4 teams out of 12 nationally: FOUR LAUSD/BEYOND THE BELL CYBERPATRIOT TEAMS ADVANCE TO NATIONAL FINALS!!!

from the Beyond the Bell LA(USD) blog | http://bit.ly/WnvvCR

 

1/25/2013  ::  This is the third year in a row that LAUSD high schools sponsored by Beyond the Bell will have teams competing in the national championship round of CyberPatriot V. The National High School Cyber Defense Competition will be held from March 14-16 in the Washington, DC. Created in 2008 by the Air Force Association and nationally sponsored by Northrop Grumman, CyberPatriot is a unique competition geared toward teenagers that replicates real life cyber security situations faced by computer administrators. The competition provides students hands-on learning about cyber security while exciting, educating, and motivating them to be the nation’s next cyber defenders. Through three rounds of competition against 3,000 teams from high schools in all 50 states, the teams from Roybal Learning Complex, Franklin High School and two teams from North Hollywood High School are among the 12 teams nationwide to advance to the national finals.

“I have always known that LAUSD students are capable of competing amongst the best and brightest students in the nation,” Board President García said. “This competition has given our students the opportunity to present solutions to real world cyber security threats. I would like to congratulate all of the teams that participated and especially the four that will represent the LAUSD!”

“North Hollywood High School’s Cyber Patriots are an extremely talented group of students who have already proven their might by fielding two out of all twelve teams invited to the final round. Win or lose at the finals, these students have done all of LAUSD proud and we wish them the best of luck in Washington, DC.” –Board Member Tamar Galatzan

“I am very proud of our LAUSD Cyber Patriots and of Franklin High School for fielding such distinguished teams three years in a row.  My best to them as they head to Washington, DC for the final showdown.” Board Member Bennett Kayser

The Beyond the Bell teams could not be more different. In the male dominated world of cyber security, the Beyond the Bell teams have 6 girls advancing to nationals. And with plentiful job opportunities in the world of cyber security, the fun they are having now could well lead to lucrative careers in the near future.

• FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES CONTACT:  jose.diraimondo@lausd.net 

North Hollywood High's Cyber Patriot team heads to national finals

LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/10YpS2C

1/25/2013 04:15:39 PM PST  ::  North Hollywood High School is one of three Los Angeles Unified campuses that will send teams to the National High School Cyber Defense Competition in Washington, D.C. in March.

Teams from Roybal Learning Complex and Franklin High School also qualified.

This is the third year in a row LAUSD schools will compete in the national championship round of CyberPatriot V, which was created by the Air Force Association and sponsored by Northrop Grumman.

CyberPatriot is a hands-on competition that replicates real life cyber-security situations faced by computer administrators.

"North Hollywood High School's Cyber Patriots are an extremely talented group of students who have already proven their might by fielding two out of all twelve teams invited to the final round," LAUSD Board Member Tamar Galatzan said. "Win or lose at the finals, these students have done all of LAUSD proud and we wish them the best of luck in Washington, D.C."

 

CyberPatriot Cyber Defense Competition

from the Franklin HS website | http://bit.ly/Usz3mJ

Good Luck to Team Unbreakable in their first round of the CyberPatriot Cyber Defense Competition!

Our Panther Cyber Security Team will be competing against over 1200 other high school teams through out the United States on Saturday, November 17th. We are confident that Franklin HS will be represented in the Finals for an unprecedented third year in a row!

TEAM UNBREAKABLE:

• AGUILAR ELIZABETH 12
• AVELAR JAQUELINE 12
• CAO JASMINE 12
• DELA CRUZ ALVIR 12
• FIGUEROA ALFONSO 11
• HERNANDEZ PATRICIA 12
• HERNANDEZ VICTORIA 10
• HUANG JENNY 11
• MEJIA MARIO 10
• MENDEZ CHRISTIAN 10
• MOLINA RAFAEL 11
• PANGILINAN NATHAN 9
• RODRIGUEZ GABRIEL 11
• SANCHEZ BRYAN 11
• SANCHEZ PAUL 9
• TALAVERA JASMINE 10
• WONG WILLIAM 12
• Coaches: Dante Mabin and Ms. Yenny Yi

Thank you!

Yenny Yi

Site Director, UCLA AfterSchool @ Franklin High School

UCLA Community Based Learning-OID

yenny@oid.ucla.edu

323-550-2075 Franklin office

310-206-5130 UCLA office

LAUSD PLANS TO ADD 1,000 NEW CAMPUS AIDES FOR SECURITY AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

By Mariecar Mendoza, Staff Writer, LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/WayNZK

1/25/2013 09:02:39 PM PST  ::  The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to make more than 1,000 new hires to bolster security at hundreds of campuses in a move some critics have called "security on the cheap."

More than 400 LAUSD elementary school campuses are slated to receive 1,087 campus aides - a minimum of two on each campus - as early as March 1, LAUSD school board president Monica Garcia told the Daily News on Friday.

The $4.2 million plan comes a month after the Dec. 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. that killed 20 first-graders and six adults.

"Another two people on each campus can help us maintain a safe environment that can ease the minds of our employees, parents and students," Garcia said. "This way we can focus on reading and writing, teaching and learning."

But Scott Folsom, a Mount Washington Elementary School Parent Teacher Association member and state PTA board member, said it's "all smoke and mirrors."

"What they're doing is security on the cheap," he said. "I fear that we will end up having a person with a roll of yellow stickers and a sign-up sheet."

The campus aides will be unarmed but equipped with two-way radios and vests "for high visibility," according to a memo dated Jan. 23 from Senior Deputy Superintendent Michelle King.

Required safety training for these aides will be conducted online and will cover child abuse awareness training; employee duties during an emergency; mediating student conflicts; responding to threats on campus; how to conduct metal detector searches; and what to do if there is a school lockdown, according to the memo.

The aides will work three-hour shifts.

"It shows to me, as far as I'm concerned, a lack of commitment to the challenge at hand. I'm very much aware what happened in Connecticut and a person like that can't do anything to prevent what happened there," Folsom said of the campus aides.

"If we are really concerned about security on campus, which I think we should be, we should at least have trained uniformed, full-time people. They don't have to be armed policemen, but they need to be real security guards."

There are already 1,028 campus aides at middle and high schools but the plan is to create the extra campus aide positions for the elementary school campuses without aides.

School officials plan to fill many of those positions with former LAUSD employees who have been laid off.

