facecovered A clean-cut white man in a plaid shirt and khakis lingered outside Rogers Middle School one afternoon last month, waiting for students to be released from another day of classes. But when the boys and girls began to pass through the campus exits, the man waited a little longer. Obviously, he was experienced at this.

Only when the children had reached the sidewalk did the man finally begin to interact with them, and in this legally permissible zone his reticence disappeared. As he engaged one or another of them in conversation while handing them pamphlets, he was self-assured, well-rehearsed and quite clear in his objective.

But everything changed when another adult arrived, a woman who’d been driving past the Belmont Heights school and didn’t like the look of things—the clear mismatch between grown-up and youngster in what clearly was an attempt at persuasion. She parked her car, grabbed a camera, approached the man and asked him what he was doing.

Faced with an equal, the guy clammed-and-covered—refusing to give so much as his name and blocking his face with the Christian booklets he’d been foisting on the kids—as he scurried back to his big panel van with “Christ Died for our Sins” painted on the side.

Jesus probably hadn’t had a so-called friend bail on Him this quickly since Simon Peter.

But the clean-cut man’s seeming creepiness and cowardice aside, what he was doing—standing on the public sidewalk outside a public school and approaching minor children with a religious (although it could have been political or who-knows-what) kind of message—is not illegal.

classtalk IT OUGHT TO BE, asserts a group of Lakewood High School seniors enrolled in a legislative-advocacy class called Civic Voice. They say they are weary of fending off the Bibles periodically forced upon them by the Gideon Society, appalled by the hate that was spewed last spring by the Westboro Baptist Church during a chaotic demonstration outside Wilson High and concerned that the children following them through the school system may face much worse. They contend it is unfair for proselytizing adults to opportunistically use schools to prey on young prospects who are helpless to avoid their advances.

“It’s a law that we have to come to school every day,” points out Todd Thomas, one of about 40 students sprinkled among the three Civic Voice classes overseen by teacher Wendy Salaya. “At home, I don’t have to open the door when someone knocks. At the store, I don’t have to use the entrance where someone may be standing—or I don’t have to go to that store at all.

“But walking in and out of school, I don’t have a choice; there are only a few entrances and exits, and every day I have to go through one of them. If some adult is waiting there to talk to me, I can’t avoid it.”

During months of classroom discussion, the Lakewood High students hammered out a proposal they believe would solve the problem—the establishment of a 100-foot “safety-zone perimeter” around every kindergarten-through-12th-grade public school in California. Within that zone, the solicitation of minors by adults would be illegal.

Late last month, the students requested such a law in individual letters to their local representatives in Sacramento. salaya Less than a week later, Assembly member Warren Furutani agreed to take their cause through the legislative process.

“It’s an issue that’s definitely worth looking at,” said Furutani. “It’s even more exciting because it is real, grass-roots democracy—the practical application of an idea coming from constituents.

“I’m going to go to their class as soon as possible, probably after holiday break, to talk about the whole process of having bill become a law. And then we’re gonna go through the real process—this is not going to just be an exercise, we’re not going to do this hypothetically. They are going to see the realities of an idea that maybe becomes a bill that maybe becomes a law.”

NOBODY IN TEACHER WENDY SALAYA’S second-floor classroom seemed to notice the Lakewood High pep band that was sis-bah-booming it’s rah-rah-rah through a bank of open windows from the quad below. For one thing, it happens every Friday.

But in this instance, it also happened that the students were so engrossed in discussion—about First Amendment issues like freedom of speech, religion, assembly and the right to petition the government, not to mention the intention of James Madison when he pushed to include these American guarantees in the Bill of Rights—that their normally distractible natures were overpowered by an exhilaratingly weird power of concentration. Well, until the bell, anyway.

“The issue of a safety perimeter around public schools is important to us because we’ve nearly all had the experience of being approached by adults on the sidewalks outside our schools,” said Brandon Perez, explaining the group’s focus. kidsdesks

Their specific concerns differ, but most of the students acknowledge what adolescents are stereotypically famous for denying—that they don’t know and can’t handle as much as their parents and other adults.

