Q&A; -- Ecstatic with pride

In her sixth year as principal at Harbor View Elementary School in

Newport Beach, Karen Kendall has many honors to boast about. In May, her

kindergarten through sixth-grade school of 500 students earned the

National Blue Ribbon distinction. The year before, it was named a

California Distinguished School.

Then, on Oct. 15, she learned her school topped other county

elementary schools in the Academic Performance Index scores for the

second year in a row with a 936. The previous year was 934. In 1999, the

first year the state tracked such scoring, the school finished second in

the county with a 922.

On Thursday, a staff development day at the school, Kendall showed off

her award-winning school’s new computer lab -- made possible with the

monetary award the API scores provided last year -- and chatted with

Assistant City Editor James Meier in her office.

Q: What was your reaction to Harbor View besting the other county

elementary schools in the Academic Performance Index scores for the

second year in a row?

A: Over the top. Thrills. We’re absolutely ecstatic over our

continuing excellence and the ability to improve and stretch kids further

and further. It’s very gratifying after everyone’s hard work. That’s one

of our goals always: never-ending improvement. And when you’re already at

the top, it’s extremely difficult to keep stretching farther, so we were

just thrilled.

It shows us that what we’re doing works for kids, and that’s what

we’re all about.

Q: So, what’s the school’s secret to high test scores?

A: It’s so multifaceted: teamwork; collaboration; caring about each

and every child at this school; incredibly professional and talented

teaching staff; supportive parents; ongoing assessment of each child, and

then diagnosing and prescribing the appropriate instruction for each

child; having a lot of supports in place and interventions to help

struggling students; analyzing our data all the time -- because without

data, all you have is an opinion -- so that we really know where our kids

are and where we can take them; reinforcing a very positive school

climate -- the kind of place where children want to come to school, want

to achieve, want to please; we’re a very caring, nurturing environment;

everything we do is clustered around respect, responsibility, readiness

-- those are some of our themes. It’s part of an overarching theme called

“Sailing Away with Respect, Responsibility, Readiness.”

It’s a cycle of analyzing the data and looking to see what kids really

need and then giving them what they need and stretching them. I think it

all works together because all of the pieces come together to have a

really supportive environment for the children where they know how to

behave and how to be successful. And they’re such eager learners. They

want to learn, they want to be here, they know their parents and

guardians are in full support of the educational program. There’s

incredible community support here. And we pulled them all in. We like to

have a lot of collaboration and cooperation within the community.

We’re very communicative with our parents. I write a newsletter called

the Harbor View Highlights to the parents every single week. Throughout

the school, we have an open-door policy. The teachers give so much time

answering questions, meeting with parents and having them volunteer in

the classrooms, so we’re all on the same page.

Our parent group provides through their fund-raising enrichment

opportunities for our kids, too, which is another thing that comes into

the success of our school. It’s a strong group of very devoted

volunteers.

Q: What would you suggest other schools with low test scores do to

boost their scores?

A: Having a clear focus for school improvement is a really important

theme. Every September, we closely analyze our Stanford 9 data and all of

the data that we have on our children. And from that, each teacher

develops what I call an academic progress plan and we choose a schoolwide

improvement area. This year, we’ve chosen reading, comprehension and

vocabulary. And a positive school climate is always a goal for us because

without having that support and the kids feeling really nurtured and

really accepted -- I have all these clubs, the 100 Books Club. I want

every child to feel really connected to the school. So connection is an

incredibly important piece. If children feel connected to their teachers,

principal, volunteers and to the content, then they’re going to be

successful.

So, back to what you asked me. Develop a clear focus for schoolwide

improvement. Then narrow the objective because you can’t have too many

things going on or you don’t achieve your goals. We all know that from

our own lives. And regularly, address that goal. At Harbor View, we have

Wednesday study groups. Every Wednesday, the teachers come together for

school renewal and for collaboration so we can discuss research-informed

strategies. We truly, truly, truly try to be a data-driven,

research-informed environment, and we’re very committed and very

professional about that.

So, establish a clear goal and have an incredibly tight team. Every

single person who works at this school is committed to every single kid

at this school. That’s the way we are. We care about every single child

and don’t let our children slip through. If we see them at risk in any

way, we jump in to assist them.

