Pillar 2: Safe, Small, and Clean
Personal safety is a precondition to learning. No student, no educator, no school staff and no parent should feel fearful of being in or around their schools. Students cannot learn if they are afraid, and we cannot expect teachers to perform to high standards if they are worried about their safety. We must leverage and align the initiatives from non-profit organizations, cities, school district and county to make our schools and surrounding neighborhoods safe. We also need to keep our schools clean by helping students feel more ownership over their schools and by improving maintenance and repairs.
Our large impersonal schools must become smaller and more welcoming! Every student should have the option to attend a small school offering a more personalized learning experience. Small schools create communities where teachers and principals develop personal relationships with students and families. Students are less likely to fall through the cracks. They receive more individual attention. Smaller communities, where everyone knows one another are also safer - as potential conflicts can be recognized earlier and can be addressed before they boil over. We should launch a deliberate effort to transform our lowest performing middle and high schools into groups of small schools. Additionally, we should redesign some middle and elementary schools to allow for the creation of pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade schools.
1. Implement a Comprehensive Anti-Gang Strategy
In coordination with local organizations and with the federal, state, county, municipal and school district officials, implement a sustainable, comprehensive anti-gang strategy aimed at preventing young people from joining gangs, helping recovering youth who are currently participating in gang activity, and coordinating suppression efforts to fight violent street gangs in neighborhoods and around school campuses. Communication must be orchestrated between the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASDP), local police departments and the Sheriff’s office, and local non-profits to work from common data (such as LAPD’s COMPSTAT system) and share resources and information in order to keep our students safe.
2. Expand Safe Havens and Safe Passages to All Schools
Traveling to and from school can be the most stressful part of a student’s day. We have to change this. The Safe Havens Network, launched in the City of Los Angeles in July 2006, is a promising start. This initiative provides more Safe Havens for students (such as libraries, recreational centers, fire and police stations) and is building a growing cadre of trained individuals to ensure that students may pass through neighborhoods safely on their way to and from school. We need to expand the Safe Haven program to other municipalities within LAUSD and their respective police and sheriffs departments. We also need to expand the Kid Watch programs (currently serving 54 LAUSD elementary schools); the Safe Passages component of the LA Bridges program (in 27 LAUSD middle schools); and other safety initiatives.
3. Increase the Number of Youth Mediation Programs in Schools
We need to increase the number of youth mediation programs within middle and high schools to teach our young people alternatives to violence. This will require collaboration between regional mediation programs and the school district. Last year, the City of Los Angeles and LAUSD convened mediation professionals from several social service organizations to train over 300 youth from 13 LAUSD middle and high schools in conflict resolution skills. Programs such as this, teaching students to resolve problems in a non-violent manner, can help reduce school violence and provide positive lifelong decision-making skills.
4. Clean Up Our Schools
Students must have clean environments in which to learn! Beyond bringing together district, municipal, county and community resources to keep both our schools and the areas around our schools clean, the school community and its neighbors can hold regular school clean-up days during each school year. Over 7,000 people came together to do just that in Watts just a few months ago in a successful day of service. Our efforts to clean our schools should be complemented by an effort to “green” our schools by planting more grass, trees, and bushes to make our schools more pleasant and healthy.
5. Complete Construction Program and Move All Students to a Traditional Calendar
Currently, LAUSD has the largest schools in the nation. With a mean school size of over 1,100 students, LA’s schools dwarf the national average.
Because the dramatic growth in LAUSD’s student population over the last several decades was not matched by a corresponding increase in the number of school seats, schools were moved to year-round calendars to address “multiple tracks” of students. Multi-track schools are typically found in the poorest areas of LAUSD which have the greatest academic and social needs. Some students in multi-track schools only receive 163 days of school compared to the standard 180 day school calendar. LAUSD has sought to address this inequity by embarking on a massive $19 billion school construction and renovation effort that is scheduled to move all students to a traditional calendar by 2012. We must complete the current construction program and build enough seats to ensure that all schools are put back on single track, and that no student gets his or her school year shortchanged because there are not enough seats.
6. Transform Chronically Underperforming Schools into Small Schools We must go further by transforming our large campuses into small schools. Small schools have their own unique leadership, academic focus, budget, schedule, culture, and uniforms. They feel different from one another, providing a place where every student is known by name and feels valued. The district’s construction bond oversight committee should undertake a comprehensive assessment of the district’s facilities to determine how, when and at what cost large campuses, particularly middle and high schools, can be reorganized to house groups of small schools. Sports teams and clubs from the large schools being transformed would survive any transformation as students in the new small schools sharing a campus could play on the same teams and could participate in the same extracurricular activities. It is critical that equity always be a key component of any school transformation strategy so that no tracking or biases are built into the new schools created.
7. Redesign Some Elementary and Middle Schools into K-8 Schools
As space permits, LAUSD should transform some of its struggling elementary and middle schools into K-8 schools. This configuration would permit a child to remain in the same setting from the age of five (or four in the case of pre-school) through thirteen. This K-8 school structure enables the continuous enrollment of students in a school setting and minimizes school transitions for students and families. It also provides greater opportunity for teacher looping, a practice where teachers teach the same group of students for more than one year. Additionally, a K-8 school offers unique opportunities for cross-age learning, peer tutoring and project-based instruction using the skills and talents of the older students to support and interact with the younger ones. Many of the families who abandon the public school system after elementary school will be more likely to stay if the schools are K-8. Philadelphia has had some success with K-8 schools which has led to higher levels of involvement from parents, better connections between the teachers and the school, and a greater sense on the part of students that the adults are supportive and caring.
