A staff of six community ambassadors will be monitoring student safety before and after school as part of the West Long Beach Safe Passages Program.
The Long Beach Unified School District unanimously approved a safe route program at its Feb. 7 meeting for students in West Long Beach to address the dangers of walking around gang violence-impacted areas.
The West Long Beach Safe Passages Program is a partnership between the district and Centro CHA—a local non-profit organization serving the Latino and Hispanic community through various initiatives and programs.
The program will serve Stephens Middle School and Cabrillo High School by having safety check points across the Santa Fe corridor. Community leaders will be placed at these points to ensure students can safely make their way to school and back home from their respective campuses.
“It’s important that our district, being the second largest district in the county, but also one of the largest districts in the state, takes these types of bold investments into our community, and ensures that we have safety for our children,” Centro CHA executive director Jessica Quintana said. ”[We] have to have the same type of safety as other areas in our communities for our youth and families to be able to live, work and thrive.”
The program will operate Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m in the afternoon. The minimum days after school schedule will be from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on minimum days.
While the contract states the program will be funded until June 30 of this year, the district hopes this trial period will lead to a more permanent partnership.
Program goals include:
- Reducing the instances of police contact and youth arrests before and after school hours.
- Decreasing student trauma, stress and harm by providing wellness support and connecting them with community resources.
- Increasing parent leadership at these schools.
- Increasing and promoting school attendance.
Centro CHA will train and hire on a part-time basis:
- A Safety Ambassador Coordinator who will facilitate community watch activities and monitor the schedules for the rest of the Safe Routes staff.
- Two Block Safety Captains who will serve as first responders when professional responders are not immediately available to help by monitoring campus safety and coordinating and training Safety Ambassadors.
- Three Safe Passages Ambassadors who will help monitor designated safety routes and use communication protocols to reduce and prevent community violence or injury risks.
“I am glad that the Long Beach Unified School District and our leadership in particular is taking a high priority and making sure that our kids have safe passage, but more importantly having people that are connected to our neighborhoods as community outreach representatives,” board member Erik Miller said.
Aside from morning and after school monitoring, Centro CHA alongside the Safe Passage staff will also lead student/parent workshops, send out surveys to identify the needs of youth, parents and LBUSD staff and host a monthly partner meeting the third Thursday of each month.
The contract also states that Centro CHA will need to collect data and report monthly to LBUSD about the number of youth, parents, businesses and nonprofits contacted as well as program participant demographics.
”[We] have to have the same type of safety as other areas in our communities for our youth and families to be able to live, work and thrive.”
Centro CHA executive director Jessica Quintana
This is the first time Centro CHA is partnering with the district to implement this program, although they previously launched a similar Safe Passages Program in 2016. Quintana emphasized the importance of ensuring the program is continuous.
“To start up costs way more money than continuing these programs. We know they are effective, they’re evidence based, they’re culturally appropriate, they’re age appropriate and they really reduce violence in our communities,” Quintana said.
The program will be funded through a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Justice and $236,000 from the district’s Title IV student support and academic enrichment grants. While the contract states the program will be funded until June 30 of this year, the district hopes this trial period will lead to a more permanent partnership.
“We really want to learn our way into what is supportive and how we can be most supportive,” Deputy Superintendent Tiffany Brown said. “And then from that we look to grow into other spaces to include community partnership and include partnership with the city.”
Related Reading
