Meet two Johnson students trying to get it right

Idalia had a knife; Amancia had an issue with a gun. But that was then.

Each of the 100 students at Johnson Community Day School in South Los Angeles has had serious problems at their middle or high schools--run-ins that include truancy, drug use or brushes with the law.

That’s why they ended up at Johnson.

(Amancia Westby, 16, looks over her assignment at Johnson.)

Now, they face an additional challenge, getting to a new campus in another part of town. Their current school is being torn down to make way for a new 2,000-student high school.

But their presence at Johnson means they’re still trying. Read on for the stories of Idalia and Amancia.

Idalia Hinojosa, a 16-year-old junior, has returned to Johnson for the second time. Her initial enrollment was the result of being caught with a knife at Gage Middle School.

As she tells it, she was a victim of circumstance—sort of.

Her career at Gage had been going badly: She was arrested for fighting; her grades were poor. After agreeing to a curfew and other informal probation measures, she began to turn things around, she recounted, and make good grades.

Then, on the very day that her probation  ended, she learned that a friend had brought a knife to school to use in a fight. She persuaded her friend to give her the weapon, to make bloodshed less likely. Her friend agreed.

And on that day, for the first time Idalia could recall, her class was chosen to be included in a random student search. The teacher asked if Idalia would be one of six students to volunteer for the search. The teacher knew Idalia had changed and presumed there would be no problem.

That was the end of Gage.

Idalia spent a year and six months at Johnson, finishing middle school there.

Then she went to Manual Arts High School in South Los Angeles, and found herself near “too much drama, too much fighting.”

She switched to Huntington Park High and started off well, but then began to skip class: “It’s too easy to ditch there.”

She and her mother mutually decided she needed an intervention, and Johnson seemed the logical solution.

“I got used to being in a smaller school and getting help from the teachers,” Idalia said. “Johnson is not just a school. It’s like a family.”

Idalia was elected student body vice president this fall.

Amancia Westby, a 16-year-old senior, made one very bad decision with her tote bag last May, and she’s still trying to recover.

Amancia, then a junior at Manual Arts, had wandered off campus for fast food after a coach didn’t show for basketball practice. There, she saw a former student that she remembered from a physical education class in 10th grade.

The boy was carrying a gun in a T-shirt, showing it off.

But he wanted a bag to put it in, to stash it out of sight. He asked a couple of other students first, but they were headed home. Amancia was going back to campus. So she lent him her tote bag, figuring to get it back after practice.

Amancia returned to Manual Arts, and the boy entered the campus as well.

The boy couldn’t resist pulling the gun in and out of the tote bag. He also was having fun loading and unloading the 14 bullets from the 9 millimeter Beretta  — Amancia learned the make of the gun during court testimony.

With the coach still a no show, Amalia decided to go home. The boy removed the gun from the tote, and she took the bag. They had started to head in different directions when the police descended from all directions.

A security camera had captured more than enough on film.

“I got in trouble because I knew he had gun,” she said.

Her immediate suspension caused her to flunk all her classes that semester. She then spent a month in a juvenile facility before starting at Johnson on July 23.

“I like this school,” she said. “Everybody knows each other. You get more out of the work and you understand it better.”

She said she also feels safer at Johnson, where all arrivals must be buzzed in. She said there were too many fights at Manual Arts, too many security lockdowns and too many gang members in the surrounding streets after school.

But because her transgression involved a firearm, district officials have concluded she should be expelled entirely from the L.A. Unified. They want to send her to a county school, one that handles students considered to be difficult criminal cases.

Johnson Principal Victorio Gutierrez regards that decision as unfair and counterproductive. He said Amancia, who comes across as shy and polite, has been a model student and a successful one. She deserves to remain at Johnson, he said. So far, Gutierrez has not prevailed.

The Johnson campus, just blocks from her home, has been convenient for Amancia and her mother. And they both want her to stay. Her mother doesn't even mind the impending commute to Hollywood, Amancia said.

“She thinks farther away is better,” Amancia said. “No more gangs.”

-- Howard Blume

Photo by Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Timothy Harris]

I was readig the story concerning the johnson school. Here are three schools that are large enough to place them there.

4000 Santo Tomas Dr, (Marlton school).
2302 S. Gramercy Pl, ( Widney High School).
2328 St. James Pl, ( Lanterman High School).

These schools are loctaed in South Central LA.
Hope this helps.

[Rachel Cohen]

I don't get why this move is such a "challenge" for these people. How do they expect to get to work?

[News]

I know one of them!

[Raechelle]

I ATTEND JOHNSON CDS. AMANCIA IS A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE AND EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES IN LIFE