No School for Delinquents in our Neighborhood!

Ink in Moleskine notebook
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When I finished drawing these people at the neighborhood meeting, I realized I’d compressed the space so that people are crammed together much more than they actually were. I wish I would have thought to capture some of the angry expressions as people spoke instead of everyone just looking sort of bored.

Tonight there was a neighborhood meeting to protest the placement in my neighborhood of a school for “high risk” middle and high school students who’ve been expelled from public school. Many are on probation for committing crimes. They plan to stick the kids in a former elementary school just two blocks from my house that is currently used as an adult school for classes like Yoga, Spanish, Ballroom Dance and English as a Second Language. Nearly 100 neighbors showed up at the meeting and spoke out vociferously against the plan. It looks like it could go either way at this point. Somehow the district slipped this plan through without Board approval or community notification but now it will be on the next board meeting agenda.

I sure hope we’re successful in fighting it since just last month the board approved (against the neighborhood association’s vote) to allow a public alternative high school to move into what has been until now a small private elementary school with a focus on Japanese language (and well-behaved children) that is just two blocks the other direction. Even though that high school’s brochure claims to be all about group hugs, yoga and community service, the idea of 150 teenagers just a block away is not at all appealing.

When I was house hunting I was always a little wary of neighborhoods that the realtor claimed had strong neighborhood groups because I figured there was a reason they needed one. But in the Bay Area, with some of the most expensive housing in the country, I feel fortunate to have been able to buy my own home at all. And this is a wonderful neighborhood with the best neighbors I’ve ever had and now I’m glad for the strong the neighborhood association.