How do you think this policy could affect students? Who do you feel is most affected by this kind of policy?

Parker Anderton, 17: I don’t think it’s necessary for kids to work for their lunch. Kids already come to school with lunch [or money to] spend it on lunch. To them they didn’t have to do anything for their lunch except carry money. To them [youth not on the free lunch program] it’s free money so either way, work ethic is an issue. At my elementary school we didn’t even need money. We had cards with pre-loaded money so to us elementary school kids we just had to swipe a card for food. [Whether youth’s parents paid for their lunch or youth were on the free lunch program, there was no difference in the process of receiving your meal]  

Oxania Kelley, 16: I think that it is wrong not just to kids but everyone. [Asking youth to work for free lunch] is like a punishment and torture to practically have someone starve just because they need to clean up and do janitorial services. They come to school to learn not to perform janitorial work. The school itself does a poor job in helping students learn and improve their test scores. How do they expect those students to do well when they don’t even have the nutrition to help them concentrate and do their best?

Adriana, 17: I think it is a good and bad idea at the same time. Kids should know the value of the food that they are given. The lunches that the government provides them for free, are the same lunches that they only sniff and pick at, then throw away. It’s important for them to know that the food isn’t as dispensable as they see it. On the other hand, kids go to school to learn information and skills that will help them succeed in life not learn lessons. Lessons about values and work ethic are the parents’ responsibility.

Christina Tran, 17: I think it is absolutely outrageous to make a child work for their meal on public property. It’s stupid. Taxes go to schools funding free or reduced lunches, for a reason. It’s supposed to be FREE. Whoever thinks otherwise needs to give the best reason because it’s unfair and damaging. Parents send their children to school to get an education. To have their children take care of for the 8 hours they’re in school. Not everyone can afford to send their students to school with a decent lunch. FREE or reduced lunch should continue to stay that way and if anyone believes child labor for a meal, is alright they need to be reevaluated. Seriously. No child should have to come to school hungry to only stay hungry. They are still developing and without food in their bodies, health issues can arise. No child deserves to be put to labor because they didn’t ask for that. They haven’t done anything wrong because they haven’t been given any chances.

Maijoua Vang, 16: I see something like this occurring in a less developed country, like Africa. I thought kids that are in a low income family could get free lunch at school. I feel like it is not fair for kids to be working at school to get free lunch. Why can’t lunch just be free to the students? The kids could volunteer to pick up trash and get some kind of treat. I think kids working for food at school is sad and I wouldn’t want to see it happen. Sometimes it may not be fair if the kids had to miss lunch or breakfast. I think the act is a bad idea. Our parents are paying taxes and the tax money can go towards food.

Cloe, 18: The whole issue is ridiculous. Who in their right mind would make a child work for their food. Really? What kind of public education system has this turned into? Those children are already working hard enough with their little brains to actually stay in school and learn. Making them work for their lunches will just take away any motivation that they’ll have for going to school. Pretty soon they’ll get tired and annoyed with having to labor just to eat while at school .This should be seen as child abuse. It’s crazy how these old delegates in office expect the youth to “work” for their food, yet they themselves never had to do that during their childhood. I mean its not like if the schools are giving kids the top-notch expensive healthy foods. They [schools] get it subsidized.

Kevin Shelton, 20: These are children who give up 8-9 hours a day to learn and work hard academically.You never know their personal living condition. A daily meal should be provided to the dedication received on a daily basis. They are kids.

You are providing an image toward not being accepted for the work they do daily.

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In a city like Fresno, there are many public schools that also might have the same feelings regarding school safety. It is not an easy task to protect a school where roughly a thousand students attend, it is not to say that it is impossible but more changes can be made to prepare and protect from a tragedy.

For the most part most schools in fresno had finally gotten the memo a few years ago to have more campus safety officials and guards. When you walk onto a high school in Fresno you immediately notice that there are several campus safety officials on duty, and there are obvious reasons for that.

There are children in elementary schools who bring guns and knives onto school campus, as it has happened in Fresno. One may argue that they are only kids and that all they did was bring a plastic toy or weapon, but the message is there. Violence has become a normal part of  what we and the media have accepted and portrayed. This is instilled into youth minds as being okay- its not.  This is a warning that there is definitely something wrong, and there should be more measurements taken to protect the future of america, because it all starts with the children.

To read more of The kNOw’s stories on violence, visit the SafeZone section of our website.

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Three years ago, members of SUCCESS (Students United to Create a Climate of Engagement, Support and Safety) started working to make Fresno schools better through restorative justice. Because of their hard work, FUSD board members voted on May 8 to implement restorative justice practices in several Fresno schools.

Watch the resolution, the vote, remarks from SUCCESS youth and see what the future holds for restorative justice in Fresno.

Fresno Bee: Fresno Unified trustees back ‘restorative justice’ discipline policy

Read more restorative justice stories from The kNOw.

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Just this year, droughts, Hurricane Sandy and home-destroying fires in Colorado, all linked to our warming planet, have taken a huge toll on our country.