Our large impersonal schools must become smaller and more welcoming! Every student should have the option to attend a small school offering a more personalized learning experience. Small schools create communities where teachers and principals develop personal relationships with students and families. Students are less likely to fall through the cracks. They receive more individual attention. Smaller communities, where everyone knows one another are also safer - as potential conflicts can be recognized earlier and can be addressed before they boil over. We should launch a deliberate effort to transform our lowest performing middle and high schools into groups of small schools. Additionally, we should redesign some middle and elementary schools to allow for the creation of pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade schools.
Safe, Small, and Clean Initiatives:
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1. Implement a Comprehensive Anti-Gang Strategy
In coordination with local organizations and with the federal, state, county, municipal and school district officials, implement a sustainable, comprehensive anti-gang strategy aimed at preventing young people from joining gangs, helping recovering youth who are currently participating in gang activity, and coordinating suppression efforts to fight violent street gangs in neighborhoods and around school campuses. Communication must be orchestrated between the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASDP), local police departments and the Sheriff’s office, and local non-profits to work from common data (such as LAPD’s COMPSTAT system) and share resources and information in order to keep our students safe.
2. Expand Safe Havens and Safe Passages to All Schools
Traveling to and from school can be the most stressful part of a student’s day. We have to change this. The Safe Havens Network, launched in the City of Los Angeles in July 2006, is a promising start. This initiative provides more Safe Havens for students (such as libraries, recreational centers, fire and police stations) and is building a growing cadre of trained individuals to ensure that students may pass through neighborhoods safely on their way to and from school. We need to expand the Safe Haven program to other municipalities within LAUSD and their respective police and sheriffs departments. We also need to expand the Kid Watch programs (currently serving 54 LAUSD elementary schools); the Safe Passages component of the LA Bridges program (in 27 LAUSD middle schools); and other safety initiatives.
3. Increase the Number of Youth Mediation Programs in Schools
We need to increase the number of youth mediation programs within middle and high schools to teach our young people alternatives to violence. This will require collaboration between regional mediation programs and the school district. Last year, the City of Los Angeles and LAUSD convened mediation professionals from several social service organizations to train over 300 youth from 13 LAUSD middle and high schools in conflict resolution skills. Programs such as this, teaching students to resolve problems in a non-violent manner, can help reduce school violence and provide positive lifelong decision-making skills.
4. Clean Up Our Schools
Students must have clean environments in which to learn! Beyond bringing together district, municipal, county and community resources to keep both our schools and the areas around our schools clean, the school community and its neighbors can hold regular school clean-up days during each school year. Over 7,000 people came together to do just that in Watts just a few months ago in a successful day of service. Our efforts to clean our schools should be complemented by an effort to “green” our schools by planting more grass, trees, and bushes to make our schools more pleasant and healthy.
5. Complete Construction Program and Move All Students to a Traditional Calendar
Currently, LAUSD has the largest schools in the nation. With a mean school size of over 1,100 students, LA’s schools dwarf the national average.
Because the dramatic growth in LAUSD’s student population over the last several decades was not matched by a corresponding increase in the number of school seats, schools were moved to year-round calendars to address “multiple tracks” of students. Multi-track schools are typically found in the poorest areas of LAUSD which have the greatest academic and social needs. Some students in multi-track schools only receive 163 days of school compared to the standard 180 day school calendar. LAUSD has sought to address this inequity by embarking on a massive $19 billion school construction and renovation effort that is scheduled to move all students to a traditional calendar by 2012. We must complete the current construction program and build enough seats to ensure that all schools are put back on single track, and that no student gets his or her school year shortchanged because there are not enough seats.
6. Transform Chronically Underperforming Schools into Small Schools We must go further by transforming our large campuses into small schools. Small schools have their own unique leadership, academic focus, budget, schedule, culture, and uniforms. They feel different from one another, providing a place where every student is known by name and feels valued. The district’s construction bond oversight committee should undertake a comprehensive assessment of the district’s facilities to determine how, when and at what cost large campuses, particularly middle and high schools, can be reorganized to house groups of small schools. Sports teams and clubs from the large schools being transformed would survive any transformation as students in the new small schools sharing a campus could play on the same teams and could participate in the same extracurricular activities. It is critical that equity always be a key component of any school transformation strategy so that no tracking or biases are built into the new schools created.
7. Redesign Some Elementary and Middle Schools into K-8 Schools
As space permits, LAUSD should transform some of its struggling elementary and middle schools into K-8 schools. This configuration would permit a child to remain in the same setting from the age of five (or four in the case of pre-school) through thirteen. This K-8 school structure enables the continuous enrollment of students in a school setting and minimizes school transitions for students and families. It also provides greater opportunity for teacher looping, a practice where teachers teach the same group of students for more than one year. Additionally, a K-8 school offers unique opportunities for cross-age learning, peer tutoring and project-based instruction using the skills and talents of the older students to support and interact with the younger ones. Many of the families who abandon the public school system after elementary school will be more likely to stay if the schools are K-8. Philadelphia has had some success with K-8 schools which has led to higher levels of involvement from parents, better connections between the teachers and the school, and a greater sense on the part of students that the adults are supportive and caring.