Some students cite their physical vulnerability; others acknowledge their comparative inexperience or immaturity; many believe it’s their parents’ right to determine when and how they are exposed to certain topics; a few point out that they don’t yet possess all their rights, and thus aren’t sufficiently armed to contest an adult.

“Groups try to target minors,” said Josh Abplanalp, who started a Facebook page for the class—Citizens For Safe Schools (Student Group). “We don’t really know what to believe about most subjects. We’re still learning, still accumulating knowledge and experience.”

“The biggest issue for me is safety,” says Addy Baldwin. “I have a sister in elementary school, and I wouldn’t want someone going to her school and handing out things. Who knows who those people are? They could be predators—we don’t know their background. It’s a safety issue for little kids because they may not know how to say no.” bookshades

Maybe for big kids, too.

“I got handed a Bible when the Gideons came around last year, and it made me feel kinda fearful,” said Andrew Hobbs. “None of us knew these people. Any one of them could be some weird killer guy, coming up to hand you stuff.”

Couldn’t that happen anywhere?

“Yeah,” said Hobbs, “but when you’re at school you’re supposed to be safe.”

Some students are simply offended by what they see as a disrespectful level of discourse.

“Last year, when the Gideons were outside the school handing out those little orange bibles, some guy came up and handed one to me,” recounted Tyler Schultz, who this year was the quarterback on the Lakewood High football team. “I didn’t think a lot about it, but as I started walking every bible they handed out to people was, basically, on the ground. A couple were in the trash. It was eye opening. It was offensive because I’ve never seen the Holy Bible in the trash.”

But who is responsible for that—the Gideons or the students? proposal

“I kinda take it that it’s the people who were giving the bibles away,” said Schultz, “because they just gave them to everyone—they didn’t really care if you thought about it, or ask if you wanted them.”

Salaya, who became a teacher six years ago after a career in retail, is thrilled by the interest and commitment the students are displaying, pointing out that participation in the Civic Voice legislative-advocacy project was optional.

“It was one of three choices given to the students within what is called the Small Learning Community—the others were a science project and a literary project,” she explained. “About 40 of the 115 students chose legislative advocacy.”

It wasn’t because they were tuned in to politics. Before they could send letters to their local representatives in to Sacramento—Senator Alan Lowenthal, and depending on where they live, either Assembly members Bonnie Lowenthal, Tony Mendoza or Furutani—they had to learn who those representatives are. A show of hands in Salaya’s three classes revealed that none of them knew.

“But all of them knew about the issue of adults soliciting minors,” said Salaya. “All of them knew about what happened with the Westboro Baptist Church outside Wilson High. And all of them were kind appalled and amazed. They asked, ‘This kind of stuff can happen? There’s no law about this? No city ordinance preventing this?’ It became one of those things where, you know, ‘There oughtta be a law!’

“But that’s when grassroots democracy takes over—when some common, everyday citizen says, ‘There oughtta be a law! So let’s do it.’ And that’s the source of this.”

WARREN FURUTANI is enthused, too, but the excitement in his voice quickly boils down into flat practicality of strategy. furutani1 Furutani has represented the 55th assembly district—north and west Long Beach, the cities of Lakewood and Carson and the Los Angeles communities of Harbor City, the Harbor Gateway and Wilmington—for nearly three years, and he knows the painstaking work it takes to transform an idea into a law.

“There are lots of hoops to jump through,” he said, “beginning with finding out if this is even a new idea—or whether it is constitutional. It has to be written into legislative language. Then come the hearings. If it passes muster, then I will see if I can support it.”

But whatever becomes of the idea, Furutani promises that the Lakewood students who are advocating it will be involved.

“I am going to work with them and my staff is going to work with them,” he says. “I want to talk to them, grill them and take it seriously. Maybe have them come to Sacramento and testify to the policy committee. They will be along all the way.”

Salaya hears this and can barely believe that her educator’s dream is coming true.

“Think of how this is going to empower these students in terms of being future voters and future participants in democracy,” she says. “Something like this is a life-changing event.”

Some of the students are already beginning to see that, too.

“It makes you feel like an actual citizen, taking part,” said Ethan Curry. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

“I already feel like we made a difference,” said Serenity O’Leary. “We’re trying.”