Although the media exposes and covers them broadly, many youth do the minimum to aid in conserving our planet. As shocking as it might seem, I think teenagers are not putting effort into reducing, reusing and recycling. What is the cause of this pervasive sense of indifference? Is their lack of caring for the planet’s current state a result of the many technological advances that have occurred in recent decades? Are all of these distractions the reason teens don’t worry about the effect we have on our environment?

Although technology greatly impacts how we live our lives and it has helped facilitate our everyday tasks, I believe youth’s reliance on it perpetuates inaction. In turn, this reliance has negatively impacted our environment. People stopped noticing nature even more with the development of the computer. This leap in technology enables us to see images of any landscape instantaneously and allows them to ignore our rivers running dry from environmental contamination. Computers, cell phones, cars, the Internet and many other revolutionary inventions lead to people cooped up indoors and tuning out the beauty of nature. Instead of going outside and exploring nature, we stay indoors and submerge ourselves into the world of the Internet. Our everyday use of so many machines has also changed our social lives.

This “virtual social life” distracts us from what is really going on in the world. We ignore the events that affect us daily and allow them to progress as time goes on. The Internet plays a major role in shaping our society and world.

The cars of a big city like Fresno greatly contribute to the poor air quality in our area. Another great contributor to our air quality is the valley’s geography. Fresno is surrounded by mountains that cause smog to accumulate here.

“At one point my son was in the hospital for five days because of an asthma attack,” said Kimberly Hau, Edison High School’s Environmental Awareness Club adviser. Learning about Hau’s experience with environmental health effects, it was horrifying to find that more than one fifth of all children in the valley suffer from asthma and that this is a part of everyday life for many living in the Central Valley. The valley’s air quality affects us more than we realize and we as a community can work to prevent the health problems that affect us. Fresno’s geography cannot be changed but what Fresno’s community is doing can be improved.

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Youth Speak: The Boston Marathon Bombings

“All I saw was ‘Pray for Boston.’”

Ashley, 16
When I heard about the bombings, I was at home eating food and watching TV. All I saw was “Pray for Boston.” So I asked my mom, “What happened in Boston?” She didn’t know. She had just come home from work, so how would she know?

The day after: Grieved citizens left inspiring messages near the crime scene. Photo: Vjeran Pavic

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New America Media, Question & Answer, Nicole Hudley, Posted: Apr 15, 2013

New America Media: Given the recent focus on approaches to reducing suspensions, why are suspension rates a problem for California?

Jane Stevens: Suspension rates for California schools are just way too high. If you look at the data you’ll see – some schools had more suspensions than they had students.

NAM: What are some of issues that might lead to a student being suspended and how can things be done differently? 

Stevens: Little triggers, depending on what’s happening in a kid’s life — say a teacher yelling — can just set the kid off. Or a loud noise can set a kid off who is living in a neighborhood where there is a lot of gun violence.

A kid in San Francisco had to spend the night at a hotel because there’s gun violence outside of the home. That’s pretty freaky for a young kid and anything might set that kid off. So when they come to school the next morning, we say, let’s just give this kid a big long time out and let them go into the “peace corner” with a cozy bean bag and just listen to soothing music for a while, or they can pop bubble wrap, or massage their hands with lotion, or do breathing exercises. These tools [allow students] to recognize when they are becoming like a volcano and they can begin self-regulation before things get out of hand.

NAM: Can you describe what kind of work Safe and Civil Schools has done in Fresno?

Stevens: With Safe and Civil Schools in particular, we look for the kids that are having issues — it’s not just the kids that are acting out, but also the kids that are withdrawn and quiet. They’re so frightened that they’re just turning off. It’s checking in with those kids and seeing how they’re doing and how we can offer help.

Safe and Civil Schools also helps give teachers tools to help them deal with issues before the situation gets out of hand. Before, if there was a kid that the teacher just didn’t get along with, they would already have a referral slip filled out, and all the kid had to do was say “Boo” and they would be sent to the principal’s office.

NAM: And you also deal with the larger school community, correct?

Stevens: Safe and Civil Schools sets up a school wide system for school wide goals and values, things like respect and academic achievement. It sets in place what the behavioral expectations are. It acknowledges kids for good behavior. It also puts in place a reporting system so the principal can get an idea of how things are progressing and make changes in the classroom.

NAM: What can schools do with this data?

Stevens: In one high school, in Kings County, they were looking at the data – and in all the classes on one particular day there was a lot of behavior issues. They had a whole bunch of referrals just during a particular class period. They had just changed the class schedule – and on that day that class was almost 2 hours long. With the data, the school figured out what was going on and made changes, like offering a break, so they weren’t expecting a student to sit for 2 hours.

NAM: How does the approach of the Safe and Civil Schools program compare to restorative justice programs?