"We are reaching out to over 1,000 separated employees to possibly reinstate them to fill many of these positions," the memo stated.

It is uncertain how long the program will run.

"Safety is a priority every single day and I'm so glad that the superintendent has figured out this small but significant strategy," Garcia said.

The campus aides will supplement the dozens of LAPD officers who have been patrolling K-8 school campuses district-wide since Jan. 7.

Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who recently visited Main Street Elementary School downtown Thursday, said the department plans to continue its patrols for the foreseeable future regardless of the added campus aides.

"We watch kids eating lunch, walk kids to class and talk to them every day," Smith said.

"It's good for our cops to get to know these kids and we think it's great to have the kids feel comfortable with our cops," he said.

"We're really glad that, for the first time in a very long time, that we are able to address a need and not have to shut another program somewhere else down," Garcia said.

While the campus aides won't add teachers cut by the district's budget woes, Garcia said school officials agree that extra security has been a high priority and may be a sign of more positive additions for LAUSD.

"This is the beginning of an increase in staff," she said. "We know we have more to do in terms of restoration (of school programs and staff), but we're optimistic this is the step in the right direction."

Folsom isn't convinced.

"This is just filling in squares in a spreadsheet," he said, "to make it look like there's more security."

LAUSD memo regarding campus aides to boost security within the district

 

 smf: Haven't I said enough already?

First, my opinions are my own and don’t necessarily reflect those of the PTA.

Second:  ● Who told the Daily News (and sent the FAX) about this wonderful new program? Not the LAUSD Office of Communications – the folks who normally deal with the press. Not the superintendent or School Operations or the School Police.

• Who is running for reelection, with the primary on March 5th - just 38 days away?
• Who has just created 1,028 jobs that begin on or before March 1st - (albeit part time job without benefits), covered by the SEIU contract?
• Who has been endorsed by SEIU?

Westside Forum - THE A v. Z DEBATE: CHARTERS, EVALUATION, DEASY

by Hillel Aron in LA School Report News | http://bit.ly/Y50oLr

Left to right: Kate Anderson, Steve Zimmer, moderator Kaci Patterson

January 25, 2013  ::  There were roughly 100 audience members at Thursday night’s School Board candidate forum in District 4, which featured incumbent Steve Zimmer and challenger Kate Anderson.

Over all, the event was polite and informative, showing off both candidates’ strengths — and their stylistic and substantive differences, as well as their support for Superintendent John Deasy.

Anderson, with her twin daughters sitting in the back row, made the case that as a mother she would bring an important perspective to the Board. She criticized Zimmer for his proposals on teacher evaluations and charter schools, lashed out at teachers union UTLA — twice — and pointed out that the union has attacked Deasy and endorsed Zimmer.

Zimmer demonstrated how passionate he is — articulating his thoughts more clearly and completely than he often does at School Board meetings — and defending his proposals and his record. He claimed that many of his ideas were misunderstood, and described himself as an independent voice on a fractured School Board who is often supportive of Deasy. 

TEACHER EVALUATIONS

When asked about the new teacher evaluation agreement that was recently ratified by UTLA, Anderson called it “a huge step forward” but added that some of the measures of student outcome that will be used like raw California Standardized Test scores are “too mushy to be effective,” She also wondered what school-wide Academic Growth Over Time (AGT) numbers had to do with judging individual teachers.

Zimmer

Zimmer defended the new deal, reminding audience members how difficult it was to find common ground and arguing that the next step would be to use the evaluations to train teachers and help them improve. As to school-wide AGT, he said, “Teaching is a team sport.”

Last year, Zimmer proposed a resolution rejecting the use of individual AGT scores as a sole measure of pupil progress. At tonight’s debate, Anderson recalled a conversation she had with Zimmer back then, and said that hearing Zimmer defend his proposal was when she decided she wanted to run for School Board.

“It’s interesting that a huge misunderstanding can create a huge school board race,” replied Zimmer. The audience laughed. This has been a common refrain from Zimmer – that his proposals have been misconstrued.

Anderson stressed teacher quality throughout the forum, and said she opposed seniority-based firing (when newer teachers are let go first, regardless of how well they perform.

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Audience at District 4 forum, via United Way

The candidates agreed on a number of things. Both highlighted their support for funding early education, called for more funding for schools and lauded Governor Jerry Brown for his recent proposal to change the way school money is divvied up within the state (see: California Governor wants to shift funding to schools with poorer students). Both agreed that the district needs to do a better job of incorporating the innovations of charter schools into district schools.

But the topic of charter schools reviewed two different emphases.

“This is a topic that creates a lot of controversy, but it shouldn’t,” Zimmer said. “This Board of education has approved more charters than any school in the nation, and I’m proud if that.” But, he added, “We don’t have a strategic plan… ensuring access and quality.”

Zimmer cited recent battles over co-location, when charter schools and district schools share a campus, often giving rise to conflict, as a reason for the need for a strategy.

Anderson agreed that the district needs a strategy, but criticized Zimmer’s initial proposal to temporarily halt all new charter schools. She added that her experience on Mar Vista Neighborhood Council would help her to be a mediator in co-location battles.

SUPPORT FOR DEASY

Anderson speaks, Zimmer listens (via @studentsmatter)

Twice Anderson hit out at UTLA — first for its opposition to State Senator Alex Padilla’s bill, SB 1530, which would make it easier to fire teachers suspected of harming students, and second for its battles against Superintendent John Deasy.

“UTLA leaders are talking about how they wanted to win three seats so they can get rid of this man,” said Anderson, referring to Deasy and reminding the audience that the union has endorsed Zimmer.

“I’ve been an independent voice on this board,” responded Zimmer. “No matter who endorses or doesn’t endorse me, I’ve put children first… That’s one if the reasons we’re in this fight right now, because there’s not a lot of tolerance for independent voices on the School Board.”

“There’s a great fiction out there that I don’t support Dr.John Deasy, when time and time again I’ve been the deciding vote,” said Zimmer.

“The Superintendent does not get the support from the current Board that he deserves,” said Anderson.

A view of the audience towards the forum’s conclusion, via @studentsmatter

NEXT WEEK

The Westside forum was sponsored by United Way of Greater Los Angeles, along with more than 10 other non-profits including the Urban League and the Chamber of Commerce. The same coalition is sponsoring next week’s District 6 forum on January 31 at the Boys and Girls Club of San Fernando Valley (see flyer here).

