What happens when an aspiring teen chef from South L.A. meets the U.S. Surgeon General? + Did you buy a Powerball ticket in South LA? Claim your $866K prize!



Fremont High School senior Xiaxiang English served a chard-based salad to to the U.S. Surgeon General Friday.

Fremont High School senior Xiaxiang English served a chard-based salad to to the U.S. Surgeon General Friday. | Marisa Zocco, Intersections South L.A.

What happens when an aspiring teen chef from South L.A. meets the U.S. Surgeon General?
Fremont High School senior Xiaxiang English stood alongside U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Friday, promoting nutrition and access to fresh fruits and vegetables as a preventive health measure. (Los Angeles Times)

Did you buy a Powerball Ticket in South LA? Claim your $866k prize!

The California Lottery announced Thursday that a winning lottery ticket purchased at a Florence neighborhood meat market in South L.A. remains unclaimed. (MyNewsLA.com)

Renata Simril to succeed Anita DeFrantz as head of LA84 Foundation
Former Dodger and LA Times executive Renata Simril was announced the CEO of LA84 Foundation on Wednesday. The foundation is endowed with 40 percent of the surplus of the 1984 Olympic Games and has funded more than $225 million in grants to support youth sports programs in Southern California. (MyNewsLA.com)

LA School District endorses Proposition 47 to reduce punishment for common crimes



A student pushes for Proposition 47 with a sign reading "Smart Jusice." | Kate Guarino

A student pushes for Proposition 47 with a sign reading “Smart Jusice.” | Kate Guarino

More than 100 youth and community leaders gathered Tuesday in Downtown L.A. to rally in support of Proposition 47. Those who marched were hoping that the Los Angeles Unified School district would pass a resolution voicing support for the measure, which would reduce the penalty for some of the most common crimes in California including drug possession, petty theft, possession of stolen goods, shoplifting, forgery and writing bad checks.

LAUSD voted 5 to 1 to support and endorse the proposition Tuesday evening.

Under the referendum— which will be voted on in November—these crimes would be downgraded from felonies to misdemeanors and sentences would drop from a potential of three years to a maximum of one.

The Brothers, Sons, Selves coalition, which hosted the rally, said LAUSD’s support is an important step to gain momentum for the referendum. [Read more…]

Fremont High School graduates record number of students



imageOver 750 students are graduating from Fremont High School on Wednesday. That’s the largest number of graduates since the school opened its doors in 1924. It’s also a 36 percent increase over the 553 graduates who graduated in 2010.

“This remarkable improvement demonstrates that when you get strong leadership, committed students and teachers, and involve parents and community, you can turnaround a failing school,” said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, President and CEO of Community Coalition. “At Fremont we are showing that real public education reform is possible and within our reach.”

Just two years ago, Ramon Cortines, then Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), spearheaded a restructuring plan that included the removal of teachers and staff at the school to make them to reapply for their positions. That caused an uproar within the teachers union and the community.

Local community organizing organization Community Coalition helped parents and students come together to insure that they played a role in the school reform. They held a townhall with Superintendent Cortines, who listened to the concerns of students and parents.

The school’s restructuring brought in a new wave of resources and programming designed to transform what at the time was considered to be a failing urban school.

Graduation ceremonies for Fremont will take place on Wednesday, June 27, 5:00pm, at Home Depot Tennis Stadium, 18400 Avalon Boulevard, Carson CA 90746.

Former Fremont High teachers join charter school movement



By Elizabeth Warden

imageJohn C. Fremont High School, located in South Los Angeles, recently underwent reconstruction, a process that allows the Los Angeles Unified School District to make teachers at low performing schools, evaluated by a consecutive high dropout rates and low standardized test scores, reapply for their jobs. Some Fremont High teachers, at the time, decided not to reapply for their jobs as a symbol of opposition to the school district.

“It definitely [does not have] a community in mind,” said Joel Vaca, a 10-year Fremont High veteran during an interview in spring 2010 after the school district had approved the reconstruction process in Dec. 2009.

“Every other neighborhood in LA had a voice in their opinion: East LA had a choice with the public school choice initiative, the beach harbor area had a voice when their schools went up for vote, and it’s the disenfranchisement of South Central and neglect of what happens here in South Central,” he said.

Fremont’s reconstruction and the maelstrom that ensued speaks to the politics of culture and change that often make school and community reform exceedingly difficult.

But just around the time reconstruction at Fremont High began happening, the LAUSD public school choice 2.0 options sprouted up in the spring of 2010 and the district announced nine new campuses. The district intended to use one of the campuses – South Region High School #2 – to relieve overcrowding at Fremont High and neighboring Jefferson High. This gave a team of former Fremont High teachers, and some from Jefferson High, the opportunity to send in a letter of intent and draft a proposal for the South Central Region #2 High School campus that the school district had already started constructing.

