Joining Forces to Help Burdened School District : Education: A coalition of community leaders pledges to help Santa Ana’s students stay in school and out of trouble. Results are expected to start showing in a year.

A coalition of businessmen and school and city officials vowed Wednesday to tackle gangs, drugs, high dropout rates and inadequate child care with a plan that includes after-school programs at all 29 city parks and scholarships to promising students.

The coalition, called Santa Ana 2000, promised that its program, which takes effect immediately, should start producing results within a year. The coalition, which began meeting a year ago, includes Mayor Daniel H. Young, Supt. Rudy Castruita of the Santa Ana Unified School District, and Michael Metzler, president of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s no secret that Santa Ana schools face much greater challenges than other communities’ in Orange County,” Young said. “We’re getting kids from all over the world. Santa Ana can’t wait for a national or statewide solution to these problems.”

The Santa Ana school district has an enrollment of about 40,000 students, about half of whom do not speak English at home, according to district officials.

Castruita said the toughest problem the coalition will tackle is gangs. With 5,500 gang members, Santa Ana has the largest gang population in the county. He said that city business leaders have promised to visit schools to show students successful role models.

“These business people are going to go to these classrooms and talk about the importance of staying in school,” Castruita said. “Right now, for some (students), the biggest role model they have is the ice cream pusher,” he added.

State Supt. of Schools Bill Honig congratulated the coalition on its plan, which he called “forward thinking.” He said a number of school districts in the state have pursued similar partnerships.

“The city and the schools know what they have to do to keep the students from dropping out,” Honig said Wednesday in a phone interview.

To lower gang membership and drug use, after-school programs--to be operated by Santa Ana’s Recreation and Parks Department throughout the city--will attempt to channel the students’ interests and energy into productive and organized activities, city and school officials said. Currently, the department is working on an after-school program with eight Santa Ana elementary schools, and officials were not specific about how quickly programs would be added throughout the rest of the city.

The district also will work closely with “Empowering the Community Against Gangs,” a county-sponsored program formed in October to get rid of gangs. That program tries to train parents to recognize the early signs that their children are taking an interest in gangs.

Two other priorities for the coalition are increasing child-care services and lowering the dropout rate among district students, which, at 26%, is one of the highest in the county. In the fall, the school district will begin a Headstart program--child care to help disadvantaged preschoolers. The school district also will work with the Chamber of Commerce, which plans to raise college scholarship money for high school students and find local businesses willing to offer training and jobs to students.