Today three of my intersession students were issued truancy tickets while trying to get to my class. Up until this week, our theater class was being held off campus at the South Central Library and was problem free. It’s interesting that in the two days our class was actually held at school it has been plagued by problems; the school is literally making it impossible for my students to access their intersession elective course.
Apparently, today is part of the city’s crackdown on student truancy. The municipal law states that minors under the age of 18 cannot be outside “loitering” between the hours of 8:30 and 1:30. The problem, apparently, is that our class starts at 10 a.m. I asked one of the officers (trying to issue a ticket to another one of my students!) how my students were expected to get to class. His response was that they either needed to be accompanied by an adult (which is an unrealistic expectation for these students as their parents are working) or to get to school at 8:30 and wait for the class to begin! I shouldn’t really be surprised by this kind of response at this point, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. As it stands, some of my best students will now be missing school next month to go to court to fight a truancy ticket for trying to go to school voluntarily.
This feels like institutionalized, deliberate frustration of student ability to access the educational system. None of my students were surprised by today’s events; they’ve been slowly programmed to understand that there are structural barriers standing in their way to getting the educational experiences that, I’d assume, are easily found in other parts of city.
I also find it quasi-amusing that for the past week I’ve been parking my car in a one hour parking area for literally the whole day. The thing is, everyone at Manual Arts knows that you’re not going to get ticketed for parking your car in these areas; maybe the police are too busy issuing other, more important citations to today’s youth?? And knowing how worked up other communities get about their parking (go over by Doughboys and you’ll see signposts with 6 or 7 different parking signs listing the various parking constraints – and they differ on every block), I’m willing to bet that the parking to truancy ticket ratio is exactly the opposite in most places compared to Manual…
Grandmaster Flash still tells it like it is.
WTF?!
I’m utterly confused. Can you explain to me what would happen if these students were off track? OH WAIT, THEY ARE! Since LAUSD is a crowded bunch of mess there will always be some kids off track throughout the year. There isn’t that traditional summer period that means this is the only time kids should be out and about. So it’s safe to say they’d be walking about in the neighborhood, etc.
So what’s the justification of giving them tickets for choosing to spend their break at school? Does this mean they are not allowed to be out at all during school hours during their break? They have to stay inside? Is there a fine associated with this ticket? Can the school do anything about this? the LAUSD?
So you know this is just one more thing that most people don’t know about. I say we document your kids fighting their tickets in court. What do you think?