Budget cuts, teacher layoffs and over-crowded classrooms have been headline stories across California in recent years, but Palisades High students were warned last week that now is the time to really pay attention to the crisis threatening their school year.'
'We're in the worst of it,' said Brooks Allen, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, when he talked to members of the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force chapter and other students on October 10. 'Now is the time to step up and fight for your education.'
Allen, a fierce advocate for educational opportunity, predicted that if the two education funding initiatives on the November 6 ballot'Proposition 30 and Proposition 38'are defeated, 'trigger cuts' could go into effect in the middle of this school year, and worst-case scenario budgets will be implemented.
This could mean slashing 20 days from the current school year across California and shrinking the year to just 160 days, creating 'the shortest school year in the industrialized world,' Allen said.
An early end to the school year would further undermine a public education system in California that already ranks 50th nationwide in student-teacher ratio and 46th in per pupil spending, and laid off 11 percent of the teaching workforce between 2007 and 2011.
'We are looking into an abyss'the worst in our lifetime,' Allen said, and he praised the STF for taking the initiative with its current campaign'fighting for the right to a quality public education for all students.
Back in September, Allen told student leaders from 14 STF schools across the Los Angeles region at a conference at UCLA, 'You have a strong voice if you choose to exercise it.' Last week at Pali, he provided some specific ideas.
He urged the 18 year olds to register to vote, and to encourage their friends of voting age and adults in their family to follow suit. 'When you leave today, make sure you share what you have learned with people who vote,' said Allen, who also emphasized the importance of the students' voice and action within the community. 'Change stems from our young leaders because their young voices can create much more change in Sacramento and beyond.'
Allen told the STF: 'The student voice doesn't get heard enough. When I am in Sacramento for hearings, you do not have student advocates'except on a very rare occasion. The whole group [referring the Senate Education Committee] gets silent when students do come up; all business grinds to a halt because they realize it's a special opportunity to actually hear directly from students.'
'Hearing Brooks Allen talk today was really energizing because it reminded me that we, as students, are not powerless,' said senior Kenzie Givens, the STF co-president. ''He demonstrated that it's possible to create lasting, impactful change within our community'that we can really stir up a lot of positive, progressive energy.'
Allen's visit to PaliHi is one of many events the HRW Student Task Force is holding this year to advocate for the right to education. Pali and four other chapters will co-host an Assembly candidate/education issues forum at 7 p.m. on October 25 at the Santa Monica Main Library. The League of Women Voters of Santa Monica is the co-sponsor.
The Pali STF meets every Wednesday at lunch under the guidance of teachers Angelica Pereyra and Sandra Martin. Visit: www.hrwstf.org.
By JACK DAVIS

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on behalf of people who say they were denied bail for minor offenses after being flagged by immigration authorities.
British filmmaker Duncan Roy, who says he spent nearly three months in L.A. County jails without a chance to post bail, is one of the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which will be filed today in U.S. District Court.
Roy was arrested Nov. 15 in Malibu on an extortion charge. He was in the country legally but was identified as a suspected illegal immigrant through a federal program called Secure Communities, which sends the fingerprints of all arrestees through an immigration database.
Sheriff's Department officials rejected Roy's repeated efforts to post $35,000 bail, citing a detention order by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the lawsuit alleges.
The ACLU and other plaintiffs' attorneys say the bail denials have been a blanket practice by the Sheriff's Department, affecting thousands of people who are subjected to ICE holds in local jails. The lawsuit notes that the denials may have ceased in the last week.
A Baca spokeswoman said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on its specifics. She disputed the charge that the Sheriff's Department has denied bail to anyone because of ICE holds.
"If you are able to post bail — say it's $10,000 — and you're an immigrant from wherever. With or without an ICE hold, we accept that," said the spokeswoman, Nicole Nishida.
A report by prison expert James Austin cites data from Baca's office indicating that at least 20,000 Los Angeles County inmates, nearly all of them Latino males, were subjected to ICE holds in 2011.
As many as 17 other counties, including Orange, San Bernardino, Sacramento and San Diego, also allegedly deny bail for defendants with ICE holds, according to John Bench, president of the Golden State Bail Agents Assn.
"The principle of bail is something so fundamental, that you shouldn't be held until you're found guilty," said Jennie Pasquarella, an ACLU attorney involved in the lawsuit.
The dangerous conditions in the nation's largest jail system, which will be overseen by a special monitor after a scathing report by a blue ribbon panel, add "insult to injury" for anyone detained unnecessarily, Pasquarella added.
The Obama administration's deportation policies, which rely on cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, have come under fire in California. Legislation that would have prohibited sheriffs and police departments from enforcing ICE holds in most cases was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown last month.
Denying bail to arrestees would go above and beyond Secure Communities, which requires only that local law enforcement agencies honor the 48-hour ICE holds.
Alain Martinez-Perez, another plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, was arrested in December following a domestic dispute. He spent several days behind bars while his cousin's efforts to post bail were rejected because he was under an immigration hold, the lawsuit says.
"People should not be abused in this way," Martinez-Perez, a 37-year-old immigrant from Mexico, said in an interview. "The law should reflect the need to protect all people. We come to America to make better lives, not to be abused and treated differently from others."
By Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-aclu-baca-20121019,0,2183199.story