(Vol. 4, No. 1 - Spring 2000)

Student Support:
A "Laserlike" Focus on the Neediest Kids

In the last two years, Long Beach Unified has redoubled its effort to support its many low-income and low-performing middle grades students. Next on the agenda: better counseling support and an effort to correct the "scandal" of "storefront schools."

By John Norton

Two years ago, English teacher Adrianne Matte spoke poignantly about conditions at Hamilton Middle School in an interview with Changing Schools. Students at Hamilton, she said, were "tougher kids to teach. They're not mean kids -- but they are so very, very needy."

Matte described a school with a small core of veteran teachers who found themselves not only "thinking about these kids 24 hours a day," but trying to support the large numbers of new and inexperienced teachers who came and went every year, creating an atmosphere of permanent instability. Despite the heroic efforts of principal Cynthia Terry and her administrative staff, it was impossible to serve the school's 1300-plus student population at the level Terry and Matte and others knew they needed.

Today, Hamilton Middle School is a different kind of place. The school is still overcrowded and many of the teachers are still inexperienced. But a "can do" spirit now permeates the school. What changed? District leaders heard the cry for help.

In the fall of 1998, the district placed a team of four full-time teacher-coaches at Hamilton, one for each core subject area. The highly accomplished teachers, drawn from other middle schools across the district, mentored rookies in the fundamentals of good teaching and classroom management. They worked with more experienced teachers to redesign instruction for the many kids with limited basic skills and special learning needs. They even pitched in for cafeteria duty.

And the district took other steps to strengthen support for students in the school. New literacy programs, more guidance support, earlier intervention. The decision to make the school year-round created new opportunities to help struggling kids during the "inter-sessions" that substitute for summer vacation in the year-round model. "It's still a challenge," says Terry, "but it's a whole different school today -- a better school because we're in a better position to serve these kids."

Hamilton is one example of a larger phenomenon taking place across Long Beach Unified. In the last two years, the district has redoubled its effort to serve its many low-income and low-performing middle grades students. That has happened, in part, because of the school board's Eighth Grade Initiative, which requires students with two or more "F's" at the end of eighth grade to spend an extra year at Long Beach Prep Academy.

The Initiative sparked action on the part of principals and faculty across the district, both because they cared about the kids and because they didn't want to suffer the embarrassment (or potential consequences) of sending students "to Prep."

Schools started or expanded after-school programs, reorganized the school day to create more intensive instruction in basic literacy skills for kids who don't read and write well, added more support personnel, and improved their outreach to community service agencies that share their interest in creating a healthy environment for young adolescents.


Lessons from a tough year at Lindbergh

"The superintendent has made it very clear that he wants what he calls a 'laserlike focus' on those schools that are the neediest," says Dorothy Harper, who became assistant superintendent for middle schools last fall, after serving as "Area A" superintendent under the old administrative structure. Harper's area included both Hamilton and Lindbergh Middle, another school with similar challenges. Both schools remain under her supervision today.

Last year, Harper says, "we had a very tough year at Lindbergh. The teachers were complaining about the kids' behavior, the kids were complaining about the teachers because they felt misunderstood. So our school social worker, Noel Alpin, said he'd like to start some groups.

He worked with the counselors, the psychologist, and himself, and he recruited off-track counselors and social work interns. He also went to the outside and got additional resources. So we ended up with an extended counseling service center. I have to tell you that I don't know how we would have made it through the year if that intervention had not been brought to the campus."

Harper says when she assumed responsibility for the entire middle school program, one of her top priorities was to build on the experience at Lindbergh and "see if we could replicate those services at other schools and have really coordinated interventions for kids. We have a lot of support people in place now, but it's just not as focused and efficient as it could be."

The press of her new responsibilities -- and the transfer of a key staff person -- has forced Harper to "put my dream on hold" this year. But she vows to pursue it in 2000-01. "One of the things we're expecting to happen is that through this counseling support we'll have mentors for the youngsters who are most at risk. We want to maybe have a mentor on the campus for each kid. We want to provide some parent education services to parents of the youngsters. Not just the kids who are in deep, deep trouble, but borderline kids. And the kids that need more challenge -- we want to help the parents with that. We want enrichment, field trips, those kinds of things."

One knotty issue, says Harper, is deciding who will coordinate a program of this scale at every school where it's needed. While Alpin stepped into the breech at Lindbergh, "he couldn't keep doing it forever." She hopes that school-based counselors will take some of the responsibility, with district support. And she's counting on help from outside youth agencies.

"Our community resource folks are very interested in helping in any way they can," Harper says. "We haven't always done the best job in the past in using those resources, but we've gotten a lot better at that. So the goal is for school sites to take it on themselves, working with agencies."

Meanwhile, Adrianne Matte has moved to Long Beach Prep, where she says she's learned what it really takes to support the district's most needy kids. And Harper is quick to say that it was her own experience in starting the Prep Academy that hardened her determination to strengthen student support programs for middle graders.

Another target in her sights is the district's long-standing "storefront school" program, where students with behavior problems have often been placed. "They're a scandal, really," she says. "They're a holdover from the Seventies, and most often the curriculum is whatever keeps them quiet." By revamping the alternative schools and holding them to the same high academic standards being pushed in other schools, Harper believes the district can create a "safe haven" for some students "that are not ever going to make it on a traditional campus that's huge and crowded."

She imagines schools with small enrollments and low student-teacher ratios, designed specifically for middle graders. "We want to create a new alternative program that takes advantage of what we're learning about how to better meet the needs of all kids."


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