No one, other than gang members, wants gangs in their schools and communities. Much has been said about the destructive nature of gangs and how the perception of their power influences at risk children. The Kern County Superintendent of Schools is doing more than talking, having just hired Kevin Keyes and Salvador Arias to join the office as Gang Prevention Specialists. Assigned to the School-Community Partnerships program, Keyes, Arias and their boss, Prevention Programs Coordinator Daryl Thiesen, have begun a county-wide program of gang prevention, collaborating with law enforcement, courts, local service agencies, schools, parents and children to bring it about. The program, called Project 180, arose out of Kern County’s gang prevention funding. You probably could not have hired two people with a greater understanding of gangs than Keyes and Arias. They have lived it. Arias, by his own admission, was a gang member. He was beaten up and urinated on as a kindergartner because his brother was in a gang. The beatings continued through third grade, when he decided the only way to protect himself was by joining a gang. It caused him to miss school from which he was expelled in the sixth grade. Arias remembers being chased across a school campus by gang members wielding guns and chains. His house was the target of a drive by shooting. When his best friend was killed in that manner, a convincing school counselor advised the Arias family to quit their jobs and move to save their own lives. More