Jeneen Robinson, who’s registered as a write-in candidate after failing to qualify for the ballot, was not invited to the forum and was none too pleased, issuing an angry press release on Tuesday (read it here).

smf:  4LAKids was at the debate also and, for the most part, Hillel and the LA School Report has it right. For the most part the sponsors of the debate (and the editor of LA School Report) are aligned with Charter Schools and the forces of ®eform, Inc. (of the list of sponsors only Educate Our State jumps off the page as not having endorsed the Charter/®eform/Deasy/Garcia/Villaraigosa Agenda) …but the appeaance of fairness was kept up pretty well. And the cookies were good. The moderator,  Kaci Patterson was from Families in Schools. Connect the dots: FIS founder Maria Casillas is Monica Garcia’s BBF and Deasy’s inadequate+ineffectual+controversial solution to his “parent problem”. Casillas’ tenure should have been a question in the debate. It wasn’t.

While both candidates are in thrall with Governor Brown’s Weighted Student Formula they both need to understand that there are 1,100 school districts in California and only one of them is LAUSD.

What Hillel doesn’t describe is Ms. Anderson’s rather misbegotten belief that her election would trigger an immediate change in the Ed Code over teacher dismissals and public school finance – or  that she will be welcome in LAUSD’s books as some sort of auditor/inspector general. Board members set policy, approve budgets and hire+fire superintendents - they don’t do micro-managing and forensic accounting. And I don’t think the man Anderson describes as “the best superintendent in memory” will really welcome her “sharp pencil” in his spreadsheets. Having been on on Henry Waxman’s staff doesn’t make her Henry Waxman …and Waxman himself has done little  to fully fund IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and the service imbalance that Kate’s going to fix with a visit to DC.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

By Pia Escudero in the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Jan 28 Weekly Update | http://bit.ly/WWR4Ii

AALA thanks Pia Escudero, Director of School Mental Health (SMH), for submitting the following letter in response to our recommended New Year’s Resolutions for District leadership.

Jan 24, 2013 :: It was with great inspiration and hope that I read about AALA’s call for identifying and allocating the resources necessary to provide adequate mental health services and support for students and their families. I write on behalf of over 300 SMH professionals who are dedicated to promoting the mental health, well-being and academic achievement of all LAUSD students. In light of recent national and local events of school violence, we recognize the sense of urgency to promote a unified and collaborative approach and response to ensuring the safety of all our students and staff. LAUSD SMH continues to be nationally recognized for its crisis intervention and mental health programs.

Over the last two decades, SMH has paved the way in prevention and intervention practices for preparation and response to school violence and providing trauma-informed services. For example, since 2005, SMH has been funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) to implement the Trauma Services Adaptation Center for Resiliency, Hope and Wellness in Schools, in partnership with RAND, UCLA and USC. Our administrators and staff, guided by nationally recognized researchers and academicians, have developed evidence-based practices, tools, and resources for LAUSD students, families, and staff. These coveted tools and practices have been disseminated and adopted by other states and school districts, such as New Orleans, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

LAUSD SMH Crisis Counseling & Intervention Services has worked collaboratively with multidisciplinary administrative teams to develop and implement policies and protocols as they relate to risk assessment and management, including threats, suicidal ideation and workplace violence incidents. Furthermore, our internal and external partnerships with School Operations, Los Angeles School Police, General Counsel, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Los Angeles Police Department and other local law enforcement and community-based agencies have paved the way to addressing and mitigating critical events and violence in our school communities. Recently, we have launched several updates to LAUSD policies that promote a safe learning and work environment for all:

• BUL-5799.0 Threat Assessment and Management

• BUL-5798.0 Workplace Violence, Bullying and Threats Prevention

• BUL-2637.1 Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Postvention

SMH is committed to ensuring the academic achievement of all students. As a unit, we are devoted to improvements at both the policy level and in the classroom. Recent research demonstrates that when students are exposed to traumatic or stressful events, it impacts brain functioning, which leads them to “fall behind in school or fail to develop healthy relationships with peers or create problems with teachers and principals because they are unable to trust adults.” ¹ SMH professionals support positive student connections with peers, family, school and community by facilitating their ability to successfully deal with problems, crises and traumatic experiences. We foster resiliency (the ability to bounce back from challenges with confidence and coping capacity) by promoting healthy relationships, self-reflection and problem-solving skills. We are invested in creating trauma-informed schools across LAUSD.

Currently, the District leads the nation with the greatest number of trained school mental health clinicians in nationally-recognized, trauma-informed and evidence-based practices to improve clinical mental health symptoms so students may engage in learning. Nevertheless, in comparison to our student population and number of employees, SMH is extremely small. Our ratio per student is approximately 1:2,200, in comparison to the National standard, established by NASW, 1:250. The reality is that the need for students and families to have access to mental health services is significant. Last year alone, SMH lost funding for over 40 FTE Psychiatric Social Workers (PSW) positions as a result of reductions in school and program discretionary dollars. School and program administrators have had to face the difficult decision of selecting between mental health or other support services on their campus. This year, one school in particular lost the PSW position they had kept as part of their staff for over 20 years.

Thank you for your appeal to increase our opportunity to better serve our students and school community.

Your acknowledgment is two-fold: (1) It helps to reduce the stigma associated with accessing mental health services; (2) It highlights the need to fund mental health services in our schools. As we move forward as a District, ensuring the mental health and well-being of all students will be a collective effort. With highly trained, skilled and adaptive Psychiatric Social Workers, SMH is ready and available to provide services to aid in recovery and healing so that students may return to normalcy and continue to learn and grow.

____________

¹  Jane Ellen Stevens:  Trauma-Sensitive Schools Are Better Schools

photo: from the late lamented L.A. Youth

Los Angeles’ School Nightmare: ANOTHER SEX ABUSE SCANDAL

After years of complaints were apparently ignored, a former LAUSD teacher has been arrested on suspicion of molesting 20 kids.  Superintendent ‘very angry’.

by Christine Pelisek, The Daily Beast | http://thebea.st/WZ0VMf

Jan 25, 2013 4:45 AM EST   ::  In yet another embarrassment for one of the nation’s largest public-school systems, a fourth-grade teacher is in custody today on suspicion of sexually assaulting 20 children and one adult.

