School Provides Personal Touch

From the outside it is hard to guess what goes on inside the modest rectangular building on Owensmouth Avenue in Canoga Park.

The Coutin School is surrounded on all sides by a 6-foot-high chain-link fence. The only way in or out of the school is off an alley in the back. All the classrooms are locked from the outside, although they open freely from the inside. There is no “campus” to speak of, just a small asphalt yard with a few picnic tables. Physical education is taken at the Shadow Ranch and Lanark parks a mile away.

What the school looks like does not bother the founder, Harvey Coutin, 43. He is bent on turning around what he calls “kids who fall between the cracks,” children who are having problems in other schools and who may not graduate from high school.

The Coutin School, which is for children in grades kindergarten through 12, began nine years ago. There are 130 students and tuition is on a sliding scale from the younger grades up to $4,900 a year for upper grades.

A typical student at the Coutin School might be lacking in confidence, according to Coutin. Frequently, no one has taken the time to talk to these students or help them deal with their problems. Those problems can be personal, school, parental, work or just the daily frustrations of life.

‘Starting Fresh Here’

“This child gets lost,” said Coutin. “No one has told him he has to function in society. We tell him we are starting fresh here.”

The first thing a student does at the school is take the California Achievement Test.

“Let’s say she is a ninth-grader and she is very bright in literature. Very verbal,” Coutin hypothesized. “But something happens in the system and she is two to three years behind in math.”

Coutin places such a student in an appropriate classroom for each subject. There are no more than 18 students in each class.

Educational therapist and psychologist Lawrence Barr of Woodland Hills says smaller schools have a definite advantage over the larger ones.

“Any of the smaller, private schools will work better for children with learning problems. I have had good feedback on the Coutin School. He has a very caring approach. I’ve referred similar students to the Oakhill School in the North Valley and Beverly Hills Prep School as well. Some people like a more traditional approach than what Harvey has, but there is genuine interest there.”

Coutin, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCLA and once ran a school called Pathways for children with severe learning disabilities, traces his commitment to children to his own heritage.

‘Oldest of Seven’

“I grew up the oldest of seven children. My father came over here from Russia and was interested in all his children going to college. There was a special dedication in my family to education. All of my brothers and one sister are either in teaching or medicine.”

He sees today’s parents as busy making a living and not having much time for their children. “I have a great sadness about this country. We don’t spend as much money on them as other countries . . . both parents work these days. We don’t seem to be there for them anymore.”

Rick Pendleton, 31, has taught literature and composition at the school for seven years and he says it is not easy. He had been teaching at Hughes Junior High in Woodland Hills, which is closed now. Pendleton came to Coutin School, he says, out of desperation for a job. He decided to stay because, he said, “I could play a part in the development of something unique.”

He is still not used to having the students call the teachers by their first names. “I still believe in the value of calling teachers by last names. But what is more important is the way you present yourself.”

“It sometimes takes more out of you than working in other schools,” Pendleton said. “It’s almost like a boarding school. We play part in a child’s home life as well. I’ve even determined whether a child has driving privileges.”

‘Changing Lives’

Pendleton tells of the time he received a phone call from a resident who said one of his students raced his car through the parking lot next to the school. Pendleton called the student’s father and suggested the student have his driving privileges revoked for a week. “We’re not just interested in nouns and verbs here, we’re interested in changing lives.”

Some of the students at the school have their own ideas about what is fair and what is not. Nicole Schkloven, 16, who asked to go to Coutin School after attending Taft High School in Woodland Hills, said she does not like staying after school to finish homework not completed from the night before, as required.

Coutin’s concept of what is expected from his students is what he calls “functional.” By that he means that all homework assigned by the teachers must be turned in the day it is due.

“At my school, every single day is functional,” said Coutin. “If you don’t function you don’t leave. So we’re not waiting for five weeks or 10 weeks or for the parents to come in. It’s daily.

“One Friday evening I was here until 11 o’clock with a student who had to write a theme on a fable. It wasn’t because he couldn’t, but because he wouldn’t. It would have taken him 20 minutes.”

More Attention

Schkloven said she believes after-school hours are her own and she should not have to stay if she chooses not to complete her work. Even so, she chose to leave Taft High School because of what she called a lack of caring by the counselors. She likes the Coutin School because she said she gets more attention.

Tanya Kim, 16, who also chose to leave Taft and attend the Coutin School for more personal attention, said she is doing much better in school now, getting good grades, and she wants to go to USC when she graduates. Kim said that she could not get the classes she wanted at Taft to go to college, and that no one listened to her.

(Counselors from Taft do not agree. “We have the highest California Assessment Program test scores in the Valley,” said one, “and more than 70% of our students go on to college. So somebody’s doing something right.”)

Coutin requires any student not participating in physical education to write a paper during that time. Laura Remick, 17, has been attending the school for a year and half but has never suited up for P. E. “I’ve never liked P. E.,” she said, “so instead I have to write essay papers in the library.”

Some Not Impressed

Although the school fills the needs of some parents whose children are having problems in other schools, some parents are not as impressed. Valley resident Mary Lou Perlmutter interviewed the school for her daughter, Marin, 8, but decided against enrolling her at Coutin. “I don’t care for the familiarity that goes on there,” she said.

But parent Phyllis Engleberg sent her 12-year-old son, Ron, there for just that reason. “We had a lot of problems with him before,” she said. “When he was 2 1/2 we discovered he had fine motor problems. He was at the Kadima Hebrew Academy and he couldn’t get along. Harvey was very honest with us about what he could do to help him, and we have stayed at the school ever since.”

Sandy Gordon, director of case management at the Clearing House and Information on Learning Disabilities in Los Angeles, says it is difficult to find schools that will take children who are embraced at Coutin.

“Some of these children are not making it in private or public school but are not necessarily learning disabled. You want to put them in regular programs as much as possible.” Gordon says Coutin can handle these types of children.

Coutin is proud of what he has achieved with many of his students. “Some of these kids never would have finished high school. I even had kids attending Pitzer at the Claremont Colleges, Marquette in Michigan, California State University, Northridge, UCLA and Loyola University.”