Some former Fremont High teachers – like Erica Hamilton who taught at the school for six years – had been looking at alternatives for Fremont High students far before this. She had explored the option of charter operators as early back as 2006, which was the only option at the time.

Read more…

Voters weigh in on fate of new South L.A. high school



By Riley McDonald Vaca

image
L.A. Unified teacher Juan Puentes presents a plan for one of the small schools at the new high school complex on Central and Gage Ave.

Parents, students, teachers, school staff, and community members crowded into the auditorium at Edison Middle School Tuesday night to review plans for the newly constructed high school on Central and Gage Ave.

The school is set to open this fall with about 1,600 students who formerly attended long-overcrowded Fremont High School.

The plan is for four small, independent schools on the site, joined together by a common vision of meaningful community involvement. Students will be able to choose between the four themed small schools: public service, communications and technology, green design, and performing arts.

The site will share resources such as athletic teams and a community/welcome center.

Like every new school in L.A. Unified, the new high school is going through the Public School Choice process.

A teacher group, the union, and the district teamed up with community members to develop the plan presented on Tuesday. The site is the only new school in this year’s Public School Choice process to have only one bidder. However, there is still a community advisory vote prior to the School Board’s decision, and presenters asked the people in the audience to take the vote seriously.

“We need the community to send a message to the district that we need these schools,” said Erica Hamilton, a teacher who worked to create the plan.

Voting for the plan opened after the presentation, and continues this Saturday.

Before starting life, you have to complete senior year



By Jennifer Macias and Nataly Flores, Fremont Magnet High School

Oh no! The SATs! The ACT! The AP tests! Finals! God, can life be any more complicated? Oh wait, it can: college applications. If I knew senior year year would be so difficult, I would have dropped out in kindergarten—JUST KIDDING! But I’m not kidding about the stress.

We don’t want to freak out incoming seniors, but eleventh grade and senior year are on two totally different levels. If you think finals are hard enough, just wait until you take a four-hour test that determines your future.

For those in the Magnet program at Manual Arts High School, you know that you’re expected to complete a “Life Plan” in Mr. Edwards’ government and economics class. This report is like no other report you have seen. It is a detailed project that encompasses the next ten years of your life after high school. When I say detailed–I mean it. The average length of the “Life Plan” is forty pages!

Another thing on a senior’s agenda is prom. Ah, prom, the night where seniors can finally let loose (but not too loose) and enjoy the fact that they are finally leaving high school. Girls spend a few months trying to find the perfect dress and guys spend a few months trying to find the perfect date.

Don’t think, however, that senior year is going to be a huge bomb that’s going to explode in your face. There are some days where stress is nowhere to be found. The company of your friends is really going to help relieve some of that stress. But then again, it’s difficult to party it all off when you have the ghost of the “Life Plan” looming about.

The “Life Plan” might seem like an extremely overwhelming task, but that is why you have a year to accomplish the project that should, in turn, help you have an idea about your life after high school.

Setting the “Life Plan” aside, which you shouldn’t do because procrastination will only hurt you, there are many projects that must be completed before graduating high school and starting life. You must first get through the tasks of standardized tests, college applications, prom and, of course, walking the stage!

Community service: a high school requirement you may enjoy



Chantel Carter, Fremont Magnet High School

Many high schools in Los Angeles require students to complete community service hours before graduating. At Fremont Magnet High School, all students are required to complete 160 hours and many have trouble choosing a good place to volunteer.

Community service is a good thing. Working for local organizations enables you to become an involved citizen in your neighborhood. Also, when the time comes to apply for college, community service always looks good on the application and gives you an advantage over students that haven’t taken the time to contribute to their community!

I know that the last thing that you would like to do when you’re not doing schoolwork is waking up to volunteer. I’ll take being lazy in bed over being an “involved citizen” any day. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we can wish for this requirement to go away, it won’t. So we’ve got suck it up, wipe the sleep out of our eyes, and get it out of the way. And with four years to complete these hours, there is really no excuse not to complete your service.

Can’t think of where to do your community service?

A misconception that a lot of students have is that community service means that you have to go out and pick up trash on the side of the freeway. That’s not always the case. The truth is, there are many places you can do community service that are right in your face. You can do community service anywhere, like a school, church, or a local business.

If you don’t want to do community service in your neighborhood, there’s always the possibility of traveling. If you go to another state with your family, see if there’s anyway that you can get a few hours done on your vacation. If you can’t leave the state, you can do something small like go to another city, or even another part of Los Angeles! Just know that there are opportunities everywhere to do your service, and who knows? You might just find something that you really enjoy, and those 160 hours will just fly by.

More than just school work: community service hours



By Chantel Carter, Fremont High School

As we all know, most high schools require students to complete hours of community service in order to graduate. This enables you to become an involved citizen in your neighborhood. Also, when the time comes to apply for college, community service always looks good on the application and gives you an advantage over students that haven’t taken the time to contribute to their community.

