TEACHING FAILING STUDENTS TO SUCCEED:
LBUSD RETHINKS GRADE PROMOTION



Monday, January 19, 1998

By Mariko Thompson
Long Beach Press Telegram

With Chad Hutchins, even a lesson in boring old punctuation gets jazzed up.

The 27-year-old English teacher, who at his most formal is called Mr. Chad by his 14year-old
pupils, stands at the board next to five sentences in dire need of capital letters and commas. His
examples both instruct and entertain: ``El ninois coming screamed the meteorologist'' and ``Hey
dude whatdo you think of the spice girls new album.''

Still in high spirits from recess, the girls in the class are more interested in passing around Polaroid
pictures and playing with their hair than they are in adding apostrophes or quotation marks. But
they hush the second that Hutchins -- who, with his goatee and cropped hair, could look equally at
home in a beatnik cafe -- raises his voice and points to the sentences.

``I don't care what happens in your other classes,'' he says in a drill sergeant tone. ``You know
my expectations are so much higher.''

Hutchins, a second-year teacher, indeed sets high standards for his students. And officials in the
Long Beach Unified School District hold even higher ones for Hutchins and the rest of the teaching
staff at the Long Beach Preparatory Academy, an experimental school launched last fall for
children repeating the eighth grade.

In 1994, the district made its reputation nationally as the first to require uniforms in its elementary
and middle schools. Now the district is tackling automatic promotions: the widespread practice of
allowing pupils to move to the next grade regardless of how poorly they perform. Rather than
going on to high school, eighth-graders with two or more F's on their report cards last year were
sent to the new school.

District officials recognized that making students repeat the same classes with the same teachers
wouldn't address the reasons they had failed in the first place. So they set up a special school for
323 pupils in Signal Hill, at a former GTE maintenance yard at 20th Street and Cherry Avenue,
with support services and an average class size of 20 students per teacher.

``We think what we're doing is genuine intervention,'' Superintendent Carl Cohn says. ``Getting
held back isn't the best feeling in the world -- there's going to be a short-term loss of self-esteem.
But if we really prepare them to do well, there's going to be a long-range boost to self-esteem.''

A is for automatic

In September, the American Federation of Teachers released a study that examined promotion
policies in 85 school districts around the country. It found that most districts fall into two equally
ineffective categories: Children are either automatically promoted, often to preserve self-esteem or
because the district lacks academic standards to justify retention; or they're held back without the
benefit of catch-up programs such as individual tutoring or a longer instructional day.

With the eighth-grade school, Long Beach joins a small, elite group of districts such as Cincinnati
that are meeting the problem head-on, says Joan Baretz-Snowden, the federation's deputy director.
In Cincinnati, pupils are placed in smaller classes that are tailored to bring them up to grade level.

``You're way ahead of other districts,'' she says of Long Beach.

The campus, rows of brown bungalows across asphalt, has a no-frills, military feel. Pupils chat
and eat lunch at picnic tables or on sun-splashed bleachers. There's no gym, so the kids participate
in physical education classes in their school uniforms and play ``Ultimate Frisbee'' and field
hockey on the blacktop.

To give kids more personal attention, the 25-member teaching staff has been split into five teams.
Each team shares the same pupils. Kids have the same classmates all day.

A social worker and two social worker interns have been assigned to the school. The nurse runs a
support group for former smokers. After-school activities include afternoon football to homework
tutorials.

With district officials hoping to turn the Long Beach Preparatory Academy into a national model,
the pressure is on to make the school work, says Reyna Rosas, a physical education teacher.

``There is a big demand for the success of this school,'' says Rosas, a petite woman with a
nononsense demeanor who marches her charges in a single file line out to the blacktop every
period.

B is for better

For teachers, it can be a tough assignment. The kids' abilities veer all over the map. More than a
dozen students are bright enough for placement in the Gifted and Talented Education program. A
number have been diagnosed for the first time with learning disabilities, such as attention deficit
disorder, although school officials declined to say how many.

The problems that got them to the school are equally diverse, from hyperactivity to broken homes.

During breaks, the campus crackles with a frenetic energy. Ask the kids how they're doing and
they'll say they've improved, that the teachers care about them here.

``I'm doing a lot better,'' says Daniel Rodriguez, who attended Hughes Middle School last year.
``I just pay attention more; I'm not messing around. A lot of it comes from the fact that the teachers
here help you.''

But they're also painfully aware of the stigma attached to the school, which was strongly opposed
by the Signal Hill community before it opened.

``We are not hoodlums,'' says Stormy Williams, who speaks with a dramatic flair, holding a
burger in each hand and waving them in the air for effect. ``We are together people.''

Signal Hill police say there have been no complaints from neighbors since the school opened.

The school also has been at the center of litigation. Signal Hill city officials alleged the site was
contaminated from hazardous waste disposal and that the district failed to follow competitive
bidding requirements. A judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order. City and district
officials are still involved in settlement discussions.

