A Place to Address Problems : New School Serves Troubled Junior High Students

School is not a friendly word in the vocabulary of Alma, Heather and Shannon, all troubled 14-year-olds in the eighth grade in the Glendale Unified School District.

One is a fighter. Her classmates were afraid to use the bathroom for fear that they would be beaten.

The other two are chronic truants. They’ve rarely attended a day.

Together, they make up the inaugural class of Kenwood Middle School--Glendale’s new continuation school for seventh- and eighth-graders.

The school opened Tuesday in two units of a modest converted apartment building at 221 S. Kenwood St., once the home of the old Heritage Christian High School and owned by the financially troubled United Community Church, part of the former empire of the Rev. William S. McBirnie, the syndicated radio and television evangelist.

The school shares the two-story apartment house with a child-care center and classrooms rented by Glendale Community College.

The church gymnasium is being used for physical education.

The new middle school is designed to serve what one official of the school district described as “a handful of students who just seem to be in trouble, no matter what.”

With a maximum capacity for 32 students, the school is the first alternative program for junior high students in the Glendale district, said Donald W. Empey, deputy superintendent of instruction.

Empey said junior high officials for several years had suggested that there was a need for more individual attention for some youngsters, but that seventh- and eighth-graders were considered too young to be sent to the district’s continuation high school.

The Board of Education allocated $100,000 for the program this year, which includes two teachers who are specialists in dealing with problem youngsters--Allison Settles, 32, and Rodney Yonkers, 35.

The district has operated Allan F. Daily High, a continuation school for about 300 ninth- through 12-graders, for 25 years, but until now has had no alternative for students with difficulties in the lower grades, said Ted W. Tiffany, principal of Daily and Kenwood.

Younger students who ran into problems generally were transferred to another of the district’s four junior high campuses, but that alternative has not always been a viable solution, Tiffany said.

“Oftentimes, they cause disruption and difficulties no matter where they are sent. Our options were somewhat limited,” Tiffany said.

Settles said some students have difficulty getting along in the seemingly formal and intimidating atmosphere of a large junior high campus.

Settles said one girl who was transferred to Kenwood, for instance, had refused to attend classes at Rosemont Junior High School because “she felt she didn’t fit in because she didn’t have Guess? jeans.”

Settles described the middle school, in contrast, as “real comfortable, not intimidating. It’s a safe environment.”

Students call teachers by their first names and are allowed to progress at their own pace.

“In the regular home school, they sometimes get lost in the crowd,” Settles said. “It’s harder for the student to get lost in our type of program. Sometimes, all they need is just the feeling that somebody cares about them.”

The program is geared to return students to their regular school program within a semester or two, Settles said. “Hopefully, we’ll get them on track and they won’t end up at the continuation high school.

“If I were going to school, I would really like this kind of setting,” she added.