Here are some items the board will...

Here are some items the board will consider tonight:

EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL

The Newport-Mesa district and the Coast Community College District

have proposed to start an Early College High School for the 2006-07

school year. The school would combine college and high school

curricula and allow students to graduate in five years or less with a

diploma and an associate of arts degree. To offset the cost of the

project, Newport-Mesa and Coast officials seek to apply to the Bill

and Melinda Gates Foundation for a $400,000 grant over five years.

If the Gates Foundation provides the grant, it will cover

approximately $93,000 of the project expenditures for 2005-06, which

the applicants intend as a planning year for the Early College High

School. Newport-Mesa would put up $163,598 for the next school year,

while the college would contribute $41,691.

District officials are seeking the approval of the board to apply

for the Gates grant and, contingent upon its award, to budget the

appropriate funds for the upcoming year.

WHAT TO EXPECT

The board members are unlikely to approve the Early College High

School project at this point without the Gates grant, so unless the

district expenditures are too steep for the next year, they will

likely give Newport-Mesa the go-ahead to apply. The Coast board of

trustees approved the project at its meeting on May 4.

NEW SECONDARY CLASSES

Jaime Castellanos, assistant superintendent of secondary

education, will submit a number of new elective high school courses

for approval. The offerings are advanced placement music theory,

which covers notation, scales and other fundamentals of music, at

Corona del Mar High School; developmental reading for beginning to

intermediate English learners; digital photography, an art elective

using Adobe Photoshop, at Newport Harbor High School; history of rock

and roll, covering popular music from slave chants to psychedelia, at

Newport Harbor High School; and 12th-grade world literature,

featuring Middle Eastern mythology, satire, romanticism and more, at

Costa Mesa High School.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Approval. Castellanos said the district rarely turns down new

elective courses.