Charting a school’s course

Jessica Garrison

MESA VERDE -- Trying to start a new school can be an education in

itself.

That, at least, has been the lesson for a group of Mesa Verde parents

who want to open the district’s first-ever charter school.

The parents, who say they want to start the school to lure back Mesa

Verde children who have forsaken public schools for private ones, haven’t

even turned in a formal application to the board of education yet.

They plan to sometime this month, and the school board will then have

30 days to consider the proposal and hear the public’s views on it before

voting.

To make sure they are prepared to go before the board, parents have

been working furiously for the past 13 months. They visited other charter

schools around Orange County, studied education models and met with

countless parents to try and turn their vision into a reality.

They also have presented their ideas to Supt. Robert Barbot and board

members Serene Stokes and Wendy Leece, although the education leaders

were quick to stress that they have not yet taken a position on the

proposed school.

And though parents say the response has been overwhelmingly positive,

there have been a few hurdles -- especially last spring from parents and

teachers at California Elementary School who feared the parents were

trying to change that school.

Many of the parents organizing the charter school now send their

children to California, and they had explored the idea of converting

California to a charter school. But they dropped it after many parents

expressed concern about the plan.

“There was a lot of controversy when the idea was first brought out

into the open,” said California parent Pat Ary, a member of the PTA at

California who is not involved in the charter school plans.

Some parents and teachers, Ary said, thought the charter idea amounted

to a criticism of their school.

“People felt like ‘What’s the matter with what we have? Why is this

big movement taking place?’ ” she said. “A lot of it has been resolved.”

Kara Handy and Byran de Arakal, California parents who are behind the

charter movement, said it was never their intention to criticize their

present school or transform it against parents and teachers’ wills.

“This is an extremely complicated issue, politically and legally, and

it took a huge amount of research,” said de Arakal, whose children

currently attend California Elementary and TeWinkle Middle schools.

Handy said she first dreamed up the idea for the school more than a

year ago, when she realized that almost none of the children in her Mesa

Verde neighborhood attend Costa Mesa public schools.

“This is not about California school,” said Handy, who grew up

attending Costa Mesa public schools. “California is a great school. I’m

really happy with it.

“The reason I explored the charter option was that, from this corner to

the next corner in my neighborhood, none of the children attend the same

school,” she added. “People are not moving to Costa Mesa for the schools,

like they do Irvine or Laguna Niguel, and we need that here.”

Charter schools were first conceived as a way to reform failing

schools. They are publicly funded but are granted freedom from many

portions of the state education code because they are considered to have

a special educational purpose.

Handy said she envisions the Mesa Verde Charter School as a place that

would challenge children and promote accountability among parents,

teachers and students.

All parents would be required to volunteer a minimum of four hours

each month at the school. Teachers would be paid as much or more than

regular district teachers, but would not have tenure, meaning they could

be let go at any time. This, said de Arakal, would ensure that teachers

are “on fire to teach.”

The curriculum would emphasize reading, writing, mathematics and

character education. Students would still be required to meet state

standards in all areas, and would take state-mandated exams. But students

also would be able to study drama, foreign languages, arts and music.

After dropping the idea of converting an existing school such as

California to a charter school, parents hit on the idea of starting a new

school. Now they want to open a 500-student elementary school serving

kindergarten through fifth grade at the old Mesa Verde Elementary School

campus. The site is currently leased to Coastline Community College, but

parents hope to take it back and open the school in the fall of 2000.

Originally, the 16-member group of parents and community leaders who

are planning the school had thought to give children living within a

one-mile radius of the school first priority at enrolling, but parents

have since dropped that idea because they learned it was illegal.

By law, charter schools must reflect the same level of ethnic

diversity as the district, which is about 30% Latino. Most of the

families within a one-mile radius of the proposed site are in Mesa Verde,

an upscale suburban enclave tucked next to less-affluent West Side Costa

Mesa neighborhoods.

Upon learning of the requirement, the group dropped the one-mile idea

and decided the school would be open to all Newport-Mesa students.

“There was no attempt to make this an all-white school,” said de

Arakal. “That’s not our motivation. The idea of this charter is to

provide a really rich and diverse environment for all kids to excel.”

More than 250 parents have already signed a petition in favor of the

charter, de Arakal said. They plan to file their proposal soon.