Elementary-school teacher Robert Pimentel, 57, appears at his arraignment on sex abuse charges Thursday in L.A. County Superior Court in Long Beach. (Pool Photo by Jeff Gritchen)

Fifty-seven-year-old Robert Pimentel, who taught at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary School in Los Angeles, has so far been charged with 15 counts of sexual abuse and lewd acts on a child. Prosecutors allege that he inappropriately touched students under and over their clothing from September 2011 until he left his job in March 2012. Before that time period as well, Pimentel had been the subject of parents’ complaints.

Just last year, in a scandal that set off an avalanche of lawsuits, another veteran teacher of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Mark Berndt, was accused of feeding his students spoonfuls of semen as part of a twisted ritual he called a “tasting game.” He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

“We are stunned here,” LAPD Detective Gus Villanueva tells The Daily Beast in the wake of the latest arrest. “We are dumbfounded. It just doesn’t stop.”

Pimentel had worked with the LAUSD since 1974. Police opened an investigation last year when “several girls told their parents that they had been inappropriately touched,” Villanueva said. His bail has been set at $12 million.

Pimentel’s lawyer, Richard Knickerbocker, says his client is innocent and never touched any of his charges inappropriately. “He didn’t do anything wrong,” Knickerbocker says. “All the alleged acts occurred at a time when the class was in session. Nobody is claiming it was done in secret. He had a policy to not be alone with any single student. He followed that policy to protect himself and the district. He was never alone with any of the victims, and nobody contends he was.

“The position we take is, if at any time he touched anyone, it was not an unlawful touching. It was not in violation of the penal code,” he adds. “If the school district says it is inappropriate, it is an improper charge. The complaints are unbelievably vague."

District superintendent John Deasy said he removed Pimentel from the school within 12 hours of learning of the alleged abuse. Deasy said he also got rid of a principal, Irene Hinojosa, after he learned that she had knowledge of two other complaints against Pimentel over an eight-year period and took no action. The first complaint, he said, occurred in 2008 at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary School; the second complaint was lodged in 2002, when Pimentel worked at another elementary school where Hinojosa was also the principal.

Hinojosa could not be reached for comment.

“I am very angry,” Deasy tells The Daily Beast. “You tell me you knew about a complaint and you didn’t act on it? You are gone, and if you touch a kid, you are gone. If you know about it and you don’t report it, you are going to lose your job. We are mandated to report it. It is the law.”

“Unfortunately it doesn’t surprise me. It is a culture of indifference.”

TV crews wait outside George De La Torre Jr. Elementary School in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles on Thursday. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Attorney Luis Carrillo, who is representing the families of four of the most recent alleged victims, contends that the L.A. school district was negligent in not taking action sooner against Pimentel. Carrillo references the 2008 complaint, in which two different parents allegedly contacted Principal Hinojosa four years ago with concerns of inappropriate touching, but were apparently ignored.

It seems, according to Carrillo, that she “paid no attention to the complaints of the parents,” he said. “It shows a lack of sensitivity and compassion.”

Carrillo said another group of parents tried to lodge a complaint against Pimentel the following year with a board supervisor, but were also rebuffed. “They minimize the complaints against kids,” he said. “That is the pattern and practice of the school district."

The Los Angeles Police Department got involved last year when yet another group of parents showed up at the police station to lodge complaints, Carrillo said.

“When the police saw the group of five, they realized it was serious and paid attention," he said.

David M. Ring, an attorney in Los Angeles who is representing seven alleged victims of Berndt, who taught at Miramonte Elementary School, also questions why it took so long for the school district to take action. He blames it on the “circle the wagon” approach.

“Unfortunately it doesn’t surprise me,” he says. “It is a culture of indifference where the teachers are looking out for the teachers. They don’t want to get involved or make accusations, so they turn away. They are more concerned about protecting their own jobs and reputations.”

Ring says pedophile teachers “start testing the boundaries and pushing the boundaries, and no one does anything about it, and the next thing you know, they are molesting a kid.”

Deasy, the superintendent, says state laws need to be changed so that teachers who are suspected of child sexual abuse can be terminated and kept from collecting pension benefits.

“We tried last year to have laws changed,” he says. “Make it less cumbersome. It can take years to fire a teacher."

The travails of the Los Angeles school district have become a Pandora’s box that can’t be shut. Dozens of lawsuits, involving more than 225 parents and students, have been filed in recent years. Most of them have been centered around Berndt, who was arrested last year after he allegedly made his young charges pose for photographs in which they were blindfolded, bound, and sometimes gagged.

Berndt also allegedly placed gargantuan Madagascar cockroaches on their faces and even sent some of the twisted photographs home with his students.

Within a few days of Berndt’s arrest, another teacher at Miramonte, Martin Springer, was charged with three counts of lewd acts upon a child over a three-month period in 2009. He pleaded not guilty, and the case is still pending.

In 2005 Ricardo Guevara, a teacher’s aide at Miramonte, was convicted of lewd acts with three girls. He was caught putting his hand into the pants of one girl in the courtyard of the campus—but only after three earlier sets of complaints against him by students were discounted by school officials. The district shelled out $1.6 million to the families of the three female victims in 2009.

In another case, Stephen Rooney, a teacher and administrator at Foshay Learning Center, was transferred to another school even though it was discovered that he was accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. He was eventually charged and sentenced to eight years in prison for molesting three teenage girls and a minor, including the student at Foshay, in 2008.

Last December a jury ordered the district to pay a 10-year-old boy who was repeatedly molested by Forrest Stobbe, a LAUSD elementary-school teacher, $6.9 million. It was one of the largest payouts in the history of the Los Angeles school system.

“Miramonte changed everything,” says Ring. “Just like the Roman Catholic Church, they finally were forced to deal with their bad conduct. LAUSD is going through the same thing. They have no choice now but to change.”

 

Christine Pelisek is a staff reporter for The Daily Beast, covering crime. She was previously a reporter at the LA Weekly, where she covered crime for the last five years. In 2008 she won three Los Angeles Press Club awards, one for her investigative story on the Grim Sleeper.

SADIES’S DREAM FOR THE WORLD: 11-year-old transgender girl’s essay in response to Obama's inauguration speech

by Sadie from Huffington post | http://huff.to/VnlFCZ

"The world would be a better place if everyone had the right to be themselves, including people who have a creative gender identity and expression. Transgender people are not allowed the freedom to do things everyone else does, like go to the doctor, go to school, get a job, and even make friends.

