By LEILONI DE GRUY, Staff Writer

SOUTH LOS ANGELES - Students from several Los Angeles Unified School District high schools rallied at the corner of Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Tuesday, voicing loud opposition to a proposal that would allow truancy laws to apply to school grounds.

On Sept. 22, LAUSD Boardmember Tamar Galatzan supported Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge's motion to extend Los Angeles Municipal Code 45.04, which makes it unlawful for any minor under the age of 18 to loiter or be on public grounds - including streets, highways, roads, alleys, parks, playgrounds, public buildings, places of amusement, eateries and vacant lots - during the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. when school is in session.

"The Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department were, until recently, able to give citations to curfew offenders on school grounds...," said LaBonge in the motion dated Sept. 11. "However, the courts have recently ruled that this section of the code does not state that enforcement is permissible on school grounds...and citation requiring a court appearance should only be for habitual offenders...I therefore move that the city attorney be requested to prepare and present an ordinance which would permit the enforcement of curfew laws on school grounds as well as permit citation of curfew offenders on the first offense."

According to Galatzan, schools are unable to keep accurate records of truancy offenders, which requires that there be proof of the number of offenses, time they were committed, proof of parent or guardian notification, verification of the student's name and age, time of the citation, along with date and location of the offense. And as a result, many cases are thrown out of the juvenile courts.

"Furthermore, even where records are maintained, there is confusion regarding whether students who are on-campus, but out of class, may not be considered truant," said the motion by Galatzan, which is expected to be voted on by the board Oct. 13. "Tom LaBonge's motion to amend Los Angeles Municipal Code 45.04 to allow LAMC 45.04 to be cited on public school grounds will effectively document student identification, age, time, date and location of the offense needed by the courts to verify truancy."

Habitual offenders are considered third-time offenders. First and second time offenders, said the proposed motion, would receive a citation or notification from law enforcement to attend a truancy class with a parent or guardian. The latter would not require the student and his or her parent or guardian to appear before court unless the student fails to attend the truancy class.

Violations are punishable by a fine not to exceed $250 and/or 20 hours of community service. However, if fines are not paid on time, they can increase. Violators may be required to attend court and may not be eligible to obtain a state driver's license.

Prior to the issuance of a citation or notification, police officers are to ask the alleged offender his or her age and reason for being "in the public place or on public school grounds during curfew hours and not in class," said the motion, which adds that provisions of California Education Code 48264.5 allow this.

Exceptions include a minor who is accompanied by a guardian, parent or any adult authorized by the caregiver; is on an emergency errand directed by their guardian or parent; is going directly to or from their employer; is going directly to or from a medical appointment; has permission to leave campus for lunch and has a valid, school-issued off-campus permit; is involved in an emergency such as a fire, natural disaster, automobile accident or any situation requiring immediate action to prevent bodily injury or loss of life; is in an automobile involved in interstate travel.

But students from Cleveland and Westchester high schools said the law already deters students from going to school, requires them to miss another day of school and parents a day of work by going to court, criminalizes students, and shifts accountability from school administration to the police and court system.

According to Nimmi Kaur, 15, from Cleveland High School, "Truancy has a connotation of ditching and that's not true because there are students out there that take the public bus and are late, they may have to drop their [sibling] off at school, these are low-income families," she said. "There could be a student two minutes late walking to school and we've seen this before and police will give them a $250 ticket and on top of that they have to miss another day of school to go to court..."

"Now they are going to give us truancy tickets on campus, [say] if we are late to third period," added Kaur. "Families are already suffering in this economy, I don't know where they are going to get that money from. And I'm not saying for the students who ditching that there should be no consequences but there should be appropriate consequences and this is obviously not appropriate."

Isaac Casey, 17, also from Cleveland High School, "believe[s] there should be a separation between police and education. The police are too involved with the LAUSD school system," he said. "With these new tickets, they are incriminating students and putting more students into the prison system when we should be spending more money on educating them and stopping them from being truant."

"I go to school in the valley and in the valley buses run every hour, so if I miss that bus, I'm late a whole hour to school and if I'm late to school I don't want to go to school because I'm afraid I'm going to get a ticket, so I don't go at all," he added. "I'd rather stay at home than pay a $250 ticket."

The same is true for 17-year-old Westchester High School student Chinyere Garner. "If anything, if I know that someone is going to hit me with a ticket as soon as I hit the door, I'm not going to come. Forget it," she said. "There are a number of reasons from being far out, from the bus being late or passing you up because there are a lot of kids...having to drop off other siblings at day care and school because the parent has to be to work early. Everybody has their own situation and I think they should understand that. And I'm not saying they should be lenient but truancy tickets aren't a problem solver."
She suggested enforcing detention because it is a consequence that also keeps students from participating in extracurricular activities, and making administrators and counselors available.

Tekoah Flory, 16, from Westchester said not only do truancy tickets cause more problems but they "add more stress on the family," she said. "It can actually push families to the breaking point...The problems why students are actually late could be because of their home and then you add more of a financial burden, it could be the breaking point."

Erick Fuentes, from Cleveland High School, has been issued three truancy tickets. He said that in one instance he was excused by a teacher to retrieve items from home for a track meet; another was running errands for his family and a third was dismissed.

"Truancy tickets are not a solution, they are more of a band-aid," he said. "When you're going to school and you know you are going to be late there is a point where you think I might be given another ticket, what's the point of me even going. Since when is it against the law to be late going to school or go to school even if you are late or not. It should not be looked upon as a crime."

Damon Azali-Rojas of the Strategy Center, a think tank focused on social justice issues facing youth, people of color, workers and others, suggested peer counseling, parent notification and participation, and school counseling for truant students. In terms of police activity, he said, "We have a lot of students that have gotten tickets for being one or two minutes late, being totally handcuffed, put in the back of police cars and all these different things," there should be a civilian review board made up of parents, teacher and community organizations as well as an equal protection office that can track "police abuse, excessive ticket or targeting of Black and Latino students."

But for Andrew Terranova, teacher at Westchester, "I'm here because separate from my teaching I think that we have a one-size fits all solution to post-societal problems and that is incarceration. What we see when it comes to the school is getting people ready for that one-size fits all solution. They are getting conditioned, psychologically conditioned to interacting with the police for issues that were never issues of law enforcement when we were in school," he said. "From a teacher's perspective there is no way you can justify this from an educational standpoint that this is a good idea and benefits the student...If your solution is to take that child that is late and have them now interface with the police and the court system and missing my class. That child that may have been five minutes late...is missing a whole day of school to go to court."

He noted that on a weekly basis he has students that were running late to school, some he has even seen on the sidewalk, that have not shown up for school for fear of getting a ticket.

"Now under this proposal...we are going to give kids who are on campus truancy tickets," he said. "Why don't we just dispense of any ridiculous notion that campus is for education and call it something different. Don't call it school or education, let's just be honest with these students for a change and tell them that we are not going to fund them, you're going to end up in prison, just cut to the chase because that's what they're literally doing to them."