John Deasy, the controversial former superintendent who led the Los Angeles Unified School District for three-and-a-half turbulent years, is embarking on a new venture that could prove just as challenging: keeping juvenile offenders from returning to jail.
Deasy wants to do that by opening alternative juvenile prisons in Los Angeles and Alameda counties that could include activities such as yoga, meditation, art, counseling, athletics and education. His goal is to reduce recidivism by 50%.
The vehicle, he said, will be a new nonprofit he is creating called New Day, New Year. He plans to begin working on the project full-time in October. He is “just beginning to think through” the details and is working to line up funding, he said.
The plight of incarcerated youth has long been a concern of Deasy’s. He said he began thinking about it as an educator when he saw students leave to serve time.
“As a superintendent, I became more acutely aware of it,” he said Wednesday in an interview.
[For more of this story, written by Joy Resmovits, go to http://www.latimes.com/local/e...0726-snap-story.html]
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