A Study in Ripples : Patrick Henry Junior High’s Science Program Travels on a Different Path to Discovery

In some ways, the science program at Patrick Henry Junior High School in Granada Hills is a principal’s nightmare.

Teachers refuse to use Los Angeles Unified School District-issued textbooks. Instead they use texts they wrote themselves.

To join the after-school science club, students must have a “B” average, the science faculty decided, instead of the lower, district-mandated “C” average.

Admittance to the ninth grade honors class, which at most schools is limited to youngsters with high IQs, has been opened to any student who can handle advanced work.

Clearly, Patrick Henry’s 20-year-old science program has set its own rules and agenda. In doing so, it has also earned a reputation as a success. Its students generally place at the top of the district on standardized test scores and the school boasts the largest enrollment for any junior high science club in the Los Angeles district.

Even with those accomplishments, however, school district officials have declined to use the renegade program as a model for improving science instruction at other junior high schools.

‘A Gentle Wave That Rocks the Boat’

“This program requires too much effort and it causes too much trouble, that’s why other schools haven’t adopted it,” said Linda Lane, Patrick Henry’s principal.

“Administrators in this district are overly concerned with not making waves,” said Albert Squatrito, chairman of Patrick Henry’s science department. “This program makes a gentle wave that rocks the boat.”

The science program at Patrick Henry differs from other science programs mostly because it relies heavily on teamwork among its four science teachers, emphasizes laboratory experimentation instead of textbook work for students and features weekend field trips to reinforce classroom lessons. The approach has created a stable atmosphere. Two of the science teachers having remained at the school for more than 20 years.

At the heart of the science program’s success is an educational concept called team-teaching in which instructors work in concert. That means one teacher will lecture on scientific concepts, while other teachers will reinforce that lecture by supervising labs on the same topic.

Students in Patrick Henry’s science program have traveled to Mount St. Helens in Washington to learn about volcanoes, to the Grand Canyon and to a fishing barge in the Pacific Ocean, where they conducted experiments in geology, biology and oceanography. During a typical school year, there are about six field trips; two one-day excursions, two or three weekend backpacking trips and one five-day camping expedition, school officials said.

The Henry program has won awards for excellence from teachers and science organizations. The California State Senate has passed resolutions twice praising the accomplishments of the science department.

Against this backdrop, the Los Angeles school district shows little interest in expanding the program. Gerald Garner, the district’s secondary school science adviser, admits there is reluctance to copy the program because it would require monumental coordination between science teachers and school administrators.

“The difficulty in setting up the program has made people shy away from it,” Garner said.

The Patrick Henry science program is particularly vexing because it makes changes in customs that have become integral parts of district bureaucracy.

Elsewhere, for instance, teachers are given freedom to run their classes in any manner they choose as long as they cover district requirements established for the course.

Agreement Among Teachers

The Patrick Henry program, on the other hand, requires that all instructors in the science department agree to teach the same subject at the same time in much the same way.

And district officials worry that if a principal pays special attention to establishing a science program such as Patrick Henry’s, teachers of other subjects might feel neglected and tension would develop.

To keep peace, administrators say, it is easier not to try to copy the Patrick Henry curriculum.

“I wouldn’t fault the system for having this kind of response,” said Ted Snyder, the science adviser for Los Angeles district schools in the north San Fernando Valley. “There have been several exemplary programs within the district that haven’t traveled well.”

Snyder added that one of the keys to Patrick Henry’s success lies in finding a leader as dedicated as Squatrito, creator of the school’s science curriculum.

“Every school could have a science program as solid as the Henry program if every school could have an Al Squatrito,” Snyder said.

Squatrito, 55, said he became a junior high school teacher by accident. In the 1960s, he was a Rocketdyne engineer disappointed in the science classes his daughter was taking at Nobel Junior High School in Northridge.

“They were boring and they weren’t getting her interested in the subject,” Squatrito said. “I’m not the kind of person who just sits back and complains. If something is wrong, I’ll roll up my sleeves, jump in and work to change it.”

