EDUCATIONALLY SPEAKING

Gay Geiser-Sandoval

It’s school registration time. Those huge registration packets are

easier to tackle when you have your kids fill out everything, and then

just review it. I have skimmed the hundreds of district and school rules.

I figure part of the big push for reading is so that kids can read all of

the school rules before school starts.

The district invested in a new computer system last year, which is

called SASSY, and which is supposed to make scheduling much more

efficient. At one of the secondary schools, I understand that the program

has not delineated the type of class needed for each student, be it for

an academy, a certain program, or some other core section. At another

secondary school, the students were told their schedule received at

registration is tentative in nature, and might require changes the first

day. No classroom numbers are listed. Some of the students are in a

panic, figuring they are sure to get lost the first day. With these

scheduling headaches ahead of them, I would guess the counselors and

computer techs aren’t feeling too “sassy.”

This year, I helped at a school that got a lot of things accomplished

during registration. School pictures were taken and identification cards

were completed. Lockers were assigned. Student information was input into

the new SASSY system. Internet permission slips were gathered and

stickers were affixed to ID cards. I figure we basically added a day of

classroom instruction by removing these time-grabbers from the first week

of school. However, quite a few kids still haven’t registered. So, if you

were away on vacation, get to school, and get it done.

I read where a group of parents in the Capistrano Unified School

District has put together a “Survival Guide” that is for parents of

entering high school freshmen. This tells you such information as what to

bring to different sports events, how to get a planning session with a

counselor, or when to plan your summer vacation. I’m hoping Harbor

Council takes on the task.

A lawsuit has been filed against the state Department of Education and

the L.A. Unified School District to force schools to provide “an equal

and adequate program for AP studies.”

Since last year’s UCLA applicants had an average grade point average

of 4.19, a child that doesn’t have the opportunity to take advanced

placement classes has a hard time competing with those that do.

One hundred and twenty-nine public high schools in California offer no

AP courses, while 333 schools offer four or fewer. One hundred and

forty-four public schools offer more than 15 classes at their site, and

there are currently 32 possible AP courses. However, the average is seven

courses, which seems about right. Is it in our best interest to push high

school sophomores into taking courses that are supposed to be equivalent

to college courses? At one of the magnet high schools in the county, some

kids are taking six AP courses in one year. This destroys any hope of

taking fine arts, journalism, or yearbook classes. Apparently, it also

destroys any hope of sleep for those students. While I applaud the

efforts of the lawsuit to try to have AP courses offered more equitably,

I hope our district focuses on letting high school kids experience some

of the fun of high school.

A local newspaper published the Stanford 9 test results for all of the

public schools in the county.

The results listed scores, as well as the percentage of limited English

proficient students tested, and percentage of disadvantaged students at

that school site. My non-statistical analysis leads me to believe that as

the percentage of disadvantaged and LEP kids increases, the scores

decrease. It didn’t seem to matter too much in which school district the

school was located.

The exception was for those students going to magnet schools, or

academies, where students had to apply for admission. There, motivated

parents and students helped raise the scores. Our school district did

seem to have the highest disparity in the percentage of disadvantaged

students attending a specific school. That number went from 0% to 95%.

Test scores went from 93 to 6. Maybe they should use our district as a

microcosm of the nation and pour unlimited funds into education here to

see what happens. Finally, a recent article about a high school in Walnut

talked about the ability of the students to get along, even though the

school is quite ethnically and culturally diverse. It said that those

students are learning “cultural fluency.” Instead of just sharing, the

students are creating entirely new intercultural mixes. Constance Rice is

quoted as saying, “it’s not just an advantage, it’s essential” for the

future of America. “Without intercultural fluency, we’re never going to

reach that dream of pluralism, that ‘e pluribus unum’ -- out of many

one.”

Well, that course comes free at Costa Mesa High School, and almost

everyone is “interculturally fluent” before they graduate. The Student

Council there represents a lot of continents, culturally speaking, but

the kids don’t seem to notice. When one student was identifying two girls

of obviously different races to her mom, she distinguished them by their

T-shirt color.

A Mesa alum, home from her first year in college, was telling me how

many of her fellow classmates in college had either experienced extreme

racism in school, or had not been exposed to anyone of a different race.

She said she really hadn’t ever thought about the diversity at Mesa, and

didn’t know it was so different at other schools. Maybe we should add

“intercultural fluency” to the district’s graduation requirements. Maybe

that’s the best job skill of all.

* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs Mondays.