Keeping a handle on things

All but one Newport-Mesa Unified school will return to class on Sept.

2 and the district was busy over the summer renovating and updating

several campuses and reinventing the curriculum.

On Friday, City Editor James Meier met with Supt. Robert Barbot to

discuss these improvements and changes to see what the school year

has in store for Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

First of all, tell me a little about what improvements were made

over the summer that many students and parents will notice when they

return to school this year.

I’ll start with the construction. We’ll have Newport Coast

[Elementary School] completed. That means a whole additional wing has

been added to it. We’ve also done some adjustments in the classrooms

that we needed to do and class-size reduction. I’m not going to go

school by school because we have too many.

We have eight schools. Newport Harbor High because of the

condemnation by the state. We have actually moved all of the students

and are finishing this week the administration to relocatables while

we take on the task over several years of rebuilding the main hall.

People are working day and night and have been.

The other schools that are under construction -- it goes on till

November. We are finishing off the administration wings. We’ve run

into some difficulty at Harbor View. You know that. But generally

speaking, most of the schools have been completed. Even Harbor View

is really close to completion. It’s just that we didn’t feel

comfortable bringing in the kids [Labor Day] week.

What they’ll see when it’s all done is really carried through our

strategic plan and Measure A and so on. The classrooms are going to

be modernized, brought up to standards. They’re going to look good.

They’re going to have new paint jobs, electrical was readjusted, the

walls were gutted, new lighting, you name it. They literally stripped

their walls.

To give you an example, we’ve moved 118 classroom teachers this

summer alone in and out of relocatables. By the way, they’re nice

relocatables. They have air conditioning and all of that. By

October/November, as we finish off Phase I, we’ll have schools that

really are modern, address safety needs, have clean classroom walls,

new lighting, new electricity.

That’s it for construction. Curriculum-wise, strategically, what

we’re going to see different is we did generally very well on our

test scores but we obviously look at them. So we’re having our

administrators this summer meeting with teachers about are strengths

and weaknesses. [Assistant Supt.] Susan Despenas, for example, as we

speak is meeting with the principals. What we’re going to do is look

at what we do well and where we need to further improve and we’ll

focus our instruction on that.

What we have seen, generally speaking, is our biggest area of need

is in the reading and language arts area. You have to understand. We

get a lot of new students at school during the year. Certain schools

will turn over 67% of the student population. Even though people will

say “You fixed it once” like being in a hospital, these aren’t

patients.

What we’re doing is adopting new language arts standards. Unlike

most districts, we’ve really made it a priority to purchase [$1.5

million to $2 million] worth of new language arts curriculum. The

reason we’ve done it is because they’re 100% aligned with the new

language arts standards K-12, which helps every child. If they’re

advanced, they’ll move faster.

Then there’s our Reading 180 program for the high school kids. The

seventh through ninth graders are our primary targets because we

don’t want them coming into high school not reading what we want them

to read. It’s very diagnostic individual-wise and focused on making

sure our students are performing well and are ready for college.

So language arts and reading will be absolutely aligned with

state, national and worldwide standards. It’s coming together real

well.

What they’re also going to see that the preschool program has been

expanded. They’re going to see is that the state is demanding more

and more paperwork to be filled out by them in order to register for

school. So we’re working on that.

They’re going to see that we did some technological things to

really even further advance contact us if their child’s absent. We

did it the last few years, but we’ve really dramatically tightened it

up. Pretty much, we’re getting to the point that at most of our

schools, parents and teachers can e-mail back and forth for feedback

day and night. Parents are working and want to know what’s going on.

There will also be a new site where parents can sign up for

districtwide e-mails. We want to encourage them to use it because

we’re putting all of the new materials about what’s going on with

construction, the new language arts curriculum, what’s going on at

every school on the Web page. Day and night, they can get into it and

they can actually have those opportunities for feedback. If they have

a question, we can give them an answer. We also want feedback about

the Web sites’ usefulness.

The key is to have a communication between the parents and the

schools. That’s the key to our success, that they know what’s going

on. We want to stop miscommunication.

Basically, we’re asking all of our teachers and staff to focus on

what’s going on in the classroom: to make sure that the child is,

first of all, safe and that the instruction is focused on their

particular needs. We’ve also put in a number of additional security

issues.

