GARDEN GROVE : School District Celebrates 25 Years

If there had been a “Just Say No” program for schools in Garden Grove in 1965, recalled former district Supt. Hilton D. Bell, the goal would have been to prevent kids from sneaking Marlboros rather than snorting cocaine or injecting heroin.

“We thought that kids smoking was pretty bad back then,” said Bell, 80, the district’s first superintendent, who met recently with other officials to celebrate the district’s 25th anniversary. “The use of drugs in society was a problem we really didn’t anticipate.”

Officials also didn’t anticipate the demographic changes that turned the Garden Grove Unified School District from a mostly Anglo population to a mix of Latinos, Asians and other ethnic minorities. And the last 25 years have also seen the district’s budget increase from $23.4 million to $151.8 million.

“There are a lot more challenges now than there were in the mid-’60s, when times were somewhat simpler,” said Dr. Edward Dundon, the district’s current superintendent. “The problems with language, drugs, gangs, family breakdown. But if you were to go to sleep for 25 years and wake up and see what a typical high school student’s like, you’d find that he wouldn’t be that different.”

The district was formed in 1965 after voters approved the merger of the former Alamitos School District, the Garden Grove Elementary School District and the Garden Grove Union High School District. The new district started with 54,000 students, but enrollment has dropped to 36,725.

In 1974-75, the first school year in which ethnic breakdowns were recorded, the district reported that its student population was 84.2% Anglo, 12.9% Latino and 1.8% Asian. Currently, the Anglo population is 39%, Latinos 32%, Asians 25%, blacks 2%, Pacific Islanders 1% and Filipinos 1%.

Despite all the changes, Dundon believes student performance has remained fairly consistent.

“Our math scores are about the same, and taking into account language problems, our languages scores are pretty close too,” Dundon said. “The color of the kids’ eyes may be different, but I just feel that kids haven’t changed that much.”

Bell, who has worked as a consultant since retiring from the district in 1968, said the biggest educational development over the past 25 years has been “the involvement of parents and the community along with the educational staff to determine the needs of the schools.”