By Brandon HENSLEY

The Crescenta Valley Youth Council will tackle issues concerning perceived unfair Alternate to Suspension – ATS – citations at CV High, as well as disruptive Rosemont students at Ralphs supermarket tonight at 6 p.m. at the La Crescenta Library.

Youth Council president and CV High student Cooper Iven said he has passed out flyers this week at Crescenta Valley High School to encourage parents and students to come to the meeting to discuss the school’s handling of ATS handouts.

Students are now required to have stickers on their school IDs to leave campus for lunch. But Iven said administration recently began checking IDs without warning, and over 100 students were given ATS – which means they must come to school on Saturday to clean the campus and do other community service – even though they were technically on school ground on Community Avenue outside the main building.

“They didn’t warn anybody and they had a massive check,” said Iven. “They checked everyone that came in, including the kids that were technically on campus, so even the kids that were on campus were given ATS.”

Since the ATS were given, the official parameters of what is school property and what is not has been redefined by the school administration.

“Quite a few of [the students] were literally within an arm’s reach of the building,” added Ben Campos, a junior and council secretary.

Iven said the council believes CV is misusing the citations.

Iven and Campos said what their understanding now is all students who don’t have permission to leave campus must be within the gated area of the school during the lunch hour. At tonight’s meeting they said they want to have a discussion with parents and students on ways to deal with the issue.

The other issue has to do with Rosemont Middle School students walking down Rosemont Avenue and into Ralphs and disrupting the store and surrounding area. The store has complained to the school, and the youth council wants to raise community awareness and get input from residents.

Witnesses have said kids ride bikes and scooters through the aisles, steal certain items, and buy food but then take it outside, and throw what they don’t want to eat on the sidewalks.

Iven said he wasn’t as much surprised that this has been happening as he was by the severity of it.

Campos said it might be good to have CV students hang around the place and act as monitors.

“I feel like the Rosemont students respond better to high schoolers coming there and saying, ‘Hey, you guys are being really stupid,’” he said.

Iven said his concern is the next step will be to have sheriffs come to the store. If they come there may be arrests and he would rather see a reasonable solution to the problem. “We don’t want to resort to police action.”

  Brandon Hensley