Short takes
Open house breathes life into history lessons
It’s not often that an entire junior high student body looks forward to going to school — in the evening, to boot. But there is a day in the spring when the 1,200 students of Lexington Junior High School in Anaheim can’t wait to bring their families to see the principal dressed up as, say, Catherine of Aragon.
For parents, open house usually means visiting their child’s classroom, reviewing displays on the classroom walls and speaking briefly with the teacher — a routine that used to draw just 300 to 400 parents at Lexington. Hoping to boost parent involvement and attendance at open house, teachers devised a plan to transport the campus back to early American or Renaissance times. From small beginnings in 1998, now the entire staff dons costumes of famous historical characters, and students join the staff in presenting a slice of life from the period to parents, siblings and community members.
In the months leading up to open house night, students make special preparations for the event in each of their classes. History and English classes write biographical sketches and art students draw portraits of historical characters that are published on keepsake bookmarks and passed out at open house. In their P.E. classes, students learn historical dances from the period to perform at the opening ceremony. Home economics students bake cookies, history students create coats of arms for display or prepare historical foods for the adventurous to try. Wood shop students build a catapult in the Renaissance Experience year, or a wagon in alternating American Experience years.
The local parent-teacher-student association helps raise funds for the event and helps with the sewing bee to ensure the entire staff is appropriately attired in period costume. A fundraising “fit-a-thon” run or walked in the streets around the school is supported by the local police department.
The event is a lot of work, but the festival atmosphere created by the costumes and activities makes open house night a special event that few miss, says office assistant Pam Morris, whose two children attended the school. Former students often return to visit the event that draws between 2,500 to 4,000 people.
“It’s truly an all-out campus affair that everyone has a part in — and it takes everyone to do it,” Morris says. “It gives the kids something to be proud of and to show their parents.”
Little brothers and sisters especially like to collect the student-made bookmarks, which are distributed by staff members dressed up as the character depicted on the bookmark.
“It’s much more of a festival affair that opens up the school to the parents and gets them more involved,” Morris says. “It’s definitely a lot of extra time on the staff’s part, but every one knows it’s quite a worthwhile cause.”
Special help without the stigma
In the old days, everyone knew that students who left class during the day at North Country Elementary School in Antelope’s Central Unified School District were the kids who needed extra help with reading or writing. There simply wasn’t time in the normal school day to provide extra tutoring for underachieving students. So teachers had little choice but to pull these kids out of class, which meant they often missed art, music or even instruction in core academic subjects.
But that’s not true for North Country students any longer.
Nowadays students can get extensive tutoring and enrichment services before school by participating in the Timberwolf Learning Club, a program aimed at supporting students who are achieving in the bottom 50 percentile in reading/language arts.
Spurred by a dramatic increase in the percentage of students from poor families at North Country, from a third to nearly half the school’s population, school staff began to think differently about how best to support underachieving students. Rather than taking students out of their regular classes for help once they began to fall behind, educators decided to offer individualized reading “prescriptions” to all children, not just those in academic trouble.
“We talked to parents, and they did not like having their children pulled out of class,” says Title I Coordinator Diane Chidlaw. “Why should they have to miss art or music?”
Part of the treatment plan for underachieving students at Country Elementary means extending the school three mornings a week. Students who participate in the early-morning Timberwolf Learning Club get extra time to hone their reading skills.
The district arranged bus schedules so that older students can ride the bus with morning kindergartners, who begin school 45 minutes early.
The program uses the Open Court and Accelerated Reader curriculums and a writing program called Wiggleworks.
Every K-6 class sets aside 20 to 30 minutes each day for reading, organizing students into small groups, supervised by a teacher or teaching assistant.
Older students at all reading levels are paired with “reading buddies” who are younger and less experienced readers.
North Country Principal Kathleen Lord says the new reading program offers a “no-risk” learning environment. Instead of stigmatizing students who need extra help by removing them from class, the program gives them a chance to practice their reading by working with someone younger. “It’s non-threatening to work with a little reading buddy,” Lord says. “Beyond what we are seeing with improvement in test scores, there is also a significant impact on kids’ self-esteem.” Lord says that because all students work on improving their reading during the same class period, students at more basic reading levels don’t feel singled out.
“We try to make it fun and we include everyone,” she says. “There’s more of a family feeling. Older kids will go to recess with their reading buddies. Upper-grade teachers work with lower-grade teachers. Everyone’s involved.”
The program is funded by Title I. It complies with the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires districts to use research-based methodology and designs reading “prescriptions” for students and evaluates program results based on performance data that is disaggregated by specific student groups.
Teaching the three R’s: Recycling, Revenue and Relevance
The students at Foothill High School in the Tustin Unified School District have accomplished something that many adults will never achieve: they operate a successful business. Their Student Recycling Center is a $100,000-a-year company that collects and processes about 50 tons of recyclable material every month from 75 clients including some major corporations. A board composed entirely of students — many of them disabled — makes all business decisions, deciding how to spend money, set company goals and who to hire.
In the course of running the business, these students are learning about life, success and survival, says Foothill special education teacher Sean Pfaff, who was instrumental in establishing the Recycling Center 10 years ago.
But the initial idea for the company came from a student. “He was recycling on his own and noticed that the school wasn’t doing anything about recycling,” Pfaff says. “He asked, ‘Why can’t we do that?’”
A decade later, the company is still going strong. It’s self-supporting and recently celebrated the grand opening of a new 5,200-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility.
Pfaff has always stressed the importance of learning to live independently. In a 2000 Harris poll, a majority of disabled Americans said they were unemployed. But within the Foothill High School special education community, Pfaff says, 90 percent of the students from his Special Day class who work at the Recycling Center go on to college or employment. It’s crucial, he says, that these students get real-world experience to prepare them for life outside the classroom. The program is open to students in regular education courses and to those who are in transitional education programs because of behavior or disciplinary problems. But the main focus is on students with disabilities.
“The most exciting thing about the program is that my guys really develop independence,” he says. “It was really hard to teach these skills in an academic setting. But when a student is filling out a form to qualify for a real job, the task has a great deal more meaning. Some of them are dealing with very severe problems. This gives them self confidence.”
Pfaff says students make all the decisions, interview candidates for paying jobs and select company officers.
“They are often more frugal with money than I would be,” Pfaff says. “The students really have control. It’s really cool.”
About half the company’s earnings go for payroll, 25 percent for equipment and maintenance and another quarter pays for incentives, scholarships and a year-end field trip.
Chris Ameszcua, who earns $11 an hour as the center’s manager, says the program gives young people a chance to learn mechanical and business skills and “keeps them out of trouble.” Ameszcua works part-time so he can keep up with his studies at Santa Ana Community College.
Besides winning a Golden Bell Award in 2003 from the California School Boards Association, the Student Recycling Center has been designated by the state Department of Education as the largest student recycling operation in California operating on a high school campus. The program serves as a national model: demonstrating the potential value of vocational education and illustrating an effective way to teach special education students to thrive in the world of work.