Charter school advocates warm up for pitch

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- For years, a group of parents have talked of starting

a charter school in Costa Mesa.

Now organized as an executive committee, those parents are prepared to

submit an extensive charter school proposal to the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District in the next several weeks.

They hope to open the Mesa Leadership Academy in September 2001 with

about 320 students in kindergarten through the third grade.

“The whole idea of a charter school is to give parents and faculties

more autonomy to innovate and be creative in how children are educated,”

said Byron de Arakal, one of the first community members involved in

creating the new school.

Charter schools, while a part of public education, are not required to

stay within the school district’s curriculum.

Although the school is still nothing but a very bright sparkle in

their eyes, the group has already appointed as principal John Daffron, a

fourth-grade teacher at Newport Heights Elementary School.

Daffron, who has a master’s degree in educational administration and

wrote a thesis on charter schools, has helped to develop the school’s

mission statement and write the charter.

“Charter schools give parents more of a voice in how their children

are taught because it gives them control over the accountability of

teachers,” Daffron said.

The executive board of a charter school, which casts its watchful eye

over the school, is typically made up of parents, community leaders and a

member of the school board.

Charter schools also attract stellar instructional staffs, Daffron

added, because educators are invited to develop alternative teaching

methods.

CREATIVE CURRICULUM

As a public school, Mesa Leadership Academy would still be responsible

for students’ success on the Stanford 9 achievement test. But as a

charter school, how that goal is met would not be dictated by the state.

And that is precisely the point of creating a charter school,

advocates say.

Charter schools offer teachers an arena in which to explore

educational theories they believe will enhance student achievement,

interest and learning.

At Mesa Leadership Academy, visionaries plan to have an integrated,

thematic curriculum based on literary works. Included in the charter’s

core principles is an explanation of how those themes will be implemented

in each of a student’s core subjects.

“Children learn best when they learn in the context of the coherent

whole -- when they can connect what they are learning to what they know,”

Daffron explained.

Daffron used Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel, “The Secret Garden,” as

an example. Perhaps the unifying concept or theme would be plants.

In science, children would learn the various parts of a flower, what

they need to survive and photosynthesis. In math, they could measure and

graph a flower’s growth over time, measure its circumference or estimate

how many seeds it will produce. In social studies, they could study what

flowers are grown by different cultures.

A LEADERSHIP BASIS

Another major component of the leadership academy and the impetus

behind its name is the plan to infuse students with the qualities

necessary to become responsible community leaders.

It will begin with a focus on ethics -- specifically sharing,

tolerance and cooperation -- in the first and second grades. Then, as

students mature, it will expand into community service projects.

Although the school is scheduled to run through third grade only, it

is hoped it would eventually educate students through the fifth-grade

level, where civic projects and public speaking forums will begin.

“Our leadership program provides the knowledge, skills and attitudes

necessary to become leaders,” Daffron said.

NUTS AND BOLTS

While the charter for the Mesa Leadership Academy is nearly complete,

advocates still do not have a site for the school.

But as the document is being fine-tuned, de Arakal said authors of the

document have met with Newport-Mesa Supt. Robert Barbot and district

staff regularly for input and critiques.

“When this thing is submitted, it will be the most comprehensive

charter ever submitted in the United States,” de Arakal said with a

laugh.

The proposal charter school proponents plan to put before the school

board next month is a far cry from the 10-page vision they submitted two

years ago.

But the school board’s past rejection did not deter the group. They

hired consultants and buckled down to find out what it would take to

create a charter school acceptable to the district.

And although Barbot said he feels the group is on the right track and

will eventually get the charter school, he said they have some work to do

before they should submit the proposal.

“They have a group of people supporting this, but they still have some

major issues to work out among themselves before they’re done,” he said.

“There are four main areas they need to fine-tune and really work on

before they submit it.”

Those areas, Barbot said, are justifying the curriculum, the location

of facilities, making sure it complies with increasingly stringent state

requirements and a more detailed budget.

Once the proposal is submitted, the school board has 60 days to

approve or deny the request.

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