Transgender kids like me are not allowed to go to most schools because the teachers think we are different from everyone else. The schools get afraid of how they will talk with the other kids' parents, and transgender kids are kept secret or told not to come there anymore. Kids are told not to be friends with transgender kids, which makes us very lonely and sad.

When they grow up, transgender adults have a hard time getting a job because the boss thinks the customers will be scared away. Doctors are afraid of treating transgender patients because they don't know how to take care of them, and some doctors don't really want to help them. Transgender patients like me travel to other states to see a good doctor.

It would be a better world if everyone knew that transgender people have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. We like to make friends and want to go to school. Transgender people want to get good jobs and go to doctors like they are exactly the same. It really isn't that hard to like transgender people because we are like everyone else."

Sadie socially transitioned from male to female in kindergarten. She was home schooled until this year and is now in fifth grade and attending public school. A vegan, she loves anything that "protects the environment," as well as reading, swimming, basketball and texting her friends. She listens to Lady Gaga, Pink and Justin Bieber and wants to work for Green Peace when she grows up. She also wants to be a mom.

Though Sadie has been openly discriminated against, her mother says that she "isn't shy or ashamed of who she is," and adds, "I'm always 'on' when we go out because I never know when she'll strike up a conversation with the person in front of her in line at Trader Joe's. When she chats with people, she introduces herself as, 'Hi, I'm Sadie, my favorite color is pink, I'm vegan, and I'm transgender. Who are you?'"

Sage says she encouraged Sadie to write the essay because she thought "it might help empower her and overcome any feelings of oppression." In the end she says that she wants Sadie "to know that she has a voice. My dream for her is that she will be happy. That's all, really. I just want her to be happy."

LAUSD PRINCIPAL FAILED TO REPORT MOLESTATION BY TEACHER

The De la Torre Elementary principal first heard accusations of sexual misconduct a decade before the instructor's arrest this week, the L.A. schools chief says.

By Howard Blume, Adolfo Flores and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/Txrmh9

Robert Pimentel appears at his arraignment in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Long Beach. (Jeff Gritchen / Pool photo / January 24, 2013)

January 24, 2013, 8:06 p.m.  ::  A now-retired principal twice failed to report accusations of sexual misconduct by a teacher who this week was charged with molesting 12 students at a Wilmington elementary school, officials said.

In 2002 and 2008, the principal was told that the teacher, Robert Pimentel, 57, inappropriately touched a student. But the principal failed to tell law enforcement authorities, as required by law, said L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy.

The Los Angeles Police Department began investigating Pimentel only last March, when they learned of more recent allegations at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary School.

LAPD Capt. Fabian Lizarraga said Thursday that detectives will launch an investigation into whether the principal, Irene Hinojosa, should face charges for failing to report alleged abuse. She could not be reached for comment Thursday.

It remains unclear why Hinojosa did not tell authorities about the accusations. The 2008 allegation also occurred at De la Torre, where she was principal. The 2002 allegation was made when Pimentel was a teacher and Hinojosa the principal at Dominguez Elementary in Carson, Deasy said.

At De la Torre, volunteer Magdalena Gonzalez said Thursday that Hinojosa had been made aware of several questionable incidents involving Pimentel.

Three years ago, she said, a girl told her parent that Pimentel had playfully spanked students. Gonzalez also said she and other volunteers saw Pimentel pull on a student's bra strap during a fifth-grade graduation ceremony.

Gonzalez alleged that Hinojosa was dismissive of their complaints and that she allowed Pimentel to have students in his classroom during recess and lunch despite their misgivings.

"We told her he was touching the girls," Gonzalez said in Spanish.

School employees are required by law to report allegations of sexual misconduct to police. They also are supposed to report such issues to their supervisors, according to school district policies.

The revelations angered parents and once again placed the Los Angeles Unified School District under scrutiny over its handling of student-abuse cases. A state audit released last November found that Los Angeles school officials failed to promptly report nearly 150 cases of suspected misconduct to state authorities, including allegations of sexual contact with students.

The audit resulted from the furor over the case of a Miramonte Elementary School teacher who last year was accused of spoon-feeding his semen to blindfolded students, giving them tainted cookies and taking bizarre photos of them. The school had received previous complaints about the teacher, Mark Berndt, that had resulted in no discipline. Berndt has pleaded not guilty to lewd conduct.

On Thursday, Deasy criticized the handling of the De la Torre case by the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing. He said the district informed the state of the allegations as soon as they came to light, but the commission has not suspended or revoked the credential of either educator.

If Pimentel had applied to work as a substitute teacher at another school system, for example, the state would have reported him in good standing as recently as Thursday.

A spokeswoman said the commission cannot automatically suspend a teacher's credential until charges are filed. But the commission does have the discretion to act sooner, said Erin Sullivan, who said state law prevents her from commenting on specific cases.

Hinojosa's case is "scheduled to be taken up by the commission" next Thursday at its regular meeting, she added.

Pimentel is charged with seven counts of lewd and lascivious acts on children under 14 and with eight felony counts of continuous sexual abuse involving eight victims. The charges cover the period from September 2011 to March 2012, when Pimentel worked at De la Torre. He was charged with molesting 12 students, but police allege there is a total of 20 child victims and one adult victim.

Pimentel was taken into custody shortly after noon Wednesday and was being held on $12 million bail. He pleaded not guilty Thursday, and his attorney Richard Knickerbocker said he is "absolutely innocent."

Knickerbocker described the touching as appropriate and said it fell within district policy.

In one instance, Pimentel hugged a girl and "gave her a kiss on the forehead," Knickerbocker said. Pimentel, he said, never touched "any private parts."

"Right now, we have accusations," Knickerbocker said. "That's all."

Prosecutors did not detail Pimentel's alleged crimes in court papers.

But a law enforcement source close to the investigation said he has been accused of touching children "multiple times over a period of time."

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, said Pimentel is accused of inappropriately touching 9- and 10-year-old girls, sometimes under their clothing and in their genital areas.

The alleged incidents occurred on the school grounds, often in his classroom. The alleged victims are mainly his students but also girls who helped in his classroom. Some students have stepped forward as witnesses to the touching of other students, authorities said.

District officials said they learned in March — when the police investigation was launched — that Hinojosa failed to report the earlier allegations.

Deasy said he then moved quickly to fire both teacher and principal. The dismissal was scheduled for the next Board of Education meeting, in April 2012, but both Pimentel and Hinojosa resigned March 27, Deasy said.

