The school board in San Bruno, California, is looking into funding a gang prevention program. An increase in gang activity in the community and in nearby San Francisco has led the school board president to look into gang prevention programs for her district. There are several refreshing points about this article:
1. The school board is looking into this proactively. While it is widely known that gang activity in larger surrounding cities will eventually impact smaller suburbs, it is usually denied or ignored by those suburbs until something drastic happens.
2. They are looking into prevention programs. A successful gang model addresses both prevention and enforcement, but usually funds are diverted to law enforcement first to address crime.
3. They are looking into an established program which has had success in other areas. A lot of times when programs like this are explored, there are pre-determined local agencies who get the funding because they are in some way connected to the local school board members. This does not appear to be the case in this one.
4. The program will be targeted at both intermediate and high school aged students. As you can see from many of my previous posts, programs targeted at the intermediate/middle school/junior high aged kids are very important. These are the years that kids are joining gangs.
I’m thinking about contacting the board president. Either way, I will monitor this story to see what decisions are made.
I also added another blog to the “Blogs I Read” section. Nuggets, Gems, & Pearls is a great source for a lot of information. Go check her out.
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