This year more than 70 Locke students were either on probation or had been issued bench warrants for their arrest. The year before, nearly 175 students were suspended for violent incidents. Dozens of the teenagers live in foster care.
At the end of a recent class, a withdrawn pregnant teenager approached Cubias at his desk to timidly show him photos from her first sonogram. Minutes later, he broke up a gaggle of students gathered in the hallway around a classmate -- a single mother selling candy from a duffel bag.
"I tell teachers, if you're going to come here, you've got to expect stuff like this," he said, "It's part of life here."
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joel.rubin@latimes.com
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Green Dot's rules
Green Dot Public Schools operates 10 charter high schools in and around Los Angeles, serving about 3,000 students. The faculty and principals at each school are given broad discretion over budgets and instruction, but all Green Dot schools must adhere to a set of basic tenets. Charter schools are independently run and publicly financed. Some nonnegotiable rules at Green Dot campuses:
* No school can enroll more than 525 students.
* All students must complete the rigorous curriculum required for admission to the University of California.
* Parents or guardians must commit to at least 35 hours of service at their child's school each year.
* Schools must remain open to students until at least 5 p.m. each school day.
Source: Times reporting
