Being a part of the gang reduction plan for the North Hills area, we rack our brains from time to time to come up with extra-curricular activities that will appeal to our youth. We do this in hopes that students in the area would find Cloud and Fire a positive and influential place to be, and that they would choose to come to our center after school, rather than spending time on the unsafe streets that surround us.

Kids need explanation just like adults do. It doesn’t work in the classroom to make commands and walk around in an authoritarian manner, reprimanding students for every little thing. If you ask them to do something out of the ordinary, and they give you “the look”, or if you make a decision that they feel affects them negatively, they deserve an explanation. They like to know why, as much as any other adult would too if you put them in a similar situation.