‘Blue-Collar’ Schools Chief Changes Santa Ana Image

Rudy Castruita swept into the Santa Ana Unified School District superintendent’s office a year ago last week with a flurry of activity, egging on students with the force of his boisterous personality and assuring parents that he would tackle overcrowding and other district problems.

Now, with one school year behind him and a second just under way, the self-described “blue-collar superintendent” already can point to some noteworthy accomplishments: During his short tenure, Santa Ana has held its first peaceful salary negotiations in nearly a decade, pursued an ambitious land acquisition and school construction program, and forged strong ties to the city and state governments.

“It’s been a fantastic year, a great experience with great opportunities,” the personable superintendent said in an interview last week. “We’re doing something special, and we’re going to achieve great things.”

Castruita’s pitch is so animated that he makes it easy to forget the challenges he faces. Already Orange County’s largest district, Santa Ana grows exponentially, never failing to exceed planners’ expectations. When he took over last November, Castruita inherited the state’s ninth-largest district. Today, he presides over the eighth-largest, and it’s growing almost every day.

What’s more, most of the district’s 43,000 students have limited English skills, and 36% are immigrants, speaking close to 40 different languages and dialects, with Tagalog and Farsi-speaking students rounding out classes of youngsters who speak Spanish or Vietnamese. Test scores improved for eighth-graders last year, but fell or held steady for third- and sixth-graders, tracking state trends. And dropouts continue to confound educators’ efforts to keep their students in school.

“It’s an amazingly difficult district because of its size and fast-changing demographics,” said Kenneth Hall, president of School Services of California, a private educational consulting firm based in Sacramento.

Still, if there’s one thing that nearly all local educators agree on, it’s that Castruita is up to the task of managing the melting pot district.

Raised by his grandparents in El Monte, the 45-year-old superintendent entered elementary school not knowing English and became the first member of his family to graduate from high school. He went on to college, then earned a doctorate in education administration from USC. Castruita served as a teacher and administrator in the El Monte Union High School District and as principal of Los Alamitos High School before joining the administrative ranks of Santa Ana Unified four years ago as assistant superintendent of the secondary division.

Last year, Castruita replaced former Supt. Edward S. Krass, who resigned for health reasons. Castruita received a three-year contract at $85,000 per year--$15,000 more than Krass was paid.

Castruita’s appointment made him only the second Latino superintendent of an urban school district in California, and he has offered himself as a role model for Santa Ana’s predominantly Latino student population, which previously had few high-ranking officials of Latino heritage to admire.

By his example and his enthusiasm, Castruita, a man with a firm handshake and fiery devotion to education, has taken Santa Ana Unified by storm.

He had hardly been superintendent for a week before he was touring schools, shaking students’ hands and chatting with them in English and Spanish. Since then, he’s made it a practice to drop in on at least one school a day.

Castruita also wasted no time in courting public opinion and political leaders, meeting with City Council members and other leaders and granting frequent interviews in the English and Spanish press. That propelled him into the spotlight but at the same time drew attention to changes in his district.

“I’m trying to create self-esteem for our students,” he said. “To begin to change the image of the Santa Ana Unified School district to one of the finest urban school districts in the country.”

Joan Bissell, an education expert at UC Irvine, is among the legions of observers who sing Castruita’s praises.

“He is doing remarkable things,” Bissell said, citing improvements in the district’s computer education, bilingual instruction and other areas. “He is making Santa Ana one of the finest school districts in the state, if not the nation.”

Under Castruita, the district has initiated new bilingual education programs, including one that helps bilingual aides pursue college degrees and teaching certificates while they work for the district. That program has become a state model, and the district has received grants for its bilingual programs as well as its high-technology studies.

In addition, Santa Ana has updated its science curriculum and organized a peer assistance program to combat drug abuse. More than half a dozen new schools have opened, and others are in the works.

Locally, Castruita has waged a spirited local campaign to earn teachers greater respect and to imbue parents with a sense of responsibility for their children’s education. While that campaign gets rolling, he also has pursued an inside track with Sacramento.

He appears frequently at the elbow of Bill Honig, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, and is one of a select group of educators who will join Honig at the state’s education summit conference this month.

“The consensus here is that Castruita is a very effective leader, and he’s very well respected,” said William L. Rukeyser, special assistant to Honig.

In a district that is used to hearing the worst about itself, there’s nary a negative word uttered about Castruita. Teachers seem to love him and school board members praise him. Students, too, are stirred.

“I’ve never seen it so good here,” said Rick Bryan, president of the Santa Ana Educators Assn., the union that represents district teachers. “From our perspective, Rudy Castruita is one of the best things that’s ever happened to the Santa Ana Unified School District, or to education, for that matter.”

It’s a sign of the changed times that Santa Ana’s union, which has earned a statewide reputation as one of California’s hardest bargaining groups, is praising a superintendent. For years, the union and the school board fought furious wage disputes, usually bogging down for months at a time.

This year’s contract was settled early--and with hardly a trace of rancor.

Which is still not to say that everyone was satisfied. Jim Richards, a school board member who lost his reelection bid at the polls Nov. 7, said he believes that the contract gave away too much to the teachers.

“The community really is not adequately represented,” Richards said. “I do not think they got the best deal.”

Under the three-year contract, Santa Ana teachers are guaranteed raises of 1% more than the average of their counterparts in other Orange County unified school districts. That will make planning difficult, Richards said, because it will be impossible for district officials to know in advance how much they’ll be paying out in salaries.

But even Richards is impressed by Castruita’s inaugural year.

“He’s an extremely valuable asset to Santa Ana,” Richards said, rattling off adjectives like responsible , rewarding and aggressive . Despite his auspicious start, Castruita will need all those attributes to turn Santa Ana’s fortunes. Change in education tends to occur over long periods of time--Castruita compares it to manning the helm of an aircraft carrier. And Santa Ana’s troubles are myriad.

School Board President Audrey Yamagata-Noji, another outspoken Castruita supporter, worries that the superintendent will be tempted to do too much too fast. “The one weakness with Rudy Castruita is trying to do it all,” she said. “A person gets burned out.”

It’s hard to imagine Castruita burned out. The superintendent plans a full agenda for the coming year. More new schools, better English instruction, more lobbying for money and more parent involvement are all on the superintendent’s slate.

All of them, he adds, come under the heading of ways to help Santa Ana students. Says Castruita: “If you keep the bottom line that you always do everything you can for kids, you can’t go wrong.”