New Board Seeks to Curb School Violence : Education: Safety committee convenes to study ways of helping elementary school pupils. Coordinating programs seen as key.

Los Angeles school board member Victoria Castro convened a new board committee on school safety issues for the first time Thursday, moving to find better ways to help troubled elementary schoolchildren and coordinate the district’s disjointed anti-violence programs.

Although the full seven-member school board must approve and debate all recommendations of the School Safety Committee, the formation of the three-member panel indicates that the board is moving school violence to the forefront of its policy concerns.

After two fatal shootings of students at Reseda and Fairfax high schools this year, the district came under intense public criticism for moving too slowly to develop crime prevention programs and counseling resources.

“There has been a lack of coordination of services, a lack of a forum in which school safety is the sole topic,” said safety committee Chairwoman Castro, a former principal at Belvedere Middle School on the Eastside. “We have to formalize as a priority concerns about violence in our schools.”

Castro, who represents a new Latino district, identified school violence as the most urgent concern among parents and students in her election campaign. Her appointment by school board President Leticia Quezada to head the committee gives Castro the platform to make good on her main campaign issue.

Five school board members attended the first meeting, including committee members Barbara Boudreaux and Julie Korenstein.

The committee gave its support to a motion by Boudreaux for the district to design an alternative schooling program for seriously troubled elementary schoolchildren who are expelled from school.

“Right now if a child is expelled from L.A. Unified in elementary school, there is nowhere for them to go, they are out on the streets,” Boudreaux said. “We have nothing for them.”

Boudreaux favors setting up some form of continuation school for youngsters who are expelled for offenses such as burglary, arson and drug possession. Now, the parents of expelled youths must find another school district or are forced to rely on probation officers to help them find alternative schools.

She and other committee members emphasized that the proposal is not intended to erode or conflict with the district’s tough policy calling for expulsion of students who are caught bringing weapons to school. The policy, adopted in February, has led to the expulsion of about 155 students.

Board member Jeff Horton, who opposes the strict expulsion rules, argued that Boudreaux’s continuation school proposal should be extended to all students.

“I find an incredible discrepancy in our policy,” Horton said. “We expel onto the streets a kid who brings a BB gun to school. But a kid who sets a fire will get the help and counseling he needs.”

Examining another issue the school board will be grappling with in coming months, the committee gave its support to a long list of proposals brought forward by the Emergency Task Force on Youth Violence, a coalition of top government and law enforcement officials who convened in the aftermath of the two high school shootings.

The task force produced 43 recommendations, ranging from expanding education programs focusing on violence prevention to requiring problem students to perform community service. But school board member Mark Slavkin, who organized the task force, intends to have Supt. Sid Thompson identify three to five priorities that can be acted upon swiftly.

Slavkin and other committee members agreed that coordination of services needs to improve between the school district, police departments and justice officials. Slavkin said task force members believe that programs should concentrate on crime prevention and stopping easy access to guns.