lawsuits if Alliance Charter students are harmed by their nearby fellow campus mates?
The Van de Kamps Coalition continues to issue a warning so that no one at LACCD, Alliance Charter School, or the Mayor’s Office can say they did not know. We are underfunded and up against powerful, well-funded and connected interests who, like the leaders of Penn State University, have chosen to protect their parochial interests over the safety of the Alliance Charter school children.
We have put this in public testimony, flyers and editorials because we have to rely on others in the community to amplify our message. If you agree, take action and call Chancellor LaVista at (213) 891-2044 or send an email to the Board of Trustees at [email protected]. Ask them to remember what happened at Penn State when high officials willfully disregarded the safekeeping of our children.
(Miki Jackson and Laura Gutierrez are members of the Van de Kamps Coalition and CityWatch contributors. Miki Jackson can be reached at [email protected]) –cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 62
Pub: Aug 3, 2012