Police Help Sought to Curb Campus Crime : High schools: One of the youth service officers says it is not an instructor’s job to teach students about gangs and drugs.

To help discourage gang membership and crime on campus, Ventura County high schools are turning more to police for help in the classroom.

“It’s not a teacher’s job to teach students about gangs and drugs and crime,” said Oxnard Detective Eugene Rodriguez. “That’s our job.”

Rodriguez is a youth service officer in the Oxnard Union High School District and spends much of his time counseling students about everything from truancy to date rape.

“I had a 19-year-old son who died two years ago of substance abuse,” Rodriguez said. “So I take it personally.”

While it is common for elementary and junior high students to receive counseling through police programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), because of budget constraints, county high school students have little contact with police officers in the classroom.

But that is slowly changing as Ventura County school officials realize the advantages of having law enforcement officers on high school campuses.

School officials said they believe police should be playing a much different role on campuses than the D.A.R.E. officers, who are mostly concerned with trying to prevent younger students from getting involved with gangs and drugs.

They said that aside from helping to patrol the campus and talking with students, police should be able to share information with school officials about crime both on and off campus.

“That’s the most important part of the program,” said Rodriguez, who has made several arrests based on information received from students.

The Ventura and Moorpark school districts are now working with officials in those cities to come up with the money to hire police officers to work on their high school campuses.

“I think we’re going to see more of this in Ventura County,” said Clint Harper, a Moorpark school board member. “As we continue to urbanize and see more and more problems, like gangs and graffiti, we’re going to have to be more proactive.

“If you don’t head off the problem now,” Harper said, “it’s going to be a law enforcement nightmare for the community later.”

Some Moorpark High School students, however, said there are few problems at the school, and they oppose having a police officer on campus.

“It’s unnecessary because the people who need help don’t respect the police to begin with,” said Saleem Aaron, a senior at Moorpark High. “Besides, the police are already free to come on campus any time they want.”

But Harper said school officials have become concerned about police officers coming on campus to question students about ongoing investigations. He said such problems could be avoided by having an officer on campus who works with students on a regular basis.

Harper estimates it would cost $50,000 or more per year to pay for an officer and has suggested that the city help cover the cost.

“Ultimately, it’s a good investment,” he said. “I think it would be a good partnership between the school district and the city.”

Moorpark City Councilman John Wozniak has said he may bring the issue up at the council’s meeting on Wednesday.

Other districts, such as Simi Valley and Fillmore, already have their own high school police programs.

Simi Valley Police Officer St. Laurent has worked closely with junior and senior high students for the past two years. Laurent, who dresses in civilian clothes when he visits schools, said he has developed a strong rapport with students.

Like Rodriguez, Laurent said he also has made arrests on and off campus from leads he received from students. More importantly, Laurent said, being on campus gives him the opportunity to talk with students in a non-threatening manner.

“I think they see that I’m not the big bad cop on campus,” Laurent said. “They see I’m there to make it safe for all of them.”

But while students support having a police officer on campus, they question the plan’s effectiveness.

“If somebody wants to be in a gang, they’re going to be in a gang no matter what the police say,” said Brenda Ernst, a 15-year-old sophomore at Royal High School in Simi Valley.

Classmate Joe Brown, 16, agreed.

“Most people I know don’t even like the cops,” he said. “So I don’t think it’s going to make any difference.”

Yet David Jackson, principal of Royal High, said he feels strongly that the program has helped to minimize problems on campus.

“It’s a wonderful outreach for kids, and a way for them to get correct information about the law,” Jackson said. “It’s worth its weight in gold” as a preventive measure.

The Oxnard Union High School District has had police officers working with students on its six campuses for more than 10 years, longer than any other district in the county.

When the city announced last summer that it could no longer pay for the program, Channel Islands and Oxnard high school officials felt it was so critical that they agreed to each pay $10,000 annually to keep it going.

Four months ago, Detective Rodriguez assumed the position of youth service officer for the district. He said he requested the assignment because he had a strong desire to work with troubled youths.

Once in his new job, Rodriguez began working to improve the counseling program.

He said he is talking with several movie celebrities who live in the area about volunteering their time to work with students. He is also negotiating with local businesses to arrange for summer jobs.

For those students who are having discipline problems or trouble keeping up with their studies, Rodriguez draws up contracts that promise a reward if they change their ways.

Students must avoid any discipline problems and cannot miss school for 30 days, Rodriguez said.

The reward is a weekend day trip. Once a month, Rodriguez will take a group of students on excursions outside the city. At his own expense, he has taken students fishing around Channel Islands and up to Rose Valley to play in the snow.

Last week, Rodriguez went to Oxnard High School to sign up new recruits for a chance to go water skiing at Lake Piru. But some students wanted to negotiate their own contracts.

“Say I don’t go to P.E.?” asked Miguel Moran, 15.

“If you ditch class, you don’t go,” Rodriguez said.

“What if I get a note from my mother?”

“Well, that’s not a violation of your contract,” Rodriguez said. “Just make sure that you don’t write the note.”

Miguel said afterward that he planned to obey the rules because he wanted to go water skiing, something he had not done before.

“It’s bad,” he said. “I mean it’s good. I think I can do it.”

Classmate Fernando Gonzales, 15, also liked the idea.

“It’s a good way to keep kids off the street,” Fernando said. “But if you want to go, you really have to earn it.”

Fernando said he liked Rodriguez. He said he felt the detective was sincere in trying to help students.

“He’s cool,” Fernando said. “He looks like one of us.”

Although he trained school officials on using metal detectors to search students for weapons, Rodriguez said he does not agree with the district’s decision to use the scanning devices.

“I think there’s a lot of other things they could have done with education first,” he said.

The district will begin conducting the random searches of students on Wednesday.