Students March to Own Drum in ‘Independent Study’

She was 17, bright, and from an affluent family in Irvine.

Seemingly, she had everything going for her. But she was heavily into drugs, was a high school dropout and seemed to have no goal or purpose in life.

Thanks to her recent entry into a relatively new education program, however, a remarkable change has taken place in the troubled teen-ager, Jill Sleeper said.

“She has a job now and has already moved up the pay scale. And she is taking many (high school) credits because she’s become so motivated,” Sleeper said.

“Independent study was the thing that did it.”

Sleeper, who works in Irvine Unified School District’s independent study program, was one of about 300 teachers and administrators who gathered Wednesday at the Emerald of Anaheim Hotel for the opening of a four-day convention of the California Consortium for Independent Study.

Classes Outside Classrooms

The educators are involved in a relatively new and little-known program in public education. That program, called “independent study,” allows students in elementary and high schools to take regular courses at their own pace and outside classrooms.

Educators claim--and they have case histories to prove their point--that independent study fills the school needs of thousands of California children who otherwise would be dropouts. They range from very wealthy children who are bored to poor teen-agers who must work to survive. All have one thing in common: Regular classrooms aren’t suitable for them.

Independent study differs from “continuation education” in that the latter maintains regular classrooms and is most often for young people with behavioral or academic problems.

Children taking independent study, by contrast, aren’t necessarily discipline cases or slow learners. There can be classroom settings, but frequently the independent study student has no formal place of learning. “He can study at the beach, literally,” said Barry Altshule, coordinator of Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District’s independent study program.

Tests Given in Classrooms

Altshule said all independent study students make agreements, or contracts, with their instructors about how much academic work they are going to cover during a certain time period. “And all of the tests are given in regular classrooms,” Altshule said. He said the big difference is that the students, between tests and sessions with instructors, are free to read their books and study wherever and whenever they feel they are best able.

“Independent study is useful for pregnant girls who are continuing their education,” said Bill Hardy of Simi Valley Unified School District. “And after the baby is born, our program lets the girls bring their babies with them. Let’s face it, for many of these kids, it’s really rough after the baby is born.”

Convention officials say about half of California’s 1,100 school districts now offer independent study as an alternative to regular classrooms. In Orange County, 18 of the the 28 public school districts offer independent study, according to the county’s Department of Education.

State Program Started in ’77

“Independent study (as a state-sanctioned program) was begun in 1977,” said Jean Klinghoffer, coordinator of independent study in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. “It’s a program that can help migrant children and children who have to work to support their families.”

Klinghoffer, who is vice president of the state independent study educators’ consortium, stressed that the subjects taught are the same ones, and of the same quality, as those in regular classrooms. “We’ve worked to make sure that there’s parity with the regular curriculum--not something that is watered down,” she said.

The teachers at the convention said that the new program offers education a new kind of flexibility. They said it reaches out--and rescues--children who otherwise would fall through the cracks in the educational structure.

A convention brochure had this summation: “Independent study is a dynamic area whose potential is limited only by the imaginations of the people in the field.”