C is for changeable

Social studies teacher Deb Meyers, a ninth-year veteran, has good days and bad days. Sometimes
it's more like good hours and bad hours. For one period, her students, 16 boys, quietly fill out
worksheets. A radio, a reward for good behavior, hums softly in the background.

Meyers, with her warm blue eyes and carrot-colored hair, looks like a patient big sister as she
circulates around the room, helping the kids with their work. She came to Long Beach from the
Azusa Unified School District, where she taught high school students enrolled in special education.

``Personally, I came here because I admired Long Beach for actually trying,'' she says.

The bell rings and the boys shuffle out the door. The next class is both her wildest and brightest,
she warns. Meyers passes out world maps and reads off questions for a geography quiz. Correct
answers are worth play money, which the boys can trade in later for prizes such as pizza parties.

Within minutes, two students with a passion for break dancing have tossed the maps on the carpet
and are using the slick laminated surfaces to spin like tops. Another boy repeatedly throws and
picks up a crumpled paper ball. Two more exchange nasty words and start kicking each other in
the shins.

Meyers shrilly counts to three. She docks play money from two kids who are busy talking.
Another boy is sent to the detention room.

The mood stills and the class settles into a play about the winter at Valley Forge. By the end of the
period, the kids are chanting, ``Yankee doodle doodle doo, Yankee doodle dandy. All the lasses
and the lads are as sweet as sugar candy.''

Meyers looks frazzled but is still smiling.

``This is the behavior that got them here in the first place,'' she says. ``It's actually 100 percent
better. It still has a ways to go.''

D is for discipline

From day one, discipline has been the greatest challenge, and not all teachers were up to the task.
Four have left since September. Only one team -- Hutchins, Meyers, math teacher Gregory Towne
and science teacher Willamae Wagner -- has remained intact.

Teachers who had worked with challenging kids were recruited from around the country, including
Washington and Oklahoma.

Working in teams has made it easier for the teachers to keep tabs on their pupils' progress. But the
downside is that kids who spend the whole day together can quickly learn how to derail the class,
says Towne, who spent three years teaching in South-Central Los Angeles. For example, his kids
know he'll stop class if he hears someone swearing or ridiculing a classmate.

``They learn how to push your buttons: `We don't want to do anything today, so let's get Mr.
Towne going,' '' says Towne, a clean-cut teacher who displays only one eccentricity, three small
silver hoops in one ear.

In October, to assist exasperated teachers, the school hired the much-loved (by teachers) and
much-feared (by students) dean of discipline. Teachers said bringing in Jim Richardson, a 20-year
veteran in the district, has made a world of difference: Now they can focus more on teaching and
less on dispensing discipline. Richardson, who patrols the campus in velour sweat suits and dark
sunglasses, previously taught P.E. at Franklin Middle School.

``He came in and laid down the law,'' Towne says.

When Richardson arrived, the detention room was full every day. Now it's down to about a
half-dozen kids at any time. His goal is to see fewer and fewer.

``I'd like to see each and every student here get on task and realize what they have to do,''
Richardson says in a Spartan office that contains nothing more than a desk, a phone, a computer
and a couple of chairs. ``If they're willing to work, they can get on grade level. But it's not going
to be easy.''

F is for future

Administrators predict the majority of kids will be prepared for high school by the end of the year.
The district will find alternative placements -- possibly continuation school -- for those who don't
make it.

This year, promotion to ninth grade will be based on grades. The district is considering an exit
exam in the future, Principal Miguel Lopes says. More rigorous courses will be added: The school
plans to offer algebra in the spring.

Pupils recently received their quarter grades, which serve as a progress report. Administrators
won't give specifics on how the kids are doing. Some have excelled, earning A's and B's. Others
are still struggling.

``There were a number of failures, but I'm hesitant to say the number because it is not written in
stone,'' Lopes says.

Back in Hutchins' class, the girls are absorbed in poems about break dancing, teen motherhood
and the invincibility of youth. This group is an all-girls section, a test case to see if they perform
better in separate or mixed-gender classes.

Hutchins, who spent his rookie year teaching second grade in Oklahoma City, is constantly
looking for works that will grab his young audience.

``I barely graduated from high school,'' he says. ``All the negative images I had of high school I
try to recall so that I don't do the same things.''

``I feel this year is really important for their academics,'' he continues. ``I want to hook them so
they see the things they do are relevant. A lot of them might have been called failures in the past.
I'm here to hook them and rejuvenate them.''

For their next task, Hutchins asks them to write a quick journal entry and then highlight key
words, words that will form the basis for a poem. He uses Monique Flores' key words as an
example. He writes on the board: Waking up, excited my friend is picking me up, put on my
uniform, now it ain't no thang, starting up her boyfriend's car, the excitement begins.

The girls protest.

``Chad, don't use `ain't.' It isn't proper,'' says Jamila Wilburn.

``But this is a poem,'' Hutchins shoots back, throwing his arms in the air.

The girls laugh. They scribble away in their composition books, intertwining their lives and
poetry, until the bell rings.


ALSO SEE the Focused Reporting Project's more critical look at Prep Academy