Certainly, and I want to remind the parents, no one is allowed to

enter our sites unless they first check into the administration

building and get visitor tags. That’s something, you know, that two

years, you wouldn’t have thought about it. We’ve had great

cooperation. We also have resource officers at the high schools.

Another element is a major counseling grant. We’ve gone after some

grants because money is tight this year. We have one of only seven

grants for counseling in the whole country. We’re now trying to beef

up the after school outreach grant.

We’re one of the most diverse, economically and otherwise, school

districts anywhere in the world. We have extreme wealth, extreme

poverty, so our goal is for everyone to work together for the common

interest of every child. It’s not our place to judge. We tell our

staff that. Politicians talk about whether someone belongs here or

not. But our job is to educate every child that comes on our

doorstep. The politics of it belongs to someone else.

What we’re trying to do is work with every group around us. A

major thing that we have had, but we’re going to expand our

collaboration with every agency and group when it meets our

educational agenda, not theirs. We want it to help educate kids and

help parents to make this a strong community.

We’re also really focusing on the individual needs of children.

The GATE children need as much as the underachieving students. We

find their needs to be as great, so we’re really beefing up our GATE

program. People assume the gifted children do really well, but they

also have difficulties and issues. We received some grants and

dollars for that.

We’ve been really successful partnering with other groups. We have

to credit our staff and communities and parents. Our PTAs have helped

us get some grants and other things. It’s nice when people pull

together.

Also, one thing people don’t realize is how many homeless kids go

to our schools. Last year, we identified 193 kids. We also had 129

who left during the year. We just received a $100,000 grant for them.

Otherwise what we have are families walking the streets with

children. That’s just not acceptable. So we’re trying to reach out to

those kids. What we have found, contrary to what people might think,

is it doesn’t draw people in. These are people who homeless in this

community. About 99% of the time, they’ve been here. They can lose a

job and be out on the streets or the husband and wife can get into a

fight and someone can end up on the streets. That’s what’s happening.

They don’t move far to go out on the streets. That notion is

inaccurate. So we’re working with some of these interfaith shelters

to really get them to the schools or keep them in the schools. We

don’t want it to be a breaking point for them.

People think it’s just the poor communities, but it’s not. It’s

amazing.

What are the plans for Harbor View Elementary students to make up

for the four lost days?

We have to finalize them, but we met with the staff and have

talked to some of the parents, but we’ll finalize them on Monday. It

appears what they’re rather do than four days at the end of the year

is we have a couple of days in February, one in the beginning of the

school year that’s for staff development and then they’re going to

condense when they do parent conferencing, so they’ll be able to pick

up the four days without extending the year. That’s the proposal. We

believe that’s what the parents would like, but we’ll find out on

Monday.

What are the largest challenges facing the district this year?

Finishing off Measure A and delivering on the vision we all had.

We’re pretty much on target. It’s dealing with the unknown when we

open up a school during construction.

We’re adopting and will present the board Tuesday night a balanced

budget with a full reserve of 3%-plus. It’s balanced in the total

sense. We haven’t laid off any staff and in the process have kept all

the programs in place. So we’re proud of that. But one of the things

we have to watch is finishing up reconstruction and the unknowns of

how the state can impact us.... A second part of Measure A is in

March, with the bond dollars in Prop. 47. We’re real concerned that

that passes because we need that. Certainly, there’s a lot of turmoil

going on around us.

We’re also real focused on safety and security, as we need to be.

We have good plans, but we have to keep an eye on that. We’re in a

very unsafe world....

It’ll be a challenging year, but I’m optimistic. I’m not

pessimistic like people are statewide. We all have a lot of good

resources and good things can happen. It’s not a matter of “The sky

is falling.” It’s looking at what you can do.

Any final thoughts?

As the year goes on, we would really encourage our parents and

retired teachers in the community who really want to work with us to

give the district a call.... We have so many kids missing one or both

of their parents who could use role models. These schools do belong

to the community. They’re not ours. We’re the caretakers, but they

belong to them. The children are their children. So any help they can

give us, we’ll take it.