Laguna school board wraps up the year

The Laguna Beach Unified School District’s principals presented a final report at Tuesday’s board meeting on their schools’ efforts in enforcing positive behavior among the students.

They also spoke about the efficacy of the district’s Professional Learning Communities, in which school and district staff meet to discuss issues relevant to their departments or grades.

Positive behavior enforcement is achieved on the campuses in a variety of ways, such as special assemblies for kids who exemplify good character traits.

Laguna Beach High School Principal Don Austin said the biggest and most measurable change at his campus due to increased positive behavior support has been a sharp decline in single-period truancies.

After-school tutoring onsite has been a tough sell, he said, because more than half of the school’s students already use an outside tutor.

More than 600 excellence awards were given out at the recent award ceremony, which Austin said builds a culture in which students don’t need to earn straight-A grades in order to qualify.

In addition, two-thirds of awards handed out at the school’s athletic banquets focus on academic achievement and character traits, rather than athletic prowess.

The school’s albatross is still drug and alcohol use, Austin said.

“It’s still wrecking great kids and causing great strife in their families,” he said.

But he was realistic in his assessment, saying that the school can always do better, but he could be there for 20 years without seeing every single student not use drugs and alcohol.

District Assistant Supt. Nancy Hubbell said she has received preliminary results from the national Healthy Kids Survey, which found that the school’s juniors have reported significantly lower rates of on-campus drug and alcohol use, although other statistics haven’t changed much.

The Professional Learning Community program was approved by a cautious board several years ago, but following the update report, board members praised the program as being a resounding success.

Austin commented that such collaboration is not typical, saying that teachers and staff at other schools he’s worked at would fight for other ways to use the non-school-day time to work on some other issue.

The district will focus on increased communication as students move from school to school, as well as standardizing assessments in order to become more in sync.

High school staff and a parent volunteer have revamped the school’s profile, which is sent out with letters of recommendation and transcripts to colleges and universities.

The profile gives a glimpse of the high school to admissions officials, so they may compare it to other high schools with regard to weighted grades, honors and AP offerings and the like.

The board also approved the final 2008-09 budget with no discussion, as no members of the public attended the scheduled public meeting.

District principals also honored students who had perfect attendance this school year.

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.