My name is Jorge Lopez and I have been serving the community of Boyle Heights as a social studies teacher at Roosevelt High School for the last 8 years. In the last year, I have increasingly heard from students about their negative experiences with the current policy around truancy and tardiness.

Recently I have noticed that there has been an escalating number of ticketing sweeps at my school. In the last month I have witnessed two ticketing operations by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). In each operation I estimate that around 20-30 students were ticketed.

Another teacher told me about the operation so, I grabbed flyers from the Strategy Center, that provide information on legal rights and free legal consultation, to distribute to the students. Three to four LAPD cars were driving inside campus with students. In the student cafeteria there was about 6-8 officers escorting and ticketing students. Another officer was drinking coffee that was provided by the school, while chatting with a member of the mayor's office and just observing all of this while it occurred. I continued to talk to students and provide them with information while officers gave me unwanted gazes.

Approximately 6-8 LAPD officers were ticketing students in the student cafeteria, as they continued to bring students in. They would bring the students into the cafeteria and have them sit waiting to enter one of the two stations that the officers had to ticket the students.. From there they would get sent to speak with a counselor in other tables, to give them a pass to class. One of the counselors expressed feeling dissatisfied with the process and had indicated that she had reached out to the courts to further understand the process for students. Also sitting there were Soledad Enrichment Action, a gang intervention program.

Targeting "Truants" to address "Gang Activity"

I found Miguel Leon who works for the Mayor's office overseeing the operation. He is the program manager for the gang reduction program. I mentioned to him that I am concerned that there has been a lot of sweeps and many of our students from my school have been targeted at disproportioned numbers in comparison to other schools and communities. Students are being ticketed for being truant, when in fact they are only tardy a few minutes. I questioned if it was because Roosevelt is a Mayor's school. We sat down to speak, and he indicated that the police are not targeting the Mayor's Partnership schools, but that Partnerships schools are found in the area that a LAPD has been working. I question his reasoning; I believe that if the Mayor had no interest in ticketing our students, there would not be one of his point persons overseeing the operation, and LAPD would not have the access it has now to go inside of our campus.

According to Miguel the truancy sweeps serve to provide a space to identify students in need and service them with gang intervention service providers. He stated that although it might not be the most effective process, and many students have valid reasons for being tardy, it is an "opportunity" to target students in need. I see no opportunity in giving students a misdemeanor, sending them and their parents to court, and robbing families in need with outrages fines. From what I have witnessed, 99.9 of the students detained are not involved in gang activity! They are coming to school, not leaving it!

Compliancy and Silence among our Educators puts all our Students at Risk

Miguel agreed with me that it's not fair that students are getting ticketed, but he is trying to work with police. He indicated when he first began the project he was against it and was shut down by police for being confrontational. He suggested for me not to be confrontational. Since when is it confrontational to let my students know that they have rights, that their families do not deserve to pay high fines by providing them with an informational flyer INSIDE the school campus I teach in?!

However, with that being said, he agreed with me along with a member from gang intervention program Soledad Enrichment Action, on the idea of passing out information on student rights and attorney representation to students. He suggested for me to talk to administration to see if there are other methods to address students that are ticketed. He stated that the method (where they get tickets on campus) is better because they can provide "support" to students in need, rather than police just ticketing them in the street and sending back to school and loosing the opportunity to identify students in need. What comes to mind for me is, why ticket students, period?! If the city of Los Angeles wants to provide support, we will more than welcome more after school programs at our school!!!

The Irrational Logic behind Zero Tolerance Policies

I do not see the logic of providing "support" to youth by taking from their families through fines? So now I ask, where is all this money, the millions I am sure, in student/family fines going?! To me, what seems logical is for the city of LA to support our schools through youth programs and resources!

I got the sense that the school support staff, such as counselors are completely against what is happening, however they are following the directive to participate in the sweeps by checking student absences, tardy records, and giving students passes back to class. Counselors were in support of me flyering and even took some of my flyers to give to students. While I appreciate the fact that counselors were willing to have fliers available to students we need more teachers, administrators and school staff to challenge LAPD tardy ticketing sweeps, and become more engaged in developing a socially just tardy policy.

I spoke at the last school board meeting to raise my concerns on behave of the Boyle Heights community. It is irresponsible for LAUSD to not take a stand and collaborate with the criminalization of our youth in low-income communities of color. I believe that it is our responsibility as educators, counselors, and administrators to create an effective tardy policy that is equitable and not just hand the duty over to the courts and police.

Zero-tolerance policies have been proven to contribute to student push-out rates and are being challenged nation wide by groups like the NAACP and ACLU, and grass roots community organizations. Why is LAUSD allowing for this to happen? We are falling behind in the national efforts to eliminate zero-tolerance policies!

The Unfilled Promise of Positive Behavior Support Policy

In 2007 CADRE parents in South L.A. led a year-long campaign to change LAUSD student discipline policy away from zero-tolerance punishment approach, to a "positive behavior approach." Their efforts were a big success, and changed the previous LAUSD discipline policies to addresses the root causes of student behavior by involving all community stakeholders in the support of students, an expansion of intervention, alternatives to suspensions and transfers, and using data to monitor and impact accountability. Having an accountability structure that addresses student push-out policies, and allows student input, addresses school culture and provides support is crucial and immediately needed. Although CADRE was successful in changing LAUSD discipline policy to a positive behavior approach, I would argue that most stakeholders, such as parents, students, and school faculty are not aware of the change.

LAUSD sent a policy bulletin to all schools, but our school seems to have not made changes to address student's civil/human rights, intervention and support services. To continue to maintain the district-police collaboration of ticketing students is a contradiction to Policy Bulletin 3638, titled "School-Wide Positive Behavior Support." The purpose of the bulletin was to create a positive, nurturing school culture, sadly ticketing students does the opposite, LAUSD has allowed the police to terrorize our students with constant patrols, and expensive family citations. What happened to this school bulletin? Heavy school policing, and mistreatment of our youth, only contributes to a school culture of fear led by an authority like model where many students at Roosevelt High are now choosing to stay home and not go to school rather than risk being ticketed for being late. What ever happened with creating a school culture of care?

Pushing our students further away from school and closer to the criminal legal system

What message is our school and city sending to parents of our community by ticketing families $250 to +$900 for sending their kids to school, and adding additional economic burdens to poor communities in a time of economic despair? So what is the formula? Take from the poor to give to the city, criminalize and push out the youth from school?! Shame on you Mr. Mayor and LAUSD!