District officials said they found a record of a 2008 allegation against Pimentel in his school file but no evidence that anything came of it. When district officials interviewed Hinojosa in March, Deasy said, she failed to mention the oldest allegation, from 2002. That matter came up only in a later interview, he said.

The district has no record that an allegation ever went further than the school, Deasy said.

The teacher's file "contained notations of suspected misconduct along the lines of what he was later charged with, which was inappropriate touching of a student," Deasy said. "I don't know the specific nature of the touching."

Detectives launched their investigation of Pimentel after some of the children told their parents they had been abused, police said. The parents then alerted officers at the LAPD's Harbor Division.

Nineteen alleged child victims were students at the school, according to Lizarraga. He said detectives came across another child as they gathered evidence.

Deasy told The Times that his recollection was that the alleged adult victim was a co-worker of Pimentel.

Pimentel, who lives in Newport Beach, first worked for the L.A. school system in 1974. He became a teacher in 2000, according to district records. There is no record of discipline in his file, officials said.

Hinojosa began working for L.A. Unified in 1969. She served as either a principal or assistant principal from 1987 through March 2012.

Nancy Najera, 35, of Wilmington left a meeting for De la Torre parents expressing dissatisfaction.

"They're saying there are accusations against the teacher but they won't tell us if they have been substantiated," Najera said in Spanish as she walked out onto the rainy street. "It leaves me with a lot of doubts."

ROOSEVELT’ HIGH SCHOOL’S FUTURE UNCERTAIN: School Scrambles to Meet LAUSD Deadline + smf’s 2¢

Superintendent Deasy: “After much consideration and discussion we have determined that Roosevelt High School has not demonstrated adequate progress overall.”

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: Trabajan para Crear un Plan de Reorganización para Roosevelt

By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer [Bell Gardens Sun, City Terrace Comet, Commerce Comet, Brooklyn Belvedere Comet, Eastside Sun, Mexican American Sun, Montebello Comet, Monterey Park Comet, Northeast Sun, Vernon Sun, Wyvernwood Chronicle] | http://bit.ly/XBdPzT

24 January 2013  ::  A feeling of urgency and uncertainty is in the air at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, where teachers, parents and students are mobilizing for a possible whirlwind of change coming their way.

Staff and stakeholders are working on a reorganization plan for the school as directed by Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy. In a letter to Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) CEO Marshall Tuck, Deasy said the results of the reorganization effort would determine whether LAUSD would renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) allowing PLAS to continue to operate the eastside school.

ESP students told PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck, left, they do not want to be part of the main Roosevelt campus on S. Mathews Street. (EGP photo by Gloria Angelina Castillo).

Deasy’s letter states: “After much consideration and discussion we have determined that Roosevelt High School has not demonstrated adequate progress overall.” He set Feb. 22 as the deadline to receive the plan, acknowledging it is “an aggressive timeline” for PLAS to come up with a reorganization strategy for the school to be “more cost-effective and functional.”

The superintendent also states “it is essential that we continue to set goals, monitor progress, and hold the school accountable to student outcomes,” he elaborates the need for Roosevelt to be held to an “annual performance standard” and for each of the small schools to set and meet a range of annual performance targets. Failure to meet or exceed the “low targets” in the range annually, beginning with the year-end date of 2013-14, could result in LAUSD reconsidering the Partnership’s role at the site, Deasy writes.

According to PLAS spokesman Patrick Sinclair, the LAUSD School Board back in October voted to give Deasy authority to determine the terms under which Roosevelt and other Partnership schools would be allowed to operate. Each of the PLAS schools is subject to different terms and Roosevelt is the first school to receive instructions from the superintendent, Sinclair said.

PLAS and the high school’s Shared Decision Making Council, comprised of principals and UTLA Chapter chairs from each of the seven small schools, are now scrambling to meet Deasy’s deadline.

On the table are discussions about cutting the number of small schools down from seven to two or four, and bringing the Academy of Environmental Science Policy (ESP), now housed off-site, back onto the main campus. That idea does not sit well with the school’s principal, Bruce Bivens.

“Maintaining this school, this program, this togetherness is my top priority no matter what,” Bivens recently told his students, explaining the circumstances are complicated and there are a lot of “moving parts and missing parts” in the equation.

ESP, Roosevelt’s first small school, moved to the East LA Skills Center in 2006, prior to Partnership’s take over in 2008. It was moved to relieve overcrowding at the main campus, which has since been reduced by the opening of the Mendez Learning Center, Torres High School and declining enrollment in the district in general.

Today ESP is one of Roosevelt’s top performing schools and seems to have the most to lose if they are relocated to the main campus. Last year, ESP experienced the highest jump in CST scores of all of Roosevelt’s small schools and the third highest jump in the entire district, ESP teachers point out.

ESP’s location and autonomy, in addition to it’s climate of personalization, is its forte, and moving the campus back to Roosevelt would be a “devastating blow,” ESP Math Teacher and UTLA representative Randall Childs told EGP.

Childs, also a member of the Shared Decision Making Council, said people are frustrated that they are supposed to reorganize the campus in a matter of weeks. Creating a plan “under duress” is obviously not in the best interest of the kids, Childs said.

While the cost for housing ESP at a Lincoln Heights-area adult educational campus is minor, transporting the students to and from the main campus on school busses is expensive, Sinclair said.

Last Friday, PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck heard an articulate and compassionate plea from students in a leadership class at ESP to keep their school as is. Talking about her experience at ESP, junior Clarissa Mancha, 17, at times elicited tears from her fellow classmates.

“This school gave me the motivation to get into a UC, because when I was in middle school… I never thought about college, until I met [Principal] Mr. Bivins and all the teachers were telling me to go to college,” said Mancha.

Mancha said her two older siblings both went to school on Roosevelt’s main campus and both dropped out. They’re now in their 20s and barely starting to go to school, she said.

Clarissa Mancha, center, brought her classmates to tears last week during the meeting with PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck.

Other students said ESP’s unique environment allowed them to have extra attention from teachers, something they fear will be lost on the main campus.

Responding to the students’ pleas, Tuck acknowledged that there are “a lot of good things going on at ESP,” but also noted that “If this school wasn’t what it is, this decision [to move] would have been made a long time ago.”

Tuck met with ESP teachers later that day after school. According to ESP Social Studies Teacher Erica Huerta, who was at the meeting, Tuck said he was greatly impacted by what the students had to say and supports finding a solution to the problem.