Returned to College

Squatrito left Rocketdyne and went back to college to get teaching credentials. With a masters degree in education as well as an engineering degree, he was highly sought after by local public school districts.

Squatrito joined the Los Angeles system after cutting a deal: He received permission to redesign the science curriculum at the junior high school of his choice.

After years of trial and error, Squatrito and other science instructors at Patrick Henry have developed a curriculum with a heavy emphasis on scientific experimentation. At Patrick Henry, students spend about half their class time working on experiments; most Los Angeles junior high students spend less than one-third of their time in science labs, school officials said.

The innovative approach is fortified by a stable science faculty, school officials say. Darryl Furstnow has been at the school for 28 years. Paul Munsch is a 12-year veteran and Jim Belg is the “rookie” with just 2 1/2 years on the staff.

“This program teaches subjects in a way that interests me and gets the kids interested,” Belg said. “I have a great working relationship with the other teachers. I like the feeling of working on a team. This is the best program I could find.”

Staff-Written Texts

The teachers, along with Squatrito, have written their own set of texts and workbooks that focus on specific topics such as oceanography, inorganic chemistry and physics. Unlike typical textbooks, there are no questions at the end of the chapter for students to answer. Instead, the books challenge the students to go to outside resources and to conduct experiments.

After 20 years, the science program has produced tangible results. Eighth graders scored above the district average on the science portion of the California Assessment Program test of basic academic skills, the most widely quoted standardized test given to the state’s public school students. In 1986, the district average on the California Assessment Program science test was 216 points. Patrick Henry students scored an average of 238 points on the test.

That score matches the performance level of students in gifted and specialized science programs.

“When I started here, I was getting ‘fails’ in science,” said Patrick Henry ninth grader Mandy Green. “After a while, I started getting C’s and later, I started getting B’s. I’m a science teaching assistant now, so I can get more experience working with the experiments.”

Program Graduates Succeed

Patrick Henry’s former students have gone on to become doctors, astronomers and physical therapists. Squatrito is particularly proud that some students have become science teachers.

“All four of my kids went there, all four got turned onto science there and all four are still involved in some type of science-related field,” said Robert Rankin of Granada Hills, who has a daughter in medical school, another daughter who is a physical therapist, a son who computer programmer and a son majoring in science at California State University, Northridge.

To get their children into the program, some parents have been known to lie about their home addresses, Squatrito said. A few years ago, school officials discovered that a student who lived in Gorman, about 40 miles from Granada Hills, had enrolled at Henry specifically for the science program.

Though overall enrollment at Patrick Henry has declined drastically, interest in the science program may have increased. In the early 1970s, when total enrollment was 2,700 students, there was only one honors science class, Squatrito said. This year’s enrollment is about 1,000, and there are two honors science classes.

In Patrick Henry’s after-school science club, there are 100 members. Most junior highs are lucky to have 20 students sign up for the science club, science adviser Garner said.

Community Support

The science program also benefits from community and parental support. Squatrito estimates that it costs $965 per student annually for the field trip activities. The lion’s share of the expenses are covered by fund-raisers sponsored by the parents’ booster club and from donations from local businesses. In past years, parent and corporate donations have raised as much as $35,000 annually for science activities.

For his work in the science program, the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce named Squatrito its “Man of the Year” last year.

But despite the successes the Patrick Henry science program has achieved, Squatrito is disappointed that it has yet to become a model for curriculum improvements at other schools in the district--one of the highest accolades that an academic program can receive.

“It does make me feel badly, but I’m not surprised,” Squatrito said. “I knew that changing the system was going to take time, that’s why I signed on for the long haul.

“We’ve been around long enough now that some of our students are parents and teachers,” he added. “Soon, they’ll start asking questions about why their kids’ science programs aren’t as good as the one they had in school. That’s when things will really start shaking, when lots of parents and teachers start demanding change.”