We also know that the last thing that we want to do on our vacation, in the cold and dreary California winter, is community service. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take being lazy in bed over being an “involved citizen” any day. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we can wish for this requirement to go away, it won’t. So we’ve got suck it up, wipe the sleep out of our eyes, and get it out of the way. And with four years to complete these hours, there is really no excuse not to complete your service.

Can’t think of where to do your community service?

A misconception that a lot of students have is that community service means that you have to go out and pick up trash on the side of the freeway. That’s not always the case. The truth is, there are many places you can do community service that are right in your face. You can do community service anywhere, like a school, church, or a local business.

If you don’t want to do community service in your neighborhood, there’s always the possibility of traveling. If you go to another state with your family, see if there’s anyway that you can get a few hours done on your vacation. If you can’t leave the state, you can do something small like go to another city, or even another part of Los Angeles! Just know that there are opportunities everywhere to do your service, and who knows? You might just find something that you really enjoy, and those 160 hours will just fly by.

Sushi Virgins



By Crystal Gutierrez and Guadalupe Ortega, Fremont High School

As we walked into our journalism class Mr. Hwang was taking out sushi and some other weird-looking food from grocery bags and neatly setting them up on a desk. When he finished he stood in front of class and asked for everyone to please sit down. To our surprise Arturo, a classmate, was handing out chopsticks to the class.
We immediately knew we were going to have a sushi feast but most of us had no clue what so ever how to use chop sticks or what we were about to taste.

“Don’t worry I’m about to teach you guys how to properly use them,” Mr. Hwang said. Everyone felt relived and started unwrapping their sticks. I however broke my sticks–known to be bad luck– and my friend Chelsea, stabbed her food with her chopsticks—a gesture believed to invite ghosts.

The correct way to use your chopsticks is to wedge one in between your thumb and index finger and then place the other about an inch parallel to the other chopstick.

What I expected was nothing to what I tasted. I expected this weird raw tasting fish with gooey substances, but as I bit into the sushi I was surprised by its wonderful taste. I was eating dry seaweed with sticky white rice and other healthy veggies. Chelsea didn’t like it she said it tasted like, “salty, yet sugary fish”, but what I tasted was yummy non-fish tasting spongy sweet rice. Our sushi, unlike most, had no raw fish in it.

To top off our meal we had Mochi, a spongy rice cake filled with sweet red beans in the center. It was very sweet but I didn’t really like it. The Mochi tasted very different to other desserts that I’m used to such as chocolate cake or ice cream but everybody in the class seemed to like it.

Trying something new to eat helped me discover a new culture. Eating sushi was like going to Japan for my first time.

Photos by Guadalupe Ortega

Schools punish not praise, say South L.A. students



Listen to the audio story here:

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Read the audio script here:

It was more than 30 years ago that Rosyln Broadnax dropped out of Fremont High School. She had been failing most of her classes, but no one seemed to care – or even notice. She swore things would be different for the next generation.

“When I had my child, I started looking back over my years in the school system,” Broadnax said. “And I promised and vowed that I would never, ever allow my child to go through what I went through.”

But graduates of South Los Angeles’ public schools say not much has changed. Some say they feel disrespected at school – like the students are there to be kept in line, not to learn.

“There was a lot of yelling from the principals,” said Chinyere Garner, who just graduated from Westchester High School. “Yelling at the kids about what we’re not supposed to be doing, like we’re not at school, like we’re at boot camp or something.”

For Garner, not finishing was never an option. But she was frustrated by what she sees as skewed priorities. At her school, she says, finding a security guard is easier than finding a counselor. And sometimes, she spent more time trying not to get in trouble than studying. Garner, who lived two hours away from her school, admitted that she had difficulty getting to class on time. But she felt the punishment for that offense was excessive.

Students who are even a few minutes late to class face getting tickets, often carrying fines they cannot afford to pay.

“I’ve always been at risk for truancy tickets, but I would dodge them,” Garner said.”Like, literally, I wouldn’t go to school if I saw the police car right there. I would climb the gate, go around the back, because I can’t…I’m not going to risk a ticket just to go to school.”

Now, Garner is joining other students to protest. Her group, the Community Rights Strategy Center, shows up regularly at school board meetings.

Another member is Claudia Gomez. She was kicked out of three schools in six months, mostly for fighting. She says the consequences just made her problems worse.

“When you’re in a new place, I mean, you don’t know what’s going to go on, you don’t know anybody,” she said. “So everybody feels threatened by other people that we didn’t know.”

She turned a corner when she found an alternative school that focused on channeling anger into social action. She said she wishes she had been taught those lessons earlier.

“I would have just tried to speak more instead of using violence, because violence was the number one retaliation,” she said. “Just, you don’t get me, so I’m going to go after you. Now, I would talk.”

She does not know how much of a difference she will make – but for now, finding her voice is enough.