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THE PESA POST
The latest news, views and announcements from
Parents, Educators/Teachers & Students in Action

March 24, 2022
HELPING A HIGH SCHOOL CLEAN UP ITS ACT
We’re teaming with the underserved John C. Fremont High to create real community change
Please note: Due to a publishing error, a draft version of the weekly newsletter was mistakenly sent out. We apologize for any confusion and for overloading your inbox.

The Broken Window criminology theory (not to be confused with the controversial Broken Window policing policies of the 1980s) argues that visible signs of disorder and misbehavior in an environment encourage more disorder and misbehavior. Whether students of L.A.’s John C. Fremont High School in South L.A. were even aware of that theory, they clearly had an innate sense about it when some 219 of them responded to a survey asking, among other things, what were the most significant issues facing their school community. The number-one response: Too much trash and dumping. They inherently knew that in order for anyone to take pride in their littered campus, they would need to clean it up themselves first.

That’s why the school's Law and Social Justice club decided to organize a campus clean-up on March 19, and PESA, as a supporting CBO of the school, joined in support.
“The kids felt that if they were going to complain about the mess in their community, they should start by making sure their school looked good,” says PESA Executive Director Seymour Amster. “There were about 70 students, including members of LSJ and the campus ROTC program as well as school staff and PESA volunteers on hand, and everyone rolled up their sleeves and went to work.” 

It was but one event in a host of supportive efforts PESA is making on behalf of Fremont High. “The school is very close to the Figueroa corrider, and students are exposed to a great deal of prostitution and homelessness all around their campus,” says Amster. “We’re working with LSJ as they prepare a white paper about the issues they’re facing. They hope to get it into the hands of government officials to try to bring about community change.”
Another way PESA is involved with the school is by providing tutoring to students in need. “There’s a large population of recent immigrants who are English learners who need tutoring,” says Amster, “so PESA is providing that service.” The school has also been approved to become a Teen Court site and, while the pandemic temporarily delayed the hosting of teen court cases in their newly built courtroom on the school campus, students have been trained as jurors and the program is moving forward.

“This is ground zero of underserved communities,” says Amster. “With PESA’s support, the school has managed to secure a Perkins Grant, and we plan on increasing those efforts going forward.”

If you’d like to support PESA’s many social and educational initiatives, please contact us.