I haven’t even told you about the California Distinguished School and

the National Blue Ribbon honor. Harbor View is such an awesome place. Two

years ago, we wrote for the California Distinguished School honor, and we

got it. Then, last year, we wrote for the National Blue Ribbon honor, and

we got that. So, in the process of examining every little aspect of

school life, you automatically improve. That’s what school renewal is all

about -- opening up all the little doors and looking in all the little

corners, finding out all the places where you can really help children.

So, against the backdrop of our commitment to be exemplary, we have

achieved even more success.

Q: Now, you’ve gotten the California Distinguished School award, the

Blue Ribbon, what’s next?

A: And the highest API in Orange County for two years! Oh my gosh.

Well, like I said, we’re on a never-ending improvement cycle. Part of

what we want to do is keep on achieving, seeing our children gain more

knowledge and more skills, continue to have them be happy, nurtured and

integrated little people because that’s what it’s all about. We’re

building citizens, we’re building leaders at our school.

Technology is a focus area for us this year because with all the money

we got with the API -- money doesn’t come our way that often in this kind

of a school -- we got a new computer lab with 28 IMacs and each teacher

has a new workstation computer in the classroom. We are finally online.

Our school was not completely online until we got this extra money. So,

an area that we’re excited about is to use technology powerfully as an

educational tool.

We received total about $60,000 from the various pots that the

governor appropriated. See, we got our money not because we had the

highest API. We got it because we met our API goal. It was fabulous for

us. We knew exactly what we wanted to do, and we did it. We’re very

action-oriented at Harbor View, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’re into

implementation at Harbor View so we’re very pleased and thrilled we could

do that for our children.

Q: With Sept. 11 and every day since, much is going on around the

world with the attacks and the anthrax scares. How do you teach kids at

this age, kindergarten through sixth grade, about these happenings? Or do

you?

A: Well, Sept. 11 was very painful, obviously, for everyone. I hope I

expressed adequately what a family we are here. So, let me start first

with family. We are successful because we are an incredible family. We

care about one another. Some of my teachers themselves were students here

at Harbor View. Many of our children have parents who went here. So, I

think the close family structure has supported our children and helped

them feel safe.

No. 2, we immediately began a loose change drive. We focused on

helping and community service to minimize children’s fears and to help

them feel they were doing something that they were empowered to assist.

So, we literally filled wagons with loose change. I talked about

communication being a major theme that I really believe in. So we have

daily opening ceremonies every day. I think it’s really important that

every teacher greet every other teacher and every child, so we convene

here on the lower playground every day. So, during the opening

ceremonies, we talked about collecting this money and then we filled

wagons with money and donated it all to the American Red Cross. The

children were very involved. It came out to $2,779.21.

Thirdly, like all of my colleagues, I did a lot of overt, explicit

things to let children know we provide a safe environment for them, and

we reminded them about all of our safety drills and about how much we

care about them and how they can come to one of us if they have a

concern.

So, I think we did a very good job. I think our children felt focused.

We wrote letters.

Q: Did you show anything on TV to them or is that something they would

do at home?

A: No. We were very open to students who wished to discuss it, but we

have children who are as young as 5 and then we have sixth-graders, so

our whole thing was to have age-appropriate activity. And one of the best

ways to guarantee age-appropriate activity is to concentrate on loving,

communicative support and positive things we can do to help the world be

a better place in terms of kindness to others. And certainly, with our

older children, there were discussions in our classrooms. We did not turn

on the TV. That was better placed in the home during those critically

difficult times.

BIO

Age: 56

Birthplace: Pasadena

Hometown: Newport Beach for 30 years

Education: Bachelor’s degree in English from UC Santa Barbara,

teaching credential from Cal State Fullerton, master’s degree in

educational administration from Pepperdine, and two administrative

credentials from UC Irvine

Family: Husband of 33 years, Bob; daughter Angie, married to Kelly

McCunniff; son J.R.; and two grandchildren, Molly, 4, and Cole, 6 weeks

Hobbies: Spending time with family, reading, exercise, walking and

traveling