But the achievements at ESP are not the norm at Roosevelt. Parents at the school have complained for some time that they are not satisfied with the progress being made at Roosevelt, which has repeatedly failed to meet State benchmarks for academic progress. Last year EGP reported that a group of parents had demanded action from School Board President Monica Garcia, in whose district the school is located. They wanted Garcia to allow a referendum on whether PLAS, launched by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, should continue to run the underperforming school.

The superintendent is expected to make a final decision around March 9 on PLAS’ reorganization, which could be implemented at the beginning of the next school year.

• Parents who want to attend the Shared Decision Making Council meetings can contact their student’s principal at (323) 780-6500. Community members can contact Dr. Sofia Freire, PLAS Senior Director of School Transformation, Sinclair said.  (Dr. Freire is a former Principal at Roosevelt.)

 

smf: Politics are obviously in play.

Roosevelt is the mayor’s alma mater*; it is part (if not crown jewel) of “his” Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. The boardmember/board president, an ally of the mayor, is in a reelection bid.  The superintendent is widely conceded to be the mayor’s hand picked choice. The mayor is a lame duck.

4LAKids supports an increased level of scrutiny+accountability of partnership, pilot and independent charter schools – part of their promise is that they will outperform traditional schools …and then share their methodology with the traditional school community. Little (if anything) worth sharing has come out of PLAS.

It is interesting to note the Dr. Freire, the PLAS Senior Director of School Transformation is the immediate past principal at Roosevelt – whose record of “transformation” is suspect.

But the question is this: How can the board and the superintendent possibly renew the charters of spectacularly underperforming charter schools like Academia Semillas and grant charters to questionable enterprises like Lashon Academy while challenging Roosevelt and re-reconstituting Crenshaw?

_____________

* – Mayor Tony attended archdiocesan schools for most of his education but was expelled from Cathedral High in his junior year. He matriculated from Roosevelt. An NPR story this morning said he was a high school dropout. In 1998, 29 years after his expulsion, Cathedral awarded him a diploma “…maybe the most treasured, meaningful (honor) I've received so far."

Today’s Civics Lesson IV: TONIGHT’S A v. Z DEBATE FOR LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT FOUR

see http://bit.ly/XzdkXc

United Way & Families That Can and “other community organizations”  are sponsoring a debate between the candidates for school board in LAUSD Board District Four tonight.

FAIR+BALANCED?

United Way should not be confused with its former self, The Community Chest - which was a alliance of The Red Cross and PTA and Boys and Girls Clubs, The Salvation Army,  Goodwill Industries, etc.

That was then….

The United Way of Greater Los Angeles is now a covertly political action organization focused on community organizing rather than charitable fundraising work …and  has been firmly allied with Mayor Tony, The Chamber of Commerce and ®eform, Inc. for the past eight years.

Families That Can is a statewide organization of charter school families united to hold our elected leaders accountable for ensuring every child has access to a high-quality (ie:  charter school) public education.

Lord (or Mayor Tony) knows who “other community organizations” are …but CalCharters.org is their website!

Charter schools and ®eform Inc are supporting candidate Kate Anderson.

Tonight's debate should be incumbent Steve Zimmer – who has advocated for increased accountability from charter schools – in The Lions Den.

 

That said, 4LAKids refers the reader to the object lesson of  Chapter 6 of The Book Daniel – and the adventures of Daniel in the Lions Den.

 

LAUSD School Board District 4 Candidate Debate

Thursday January 24, 2013
Venice Boys and Girls Club
2232 Lincoln Blvd. (@ Venice Blvd.)  Venice, CA 90291
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Invited: Candidates Kate Anderson & Board Member Steve Zimmer

 

 

View Larger Map

Our schools as a crime scene: 20 STUDENTS ABUSED AT DE LA TORRE ELEMENTARY

Former LAUSD teacher accused of molesting 20 children

Robert Pimental, who taught at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary in Wilmington, is arrested by LAPD officers. He left the district before he could be fired.

by Richard Winton, Robert J. Lopez and Howard Blume, LA Times | |  http://lat.ms/V9BNmi

January 23, 2013 |  9:24 pm  || A former Los Angeles Unified School District teacher was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of committing lewd acts and sexually abusing 20 children and an adult, law enforcement authorities said.

Robert Pimentel, 57, who taught at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary School in Wilmington, was taken into custody by Los Angeles Police Department detectives who had launched an investigation in March after several fourth-grade girls said they had been inappropriately touched, authorities said.

Prosecutors filed 15 charges against Pimentel involving a dozen of his alleged victims. The charges involve sexual abuse and lewd acts on a child and cover a period from September 2011 to March 2012, according to court records

Los Angeles police detectives suspect that Pimentel victimized another eight children and the adult, LAPD Capt. Fabian Lizarraga told The Times.

He said Pimentel is suspected of inappropriately touching the childen under and over their clothing.

The arrest comes as the nation’s second-largest school district has been rocked in recent months by allegations of sexual misconduct involving teachers and students.

In January, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood was arrested for allegedly spoon-feeding semen to students in a classroom and taking dozens of photos of students. Some of the photos show students blindfolded and being fed allegedly tainted cookies.

On Wednesday evening, L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said both Pimentel and the school’s principal were immediately removed when the district found out about the allegations in March.

Deasy said he removed the principal because he was “dissatisfied” with how the incident was handled at the school.

District officials prepared a “notice of termination” for Pimentel and the principal that they had planned to present to the Board of Education in April, Deasy said. But the two employees retired before the board meeting.

He said Pimentel and the principal will receive their full pensions because they retired before any actions were taken.

“Can you go back and fire someone who’s already retired? No, you can’t,” Deasy said.

Detectives launched their investigation of Pimentel after some of the children told their parents they had been abused, Lizarraga said. The parents then alerted officers at the LAPD's Harbor Division.

Of the 20 children allegedly abused, 19 were students at the school, according to Lizarraga. He said detectives came across the other child as they gathered evidence.

Deasy told The Times that his recollection was that the adult was a co-worker of Pimentel.

Pimentel, who lives in Newport Beach, had been a teacher with the district since 1974, police said. He was taken into custody shortly after noon Wednesday and was being held on $12-million bail. He is expected to appear in court Thursday.

In the Miramonte Elementary case, former teacher Mark Berndt, 61, is charged with 23 counts of lewd conduct and is awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty.

