Local CA High School Students Schedule Walk In To Speak Out Against Lausd Budget Cuts S.t.a.t.

PRLog (Press Release) - May 25, 2010 - “This isn't just a problem at Cleveland High School, not just in LAUSD..but we have to start somewhere and it starts at our school. We are demonstrating that we are not complacent teenagers, we care A LOT and we need others to care A LOT.”

Reseda/Los Angeles County, CA –  Cleveland High School students are putting  the validity of recent education budget cuts to the test  by staging a Walk In on Friday, May 28th, 2010.  Symbolically scheduled to coincide with the county’s first government mandated furlough day, the peaceful protest against LAUSD cuts and for the future of education is set to take place at the Cleveland High School campus located at 8140 Vanalden Avenue, Reseda, CA 91335.

Organized by an impassioned student body and spearheaded by16 year old Cleveland High Juniors Paula Kahn and Michael Barba, the actionists which number in the hundreds plan to march around the perimeter of the school in protest before the Walk In where students, teachers, parents and community members will listen to speeches, spoken word poetry and chanting.

“Michael and I chose to organize a Student Walk-In,” said Kahn who resides in Reseda, CA. “Rather than walk-out of school, on a school day, away from our education, which could be very chaotic and misinterpreted as careless, we decided to Walk-In to school to show how much we value our education.”

Many school days have been cut from the school semester. Although it has been done to save some jobs, Cleveland High School students believe it should not have come to that in the first place.

“Education should be a top priority but it seems to have become one of California's last priorities,” continued Barba of Sylmar, CA. “If we as students stay silent, these cuts are not going to stop; they will continue to expand. Art programs, school clubs, sports, extracurricular activities, and counselors have been suffering from the lack of funding.”

Further motivating the enlightened students  is the fact that California ranks number one in prison spending but 47th in education spending.

“I like to say that education is the prevention of incarceration,” Kahn continued.  “We can't stand idly by and allow our education to progressively worsen because the people in power want to continue an extremely expensive war that is at its seventh year. We can't stand idly by as prisons become the home of a significant portion of our generation. A good quality education is a right. As students we are demanding for our civil rights and to have the rights to equal opportunity. This walk in is to gain attention towards these issues and to get more people involved.”

Cleveland High School students specific issues include:
-To prioritize spending on the education of youth over the spending of prisons and war.

-How are teens supposed to stay out of trouble when programs that are supposed to benefit them are cut and instead more policemen are hired to criminalize them?!

-Call for creation of a student counsel made up of representatives from every school in LAUSD that is allowed to present problems within schools directly to LAUSD and help make decisions regarding the budget.

-STUDENT power and ATTENTION. Students want to have input on how money is being spent on their education.

MEDIA INTERESTED IN ATTENDING THE EVENT OR SPEAKING WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED PEOPLE, PLEASE CONTACT LAUREN LEWIS.

CONTACT
Lauren Lewis
(818) 970-0052
llewispr@aol.com
laurenlewispr.com