Berkeley school district abandons plan for schooling at-risk youth - by Doug Oakley, Contra Costa Times, 6/23/11

[Heather Wood]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_18338372?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1



By Doug Oakley
Berkeley Voice
Posted: 06/23/2011 10:06:14 AM PDT
Updated: 06/23/2011 10:34:27 AM PDT

After months of neighborhood opposition, Berkeley's school district
has dropped a plan to operate a class for lawbreaking youth expelled
from area high schools. The Alameda County Office of Education and the
Berkeley school district were pushing the plan to teach up to 45
students at the Berkeley Adult School on San Pablo Avenue. Many
students who would have attended the class are on probation or are
being electronically monitored for such offenses as bringing guns to
school, sexual assault, robbery, battery and selling drugs.
The Alameda County Office of Education already operates a school for
expelled students in Hayward. The county was looking for another
location after it recently closed a second such campus in Oakland.

Neighbors said they were worried that students coming to the school
would increase crime in the area. They also claimed that neither the
Berkeley school district nor the Alameda County Office of Education
did its homework on potential problems.
"Crime was part of my concern," said Heather Wood who lives a half a
block from the Berkeley Adult School and who started a website and
community forum on the issue. "The school district has historically
failed enormously in the challenges of at-risk and high-risk students.
I don't see how they could have put high-risk youth in a classroom
situation without any plan other than just releasing them into the
community at the end of the day. It just seemed like a warehousing
situation."

Berkeley school district spokesman Mark Coplan said the district
abandoned the proposal because too much staff time was consumed by
community meetings and information demanded by neighbors. "It was a
bigger process than we anticipated," Coplan said. "The neighbors'
reaction made it a bigger piece of pie to chew on. We didn't
anticipate it taking up so much staff time."

Vanessa Arce Kaskiri, a neighbor and landlord, said she feared for her
safety, the safety of her family, tenants and neighbors if the class
was allowed at the Berkeley Adult School. At a Berkeley school board
meeting in April, Arce Kaskiri spoke about her 20-year-old brother,
shot and killed in 2006 in Los Angeles by someone she described as a
"high-risk youth" who brought a sawed-off shotgun to a house party.
"I'm not trying to scare people but one crime is enough," Arce Kaskiri
said on Wednesday. "People deserve to know what is possible. Not that
it is going to happen but they should be aware." But Alameda County
Schools Superintendent Sheila Jordan said the classroom in Berkeley
was an attempt to "create a positive environment for kids who never
had a chance." She added that part of her office's mission is to make
sure that students get an education," Jordan said. "We have to believe
that redemption is possible. This is a diversion for them. If every
young person who is put in juvenile hall is hopeless, then we are in
trouble as a society." Jordan said she does not have details on where
the county may look for a classroom now that the Berkeley site is out
of the running.

Doug Oakley covers Berkeley. Contact him at 510-843-1408. Follow him
at Twitter.com/douglasoakley

[Charis Kaskiris]

I think what the BUSD is acknowledging in a weird way is that they don’t really have a protocol for evaluating these “proposals” – had they had a process staff time would have not been an issue. Joaquin Rivera who proposed it in the first place did not even know what he was proposing. Had he seriously thought about the at-risk youth’s education he would have championed through the proposal and would have done the legwork to get it implemented.

 

Charis

[Linda Bryant]

Hi group:

KCBS requested a review by an expert who reviewed the guns-on-campus report that is due to the Board meeting tonight.
His review  is discussed here. I do take exception with his finding that BUSD has good relations with Berkeley Police Department and the community.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/06/29/berkeley-schools-have-new-plan-to-tackle-student-gun-problems/

Linda Bryant

---

From: Charis Kaskiris <cha...@kaskiris.com>
To: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, June 28, 2011 10:51:46 PM
Subject: RE: Berkeley school district abandons plan for schooling at-risk youth - by Doug Oakley, Contra Costa Times, 6/23/11