In Rancho Bernardo, a new high...

In the Poway Unified School District--with some of the county’s highest test scores and graduation rates, a number of state- and federally recognized schools and legions of committed parents--you don’t turn everything upside down when opening a new school.

So principal Sandra Johnson and the first teachers picked for Poway’s new Rancho Bernardo High School readily acknowledge that their main mission is to transplant the solid base of academic success from the district’s two existing high schools and to limit any tinkering to the margins.

When the school opens sometime this fall--along with three new elementary schools--any curriculum changes are therefore likely to be subtle.

And in planning for the opening, district administrators have found that many parents of students likely to attend the sprawling $37-million complex take for granted a rigorous college-preparatory program, and instead have focused more on the way extracurricular and other aspects of high-school life will be structured.

Part of that concern accounts for the discomfort among some parents, whose children now attend Poway and Mt. Carmel high schools, that the switch to the new school will hurt student participation in band or athletics, both outstanding programs within the district. For example, the bands from both existing schools have been invited to play at the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall in New York next year.

Issues of school boundaries and student transfers are a natural in districts where community interest in schools is strong and where a neighborhood or city identifies closely with student teams and musical groups. The rapidly-growing Poway district covers 90,000 residents living in Poway, as well as in the upscale Rancho Bernardo and Rancho de Los Penasquitos suburbs of San Diego. There are 23,500 students--82% white, 6% Filipino, 5% Asian and 4% Latino.

“It’s real, real important to develop an esprit de corps as soon as possible, to get the football and all of that stuff going as soon as possible,” said Robert Reeves, Poway district superintendent. An athletic director and football coach were among the first hires following Johnson’s appointment as principal, and parents in Rancho Bernardo already have formed a foundation to raise money to buy lights for the new football stadium.

“These things are critical in setting up a good transition, so that the students (coming from Mt. Carmel and Poway) will see a lot of opportunities in a new environment, and we get off on the right foot with these important support activities,” Revees said.

Johnson already has met with most of the students to be attending Rancho Bernardo High, which will open with grades 9, 10, and 11. Students have voted on an athletic nickname--the Broncos--selected royal blue, silver and white as school colors, and picked a company to supply rings, yearbooks and graduation robes and gowns.

“We have a student committee from the three middle schools and two high schools, with those who we believe are good role models, and who their peers perceive as leaders,” Johnson said. “And with parents, we already have a newsletter, the athletic foundation, and volunteers helping out with all sorts of things.”

Not that academics don’t continue to occupy a major portion of the time that Johnson spends with parents and her growing staff. She already has distributed school profile brochures to parents and to colleges and universities nationwide, detailing the academic curriculum, graduation requirements and the way grade-point averages and class rankings are calculated. The school already has an identification number for the College Entrance Examination Board, which controls the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) used by many institutions.

“We already have a fine curriculum in Poway,” said Johnson, who was Mt. Carmel’s principal for four years--and the assistant principal for five years before that--before being picked for the Rancho Bernardo post. “I don’t want to see wholesale changes.

“Basically we need to continue what is being done at the other two schools while trying some new things, such as programs to reach out better to those not successful now.” (The district graduates about 85% of its students, and the number of dropouts is lower than county and state averages.)

The first teachers selected for the school, while they share Johnson’s assessment, see changes developing naturally because a new environment for teachers will foster new ideas. They already have had several meetings and retreats to work as a unit.

“I think we’re pioneers, and that allows for new creativity, new ways to express talents, new traditions,” said Linda Englund, the English department chair at Mt. Carmel who will assume the same position at Rancho Bernardo. “At a new school, the teachers from both schools can come together and say, ‘Here is the best of what we do, and how can we synthesize it?’ ”

Tom Oliver, a Mt. Carmel teacher who will be the science department chair, hopes to see more cooperative teaching among teachers, as well as creative use of technology. The entire school will be equipped for what is called interactive video, where, for example, one class can watch another relevant class lecture without having to move and disrupt both classes.

“We’re not out to reinvent the wheel but to be a trend-setter in some areas,” Oliver said. Among advantages that schools receive in Poway from the school board beyond normal funding is $10 per student, plus an additional $100,000, that teachers can use to write curriculum, buy extra teaching or counseling time, or plan other programs.

The consumer and family studies teacher at Poway High, Sheryl Malone, would like to try some interdisciplinary courses to highlight academic improvements in the subject area.

“I’d like to see nutrition and athletics linked, for example, because athletes and others in tune with their bodies want to know the basics of nutrition, on how to read labels,” Malone said. “With many families dealing with dual careers, there’s a need not only for teaching parenting skills but also how to give care for the elderly.”

Poway counselor Jane Capettini expects that the enthusiasm among teachers opening a new school will spill over to the students.

“All of us as new teachers at a new school are going to be involved in helping students set up activities, and just by our presence the pioneer spirit is going to be contagious,” she said.

The campus itself, situated on Avenida Venusto east of Interstate 15, is more akin to a college environment, with a series of buildings housing science, English, math and social studies classrooms positioned around a library equipped with the latest in electronic technology. Buildings will feature wooden beams, skylights and windows on all sides.

The gym will have two levels, with team rooms and a pool deck on the lower level and workout rooms on the upper floor, with the facility next to the track and 3,000-seat stadium. A performing arts auditorium along with art and graphic arts rooms will be in another building and also available for community.

A major sticking point now, however, along with the final drawing of attendance boundaries, is the probability that construction will not be completed by September.

The district is playing with a variety of scenarios to be presented at a series of community meetings this week, with a school board decision later in the month. Reeves said that enough buildings may be completed by September to handle a full ninth and 10th grade on site. Eleventh-graders could be given the option of staying at their existing school or moving to Rancho Bernardo High, he said.

That could satisfy parents of students who want their children to remain at their present school while assuring enough 11th-graders would choose the new site because it will be less crowded than Poway and Mt. Carmel, he said. As important, those 11th-graders would provide the necessary leadership and maturity at Rancho Bernardo for establishing student traditions, Reeves said.

“Any change gets people up-tight,” Reeves said. “We’re got to get everyone comfortable.”