This Magnet Is Attracting Accolades : Balboa Boulevard School Points Pupils Toward Success

It was a typical day for the 502 students at Balboa Boulevard Magnet School.

The school’s orchestra polished its performance in the auditorium. A second-grader deftly explained how electricity illuminated the light bulb on her desk.

Two students practiced their reporting skills by interviewing the principal. Older children practiced Latin.

And pink newborn mice nuzzled their mother in a classroom where students sometimes drape large snakes around themselves.

A typical day, but not a typical school.

Late last year, the magnet school in Northridge was one of 287 elementary schools nationwide to receive the U.S. Department of Education’s National Distinguished School Award. Just three other schools were selected for the honor in Los Angeles County, including one other in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Wins State Honor

The school, which also won the state’s version of the award, has been showered with plaques and scrolls ever since.

“I think everybody in the world has given us something,” Principal Phyllis Q. Marquardt said happily as she thumbed through a stack of awards slated for display in the auditorium.

Tony Rivas, a regional superintendent for the district in the San Fernando Valley, said the accolades are well-deserved.

“We think it’s one of the finest schools we have out here,” Rivas said.

Balboa Boulevard Magnet looks like a lot of other Southern California schools--classes are held in nondescript beige stucco buildings scattered across the sprawling campus. But its days as a neighborhood school ended five years ago.

Today, 23 buses drop off children from as far away as South Gate and Hollywood and as close as Northridge and Sepulveda. Children of physicians and attorneys sit side by side with children of newly arrived immigrants. The student body is 60% minority.

Many of the children are intellectually gifted. About half have scored at least 135 on IQ tests. Others have been recommended for admission by their teachers because they show great promise.

The school routinely scores in the 99th percentile statewide in the California Assessment Program, or CAP, tests.

But the students’ high achievement level is only part of what makes the school special, teachers and parents said. The faculty meets in strategy sessions to plan a curriculum that goes well beyond textbooks. For instance, teachers changed their lesson plans after concluding that books alone could not teach the children measurements and problem solving. And computers and video equipment are as familiar as No. 2 pencils at the school.

A strong sense of community also exists within the school as well as a commitment to make education fun.

Several members of the local Parent-Teacher Assn. help at the school each day. One parent who is an attorney prepared a mock trial for third-graders to participate in. A physician shared his knowledge of the heart with students. Parents constantly raise money for the school by holding book fairs, bake sales, aluminum can drives, and yogurt and pizza nights.

In addition, the school was “adopted” four years ago by family practice residents at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. As a result, fourth-graders have toured an ambulance, learning about the treatment of accident victims; fifth-graders were visited by a tracheotomy patient in a demonstration on the lungs, and sixth-graders will be taught by hospital staff members how to be responsible baby-sitters.

Alumni Group

At Balboa, parents hate to see their kids graduate. In fact, PTA parents whose children are graduating this year are organizing an alumni group so old ties will remain intact.

“It is far and away the best school I have ever seen in terms of education, attitude, atmosphere--all those things you want for your children,” said Carol Singerman of Tarzana, who has two children at Balboa.

What’s more, the children form tight bonds with the school. They say they don’t even mind catching school buses before dawn to get there.

“I have a two-hour drive on the bus from the house, but I say it’s worth it,” said Christian Lopez, a sixth-grader from South Los Angeles. Oscar Aguilar, who lives in South Los Angeles, nodded in agreement.

At their previous schools, gangs overran the hallways and learning was secondary to surviving, Aguilar said as he pointed to Lopez’s red wristband.

“If he wore this, they’d beat him up,” Aguilar said.

To compete in the national contest, the school had to submit a 44-page application. Two educators from Idaho were dispatched by the Department of Education to inspect Balboa for two days.

Before they left, students who read up on Idaho in the school library presented them with papier-mache potatoes.

Several months passed before the students heard the good news.

“I think we worked pretty hard for the award,” said Aaron Tward, 11, of Northridge. “I personally like the idea that I got into a school this good.”