A School of the Future Is Opening Now : Century High Is All High-Tech

Armed with a sleeping bag and a copy of the National Enquirer, Alexander Ricker’s stepfather camped out overnight at the offices of the Santa Ana Unified School District last April, determined to win a coveted spot for his stepson in a new high school touted as California’s most futuristic, state-of-the-art school.

“We would’ve done anything,” said Ricker’s mother, Cindy Huahulu. “We wanted to get him into that school. It seemed to be so state of the art, and the way things are going now, all computers and everything, well, he had to get in.”

Ricker’s stepfather was among hundreds of parents and students who waited in line. The $37-million Century High School, which opens this fall with a motto of “We Are the Future,” will be the first high school in California to totally integrate computers and high technology into every aspect of the curriculum.

Students at Century will learn desktop publishing in journalism classes, will be able to gain computer access to research materials for an English term paper at UC Irvine’s library, and can call up statistics on body-fat content for physical education classes.

“There’s no way a student can come to school here and not be impacted by the technology,” Principal Gerald Arriola said.

The new high school is part of an ambitious building plan to alleviate severe crowding in the county’s largest, and the state’s ninth largest, school district. Century will open its doors with only ninth- and 10th-graders and an enrollment of 1,100, drawing from both Santa Ana and Saddleback high schools. But within two years, it will grow to about 2,000 students, taking in the ninth through 12th grades.

The school made its official debut Friday with a dedication ceremony that featured a multimedia presentation by George Lucas, Hollywood’s high-tech fantasy wizard, showing the latest Apple Macintosh technologies, which will be used throughout the school.

“This day will be noted as the day Santa Ana Unified School District stepped to the forefront, not only in the education arena but in the high-tech arena as well,” said Supt. Rudy Castruita, who decided that Santa Ana’s fourth and newest high school should be equipped for the future.

The ceremony was held near the “stramp,” the centerpiece of the modern new facility that is a combination ramp and stairs, winding around a stage area in a gentle spiral. This outdoor area will be used for school assemblies and other gatherings, that is, when the three-court gymnasium is not being used or when the 330-seat “teleconferencing and communications center”--better known as an auditorium--cannot hold everyone.

Most public schools now have computer labs or offer computer courses, but Arriola could find no other school in which technology was made as thorough a part of the curriculum from the outset, as it is at Century. And he should know. He traveled across the country looking for models.

In recognition of its innovative mission, Century was recently awarded a $1.3-million grant from the state Department of Education--funding reserved for specialized schools.

At Century, every classroom, office and conference room is wired for computer hookups, cable television and telephone data lines.

“We stopped short of the restrooms,” Arriola said during a tour of the school earlier this week.

Teachers’ desks will be known as “teacher workstations” because there will be computers instead of grade books and attendance cards.

“We really spent a lot of time trying to think for tomorrow,” Arriola said, while lights went on automatically, “Star Trek”-like, as he passed through doorways into spanking new classrooms.

10 Computer Labs

The school will have 10 computer labs outfitted with 200 Apple Macintosh personal computers, 20 IBM personal computers and a Digital Equipment Corp. Micro VAX mainframe that will be connected to every area of the school.

While not every classroom will have computers at every student’s desk, Arriola said, there will be laptop computers passed around in a “mobile lab,” and students will be able to check them out for home use.

Arriola showed a visitor through the school with the polish of a practiced guide. He has, after all, done this numerous times. Even at a time when hard hats had to be worn during construction, requests to see the school poured in from Hawaii, Canada, Pennsylvania and across California.

Century High School, made of stark, unpainted concrete, is in an industrial area on South Grand Street next to the Edison Co. In fact, the school has more of a feel of a corporate office than of a school.

The floors in most rooms are carpeted, the architecture is sleek and open, and the computers suggest a modernity missing from traditional school buildings.

No Shortchanging

But teachers who have been working most of the summer to prepare for the coming year point out that a school that emphasizes high-tech will not shortchange students in other areas, such as the humanities and athletics.

Indeed, Century’s teachers and coaches, along with Arriola, are excited about the prospect of working for a new school because it offers a chance to test innovations in educational concepts and curricula that perhaps were not possible elsewhere.

Take the school’s cafeteria fare, for example. Arriola learned through his research and years of working as a principal that high school students “are in worse (physical) shape than almost any other age group.”

Junk food will not be sold in the snack bar, and lifetime physical fitness will be emphasized in the physical education division.

Then there are the classrooms. The school will be divided into four divisions, a type of organization more common in universities than in high schools. Teachers here say it makes more sense. The four divisions are the humanities, which includes English, social studies, foreign language and English as a Second Language; math-science; health and fitness, and performing and fine arts.

‘Fabulous Opportunity’

“We are not grounded in a history, so we can’t say: ‘We’ve always done it that way.’ It’s a fabulous opportunity,” said Jan Osborn, head of the school’s humanities division.

Such an organization will allow for team teaching in different subject areas. For example, a social studies teacher and an English teacher will instruct their students in a two-hour block of time and will tie each other’s lesson plans to the other’s subject area. This is based on the idea, Osborn said, that you cannot appreciate literature unless you understand history.

Teachers say there will be more school-based management at Century--a concept where teachers along with the principal make many of the curriculum decisions instead of depending on a centralized plan from the district office.

Teachers say they doubt that Century will become a school of “computer nerds” who have little appreciation for the arts or finesse in athletics. Part of that, it is generally agreed, is because of the quality of teachers hired for every department.

Arriola said there were 15 to 16 applicants for every teaching job. About 40% of Century’s teachers are new to the district.

‘Eccentric’ Group

“He’s hired a very eclectic--maybe you could even say eccentric--group of people who have been stars in their own right but haven’t been able to come out and do the stuff they wanted,” said math teacher Sandy Porter, who was decorating her classroom with a purple octopus and an orange “Welcome Back to School” sign.

Coaches say they are not worried about non-athletic computer wizards trying to compete on intramural teams.

“We will get some kids like that,” said Coach Jeff Watts. “There has been so much publicity about academics and athletics not mixing. You hear of all these great athletes who can’t read . . . but I see that reversing itself. Schools are saying to their students: ‘Just because you are good at academics doesn’t mean that you can’t be good at athletics.’

“It would be one thing if we had high academic teachers here and poor athletic facilities, but the athletic facilities are good,” he added.

Of Century’s initial enrollment, 300 spaces were designated for students who otherwise would have attended other schools within the district. All four high schools have their own magnet, or “strand” programs, and all reserve some spots for open enrollment. But none of the other schools had people camping overnight to make sure that they could get in.

Ricker, 13, would have been attending Santa Ana High School but decided that if he is going to become a pharmacist, he will need much of the work offered by Century.

“I’m going to be missing all my friends, but I really want to go there, and it seems like a great school, an advanced school,” he said. “We had an assembly on it last year, where they told us all about the computers, and it seemed so high-tech, and I was like totally into it.”