The district is facing nearly 200 molestation and lewd conduct claims stemming from Berndt's alleged wrongdoing.

In a separate case, a jury recently awarded $6.9 million to a 14-year-old boy who was molested while he was in fifth grade at Queen Anne Place Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire area.

The teacher in that incident pleaded no contest to two counts of a lewd act on a child and to continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14. He is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Photo: School police car at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary School. Credit: KTLA-TV Channel

 

UTLA statement on arrest of former teacher

Published on United Teachers Los Angeles  | http://www.utla.net/node/3960

---

1-23-13  ::  UTLA issued the following statement on reports of an arrest of a former De La Torre Elementary School teacher accused of sexual abuse:

UTLA is not familiar with the details of this case.  We do know the individual resigned and that he is no longer a member of UTLA.  The union will not be involved in his defense.

The allegations described are horrific.  As teachers we have a duty to uphold the trust our students and their parents place in us. 

We urge our members and the community to cooperate with ongoing law enforcement investigations in this case.

UTLA will not be doing media interviews at this time.   UTLA will release further statements as necessary.

 

additional coverage from Google News as of 8AM 24 Jan

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FONTANA SCHOOL POLICE ACQUIRE AR-15s AND STORE THEM ON CAMPUSES WITHOUT CONSULTING SCHOOL BOARD. LA School Police take a different tack, San Diego School Police ‘bring their own’

Fontana school police are armed with semiautomatic rifles 

The recent purchase of the Colt rifles draws criticism and sparks an effort to ban such weapons on school campuses.

By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/VlwJ3H

Fontana schools police Chief Billy Green said the semiautomatic rifles are designed to increase shooting accuracy and provide the 14 officers with more effective power against assailants wearing body armor. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / January 23, 2013)

January 23, 2013, 7:26 p.m.  ::  Police officers in the Fontana Unified School District were armed recently with semiautomatic rifles, drawing sharp criticism and sparking an effort to ban such weapons on school campuses.

The Colt military-style rifles, which cost about $1,000 each, are kept in safes when officers are on campus and will be used only in "extreme emergency cases" like the massacre in Newtown, Conn., Supt. Cali Olsen-Binks said.

The district purchased the rifles in October and received them in December, before the tragedy in Newtown, where a gunman killed 26 people — 20 of them children — at an elementary school. The shooting sparked debate on whether armed school guards could prevent these types of tragedies.

The purchase was not spurred by a specific event, Fontana Unified School District police Chief Billy Green said. The rifles are designed to increase shooting accuracy and provide the 14 officers with more effective power against assailants wearing body armor, Green said, adding that those capabilities are necessary for officers to stop a well-armed gunman.

"If you know of a better way to stop someone on campus that's killing children or staff members with a rifle, I'd like to hear it," he said. "I don't think it's best to send my people in to stop them with just handguns."

"I hope we would never have to use it," Green said. "But if we do, I'd like them to be prepared."

Several other school districts have similar weapons but policies differ on whether they are brought on campus or left in patrol car trunks or administration buildings.

Fontana school police bought the guns for about $14,000, which fell below the threshold that requires school board approval. School board members were not informed until after the purchase.

Board member Leticia Garcia said the police chief and superintendent should have alerted the five-member board and held a public hearing on the issue. She said arming officers with such weapons is a policy matter and should have been decided by the entire school district community, especially in light of the ongoing debate around the country.

Garcia, whose son attends Fontana High School, said she is working with local state legislators to draft a bill that would keep school police departments from taking these types of weapons onto campuses.

"We're turning our schools into a militarized zone," she said.

But the Fontana school superintendent said she believes it's a necessary evil to have the guns on campus to keep the 40,000-plus students and staff members safe. Officers have gone through training for the weapons, Olsen-Binks said.

"It balances providing that community-oriented openness at schools without compromising any kind of security for students and employees," she said.

Although she stopped short of saying the matter should have been put before the board, Olsen-Binks said doing so might have helped ease concerns.

"Having an opportunity for more community discussion is always a good thing," she said.

The rifles are kept either in the trunk of the police officer's vehicle or in a safe on campus.

Still, Garcia worries that bringing such a weapon on campus could lead to it falling into the wrong hands. An officer could be overtaken or someone could gain access to the safe, she said.

"Teenagers can get creative," Garcia said.

Green, however, dismissed that concern as unrealistic.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's police department has issued "patrol rifles" to officers on an as-needed basis, the district said in a statement. The department does not disclose the number of rifles given to officers.

Most San Diego Unified School District police officers have AR-15 rifles, Lt. Joe Florentino said. But the department did not buy the weapons; rather, officers were allowed to purchase their own — which many did, he said.

The rifles are kept in the trunk of the officer's vehicle and are not brought into school buildings. Although there is no policy yet, bringing the rifles into buildings is something the department is looking at, Florentino said.

"From a safety standpoint, we have police officers that want the weapons close by," he said. "If we keep them in the vehicle trunk, they would have to run to the car and grab it if they need it."

 

LA School PD Has ‘No Plans’ To Keep High-Powered Weapons On LAUSD Campuses

CBS Los Angeles http://cbsloc.al/UnvjD1

January 23, 2013 6:21 PM  ::  LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Los Angeles School Police Department has no plans to keep high-powered weapons on campuses despite the Fontana Unified School District’s decision to purchase 14 AR-15 assault rifles to protect its students.

“We don’t have any weapons that are stored on our police campus. We have no immediate plans to do that,” LAUSD School Police Chief Steve Zipperman told KCAL9’s Dave Lopez.

However, Zipperman said there is always room for discussion.

“I think it’s important that we always evaluate. Are we deploying these weapons in the right place? Do we have the proper amount of weapons out there to be able to respond to those types of incidents?” he said.

Zipperman, however, said school police have strategically placed armories and other satellite stations.

“I believe we are ready. I hope we never have to use those weapons, but in the event that we have to counter-assault some type of an armed assault on one of our campuses or anywhere else in the community, I feel comfortable we have the ability to respond to that,” he said.

In addition, the Los Angeles Police Department, which works with school police, said officers are well-equipped with weapons in their vehicles to respond to campus emergencies.

As for semi-automatic rifles being stored on other school districts’ campuses, Santa Ana Unified said they have assault weapons for their officers, but none on school grounds.

Lopez tried to contact the Long Beach Unified School District, but was unable to get a response.

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Fontana School PD Purchases 14 AR-15 Assault Weapons To Protect Students