Charter schools test waters

A foundation will present a proposal for science academy at the school board meeting tonight.The Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which has no charter schools in its boundaries, may finish the year with two.

The Dialog Foundation, a Reseda-based nonprofit group that operates two charter schools in Southern California, submitted a plan in November to Newport-Mesa for a campus called the Orange Science Academy. The school, which the foundation hopes to open in September, will feature a curriculum based heavily around science and mathematics and classrooms with extensive use of computers.

At tonight’s board meeting, beginning at 6:15 p.m., the district will hold a public hearing on the Orange Science Academy. In December, another group of educators appeared before the school board to pitch the Orange County Academy, a charter school that would feature limited classroom instruction and three days a week of home study.

Either school, if accepted, would likely become the first charter campus in Newport-Mesa history -- no educator in town can remember another one. At present, a team of eight Newport-Mesa administrators is reviewing the two proposals and will submit its recommendations to the school board for a final decision later this month.

“People are coming to universities lacking in very basic education, especially math and science,” said Adnan Doyuran, an administrator for the Dialog Foundation. “So when the founders first got together and said, How do we solve this problem?, they came up with charter schools.”

Charter schools, unlike private schools, do not charge tuition. Orange County has 12 charter campuses, while San Diego and Los Angeles counties each have about 100.

Susan Astarita, Newport-Mesa’s assistant superintendent of elementary education, said the review team was judging the proposals under California’s education code. Among the rules mandated by the state are that a charter school admit all pupils who want to attend until space runs out, and that the number of signatures on a petition equal half of the first year’s projected student enrollment.

“We’re just looking objectively,” Astarita said. “I even have a checklist that’s been prepared.”

However unorthodox its style may be, a charter school must adhere to state standards in its curriculum. The Orange Science Academy would include history and English in its lesson plan, even as students did much of the classwork on computers.

“The responsibility for a charter school is still under the board of education,” said Supt. Robert Barbot. “It’s still taxpayers’ dollars, and the board is still responsible that those things required by the state to be taught are taught.”

Since its inception in 1997, the Dialog Foundation has opened two charter schools in California: the Magnolia Science Academy in Reseda and Momentum Middle School in San Diego. Both enlist volunteer tutors from local universities, a service that Doyuran said would extend to the Newport-Mesa site as well.

The foundation has also submitted an application to the Santa Ana Unified School District. Doyuran said the foundation would consider opening charter schools in both districts if the boards accepted. The group’s goal in Orange County, he added, is to provide a solid math and science education to less-affluent students -- particularly from Costa Mesa’s Westside and similar areas.

“Our curriculum is very challenging, and we have about a 60% Hispanic demographic and the rest is all mixed,” Doyuran said. “Even here, we see great success.”

The quality of science and math education has been a major issue in California for the past two years. Last spring, citing low eighth-grade test scores in a National Science Foundation report, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched a program with the University of California and California State University systems to increase the number of science and math teachers earning credentials.

Doyuran said his foundation’s other two charter schools had met with quick success, with students participating in the Los Angeles County Science Fair and Olympiad computer camps.

“We had some parents requesting that we open another school over there [in Orange County], so we said, OK, we can probably bring this to life,” he said.