Stevens: Restorative justice practices are very useful, but a school that does only restorative justice practices won’t be helping all the students. It really only helps the students that have the least behavior problems. For a restorative justice practice to work, the student has to have already calmed down … then they can acknowledge what happened and deal with the aftermath. Restorative justice also doesn’t address a student that’s too depressed.

NAM: How would Safe and Civil Schools help calm a student down?

Stevens: You do not lock them up in an isolation room. You do get them away from everyone else, but you get someone who can talk them down. You really have to think about how your brain is structured. When you’re traumatized, your lower brain takes over. It’s like a rider on a horse and the horse is going crazy. You’ve got to help the kid calm down. It might take an hour or two to get that thinking brain back on the horse and assimilate the information. When that thinking brain is off, nothing will penetrate.

NAM: Is trauma really an issue for many students?

Stevens: The data shows that 66 percent Americans have endured some type of severe or chronic trauma. But when you have 2 or 3 or 4 types of chronic trauma going on at once, that’s when you have a kid that’s just walking on the edge all the time. Kids like this are practically guaranteed to not be engaged, because their minds aren’t capable. If that school is adding to the trauma that the kid is already experiencing, than that kid doesn’t have a chance.

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Restorative justice workshop, rally energizes FUSD board, students

Students, parents, teachers and allies addressed Fresno Unified’s school board members during a school discipline workshop on April 10th. Their message: restorative justice is the answer to keeping students in school, learning.

After the workshop, 200 students and community supporters rallied outside the school board room for restorative justice implementation. Watch the video and hear the outcome of their efforts.

Fresno Bee: Fresno Unified leaders embrace alternate discipline as 200 rally in support of change

Read more restorative justice stories from The kNOw.

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On March 31st several states, including California, celebrate Cesar Chavez‘s birthday to honor his hard work and accomplishments as a dedicated civil rights activist. Because we live in a state where the majority of our population are immigrants or of immigrant descent, many families suffer when their family members get deported, among other obstacles they undergo daily as an illegal immigrant. People are left without their siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins. Many times American born children are left without parents when they get deported for being here illegally. Families have to struggle to obtain bank accounts or purchase things such as houses or cars.

The biggest struggle they undergo is that of finding work that doesn’t put them under extreme conditions. Yet more often than not they have no choice but to work in the fields all year long under the blazing hot sun and the freezing cold winter. Although these people do come to America illegally, they do it with a purpose. They come to find a better future for themselves and their children, yet they are not given the opportunity to better themselves and are taken advantage of.

In Fresno, there are many people who are immigrants or have a relative that has come to America illegally. Yet immigration status should not be an excuse to be mistreated. Chavez advocated for the rights of Latino Americans and influenced the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Today, years after his death, Latino American immigrants still struggle yet there is renewed hope due to recent stir in our country’s immigration policy. Obama is proposing immigration reform that can be put into action as soon as possible.

Chavez influenced Obama so much that he used his “Si se puede” slogan, translated to “Yes we can,” during his campaign. President Obama has also proposed to make Cesar Chavez Day a national holiday. Although that has not yet been accomplished, the fight continues to ensure the same rights that Chavez fought for. With this ongoing effort by many, Cesar Chavez Day is celebrated.

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The first few months of senior year I thought to myself, “Hey, this isn’t that bad. I’m not tired of school just yet.” At that time I didn’t think applying for college would be the least bit stressful. The idea didn’t even cross my mind. I’d maintained a 3.88 cumulative GPA while being involved in various character-building organizations up to this point. I thought I would be a shoo-in to receive financial assistance for college.
Beginning the whole process was simple; there wasn’t much that needed to be done, except filling in general information. Then I came across a page that asked for family income, and not knowing where to find that information, I asked for help. When I got the answer I needed, I put in the estimated amount of the family income that was generally made each year. When the application was finished, there was an option for a fee waiver for low income families that I applied for and was later denied. Since that time, I have done my best to contact the Office of Admissions to appeal the denied application fee waiver and for weeks there wasn’t any helpful feedback. After speaking to the Ambassador of my potential colleges, I was able to apply for a petition against my denied fee waiver.

With this unresolved situation and patience was all that was left. none of my phone calls or emails were returned. Typically, the solution to my problem would be to pay the fee that is required and mail the petition to the school’s Admissions office. Unfortunately without the fee waiver, paying the fee wasn’t an option for me. After long nights of stress and annoying headaches, I sent another email to my school counselor, explaining my situation to see what else could be done to submit my application in time.

As I waited for a satisfying response, old conversations filled my mind with anxiety. Before talking to the Ambassador, I asked my brother if he could help me fix my problem, considering he attended the school that I applied to. His response to my plea for assistance was, “If you were denied a fee waiver, you won’t get financial aid, either.” Those words constantly played in my head during class, and I thought to myself, “What else can be done if my fee waiver wasn’t approved?” So day after day I continued to search for new ways to speak to someone who could possibly help me. Day after day I was left at square one. The extra effort didn’t get me anywhere, and pessimistic thoughts set in. All this negativity left me bitter about attending college.

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