Hold on to your wallets, kids! Ex’pression College for Digital Arts, a for-profit college, is opening up a new campus in San Jose in September 2012. According to the San Jose Business Journal, the school is leasing 65,000 square feet of office space in Ridder Park Technology Center in North San Jose. The group plans to spend $3 million to rehabilitate the space and will serve up to 550 students. Their main bay area campus, serving 650 students, is located in Emeryville.
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More Nonprofits Should Consider Mergers
InnVision and Habitat for Humanity Silicon Valley recently announced that they are merging with similar organizations from other parts of the Bay Area. It is great to see nonprofits with similar missions merging to form stronger entities. Both had executives who were willing to look at the big picture, ensuring their respective nonprofits were able to continue serving the community. It makes sense for more nonprofits to seek opportunities to combine forces, especially when the CEO is leaving the organization.
Foster Care Advocates March on City Hall
On Monday, I was invited to join a march to San Jose City Hall that was organized by the local chapter of the California Youth Connection (CYC). CYC is a youth-led organization that aims to develop leaders who will empower each other and their communities to transform the foster care system through legislative and policy change.
‘Zombie’ Drug Poses Serious Health Risk
Apparently, the zombie apocalypse has started. At least, that was the word from my teenage son. If you have a teenager in the house, or you read the news, you likely heard about the 31-year-old man in Miami who chewed the face off of a homeless man and was fatally shot by police when he wouldn’t stop his attack. Authorities are speculating that the attacker was high on bath salts. This isn’t the stuff you soak with in the bathtub; bath salts are a relatively new synthetic drug, and are still legal in many states.
A Better Approach to Runaways
The number of runaways in the United States has been widely debated, but a 10-year-old study by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention estimated the number at 1.7 million. No matter the estimate, we know kids do run away, often due to violence in the home or family conflict. While on the streets, they are often prey to criminal activities, drug use, and sexual assault. So what can a police officer do when confronting a suspected underage runaway?
Saint James Post Office Clear of Anthrax
One might have wondered if law enforcement was targeting the homeless Tuesday morning, as people were cleared from Saint James Park. One would have been wrong in that assumption. According to reports, emergency personnel were responding to a package covered in white powder at Saint James Park Post Office on North First Street. The substance was not anthrax or another chemical weapon but an herbal remedy from Taiwan, ordered by a man for his child.
How Police Profiling Can Go Wrong
In a recent civil case, a San Jose police officer was found liable for using excessive force on Danny Piña, who was misidentified as a gang member. Piña was wearing a red shirt and police stopped him for riding a bike with a missing headlamp. The jury found that the officer, Allan De La Cruz, used excessive force when he broke Piña’s nose and dislocated his shoulder. I have a 16-year-old son who had a similar experience of being misidentified by police, based on what he looks like and there being a gang presence in the neighborhood.
Shooting Shows Need for Better Gun Laws
A 9-year-old boy in Washington, described as frightened and crying, sat in front of a judge in juvenile court waiting to see if he would be granted bail for a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. The boy found a gun at his mother’s house, put it in his backpack and took it to school. When he put his backpack down, the gun went off, critically wounding an 8-year-old girl. This comes from a brief Associated Press article in a local paper. There are questions that went through my mind about this story: How is a nine-year-old competent to stand trial? And, Washington State grants bail for kids? Thee state of California doesn’t do that–isn’t bail to make sure someone shows up for court? And why did he bring the gun to school?
Directing Dollars to Most Fragile Students
The bi-weekly meeting of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) board convenes Wednesday evening this week at Anne Darling School, 1550 Marburg Way. At the meeting, the county board of education will be presented with an oral report on special education services the office provides to approximately 2,150 special needs students from ages 3 to 22. The services—albeit very costly due to the enormous physical, emotional, and educational needs of the students—are a moral imperative.
Scared Straight Programs Are All Talk
“Scared Straight”, the popular 1978 documentary by Arnold Shapiro, has been brought to television as “Beyond Scared Straight.” I avoided watching the new reality television series because all the research shows the scare tactics of taking kids to jail for a day does not work. I was hoping that after one season the show would die and just go away. Unfortunately, it is back for a new season.
Juvenile Hall Only Creates More Convicts
I have been working most of my adult life to reduce the number of kids locked up in jails. It has been an uphill battle in most communities, especially in the last decade when we have passed legislation allowing juveniles to be tried as adults. A new report is out by the reputable Annie E. Casey Foundation that supports my belief that juvenile hall is not rehabilitative and is ineffective in preventing future criminal behavior.
Legislation Will Help Foster Youth
Editor’s Note: Sparky Harlan, Executive Director/CEO at Bill Wilson Center, is a new columnist for San Jose Inside. She is a nationally recognized advocate for youth in foster care and in the juvenile justice system, as well as homeless and runaway youth.
Last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a flurry of bills. One that missed the media’s attention was AB 194, authored by our own assemblyman, Jim Beall. As legislation goes, this was a simple bill—youth aging out of foster care (ages 18-24) will now have priority to register for classes in state community colleges and universities. There was no opposition to the bill.
The Externalities of Mental Illness
A stranger attempting to lure a three year old away from the child’s older sister with candy is odd, not to mention, bold. For the stranger to then follow the two children into their home and try to pry the younger child from her mother’s arms is unbelievable. Although this might sound like a nightmare, this scenario actually took place last week in San Jose. The stranger is a woman whom suffers from mental illness and was subsequently arrested.
Open Letter to Joe Biden
I know you care deeply about the success of our nation’s educational systems and the student clients they serve. You and your boss advocate for an education system that is second to none. Early childhood education can be the great equalizer between poor and wealthy families. The $21,495,317 that Santa Clara County receives in federal funding for Early Head Start and Head Start saves the taxpayer at least four times that much, if Head Start did not exist.
Neighborhoods Send Message to High Speed Rail Authority: Put the Trains Underground
The following is the text of a letter that was hand delivered to California High Speed Rail Authority CEO Roelof van Ark following his Sept. 29, 2010 speech to the San Jose Rotary Club by San Jose Downtown Association Executive Director Scott Knies. In an unprecedented show of unity, the letter was signed by leaders of 10 central San Jose neighborhood associations and the heads of the city’s two leading business associations.
Neighborhood and business groups in central San Jose urge the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) to include an underground option for San Jose in the project’s Environment Impact Report.
Common Goals vs. Partisan Gridlock
Our political gridlock is creating a potentially disastrous future for the next several generations. And from my perspective things are getting a lot worse. Will we ever be able to extricate ourselves from the monstrous hole we are digging by our partisanship? Isn’t it our obligation to find middle ground in our positions to solve the huge issues of our day?
