Selling the Farm : County’s Agricultural Shrinkage May Spell the End for Costa Mesa High School Program

Costa Mesa High School senior Jennifer Raia tends to her critters--75 rabbits, 50 chickens, two pigs, a lamb and a 14-pound rabbit named Bernard--on a farm at the school that gives city kids a taste of what life is like down on the farm.

But as Orange County farmland gives way to business and housing developments, Newport-Mesa school board officials are questioning the wisdom of keeping the school’s agricultural program up and running.

Board members, some of whom question whether there is enough student and parent interest to justify the program, are scheduled to vote on its future at a 7:30 meeting tonight.

One school administrator charges that the lone agriculture teacher can’t adequately handle the supervision needs of the program but says there aren’t enough students to justify adding more staff.

At least two other farm programs in the county have been closed in the past 5 years, at least in part because of decreasing enrollment.

But parents and students, who say the Costa Mesa program offers more than just exposure to animal husbandry and horticulture, say they plan to voice their support for the program at tonight’s meeting at Costa Mesa’s Harper School, 425 E. 18th St.

About 30 parents, students and former students are expected to attend, said Jim Raia, father of 18-year-old Jennifer and president of the Future Farmers of America Booster Club.

Jim Raia said the program is the only one in the district that teaches students science, business and social skills like leadership and public speaking.

“It really is a turnaround point for a lot of the kids here,” he said, explaining that many of the students learn better with the hands-on training that farm work provides.

Parent Susan Donovan, whose eighth-grade son, Sean, is in his first year of the program, commented on the businesslike aspect of the agribusiness portion of the program.

In the program, second-year students are allowed to buy animals and plants to raise and sell from the school or at fairs.

Animals must be fed, cleaned and medicated by the students every day of the year, parents said.

“Animals don’t care if it’s your birthday,” Jim Raia said.

But Principal Frank J. Infusino said that although enrollment in the program is up this year because eighth-graders were allowed to participate, interest in the program rarely lasts more than 1 year. Seniors like Jennifer Raia are rare, he said.

“Obviously agriculture is important, but agricultural land is drying up rapidly in Orange County,” he said. Development of much of the farmland in the county has resulted in fewer agricultural jobs, and student interest has shifted to other professions, he said.

Infusino said eighth-graders were allowed to enroll last year in an effort to boost enrollment.

There are nearly 70 students, eighth- through 12th-graders, in the program this year and about a third of them are eighth-graders. Before the eighth-graders were allowed to participate, the average number of students in each of the program’s three classes was 10, or 30 students at any one time.

Infusino recommended last month that the program be discontinued because he felt that the 19-acre farm could not be properly supervised by the program’s lone instructor.

Staffing cuts due to decreased enrollment throughout the Newport-Mesa Unified School District--which includes Costa Mesa High--made it necessary to lay off a farm aide who had helped instructor Roy Center maintain the farm, he said.

“My only concern is that we have a quality program and that it is a safe, well-supervised program,” Infusino said. “It’s not a question of people liking the program.”

Parent Volunteers Help

But Center said he had recruited 44 students for classes next year and said he would not have a problem supervising as many as 60 students in the program’s three classes.

“I think the supervision is as good here as it is anywhere else on the campus,” Center said. He acknowledged that his job has been harder since the farm aide was laid off but noted that parents have put in more than 1,000 hours of volunteer time this school year to help with maintenance, he said.

To ensure the safety of students and animals, students must wait until he can supervise them before operating machinery, and tools are locked up in his absence, he said.

Costa Mesa High is not alone in having to justify continuation of its agriculture-related program.

The program at Brea-Olinda High School was shut down in the spring of 1985. In Placentia, district officials decided last March to close the Valencia High School farm at the end of this school year.

Both decisions were either directly or indirectly related to attendance.

But a number of farm-related programs remain.

Including Costa Mesa High School, nine county high schools have on-site farms. Fullerton Joint Union High School District has farms on five of its six campuses.

Newport-Mesa officials initially considered having students use the farm facility at neighboring Orange Coast College, but the college will be discontinuing its animal science program in May.

“It seems to be going around all over the county,” Gary James, math and sciences dean at Orange Coast, said of the farm closings. “It’s really a reflection of the loss of farmland in the county.”

James said the animal science and agribusiness programs at the college will be eliminated because of waning student interest. “For the last 2 to 3 years we have had decreasing numbers of students in the program.”

Newport-Mesa School Board President Rod MacMillian said members are in favor of the program but share Infusino’s concerns about safety and decreased enrollment and feel that current parent involvement is not sufficient.

“We’d like to see the parents and 4-H pick up the ball and keep it going so we don’t have to go through this every year,” said MacMillian.

Board member Forrest Werner said that the board is considering several options rather than closing the program. Among them are reducing the program to one class instead of the present three, or eliminating all classes but maintaining the facility as an after-school club.

Parent Susan Donovan said she and other parents are concerned that limiting the program to one class or making it a club would result in a poor treatment of the subjects now addressed in three classes and would eliminate much of the responsibility students learn.

“It really helps self-esteem to be able to see your finished product,” Kim Corbett, 15, said of the program as she fed peppermint-flavored Kaopectate to her sick pig, Honey. Corbett, a sophomore, said she plans to own day-care centers and believes that working with animals may help her with children.

Corbett summed up the importance of self-discipline in the program in referring to her investment: “If I blow the project, I lose my money.”