Troubled Kids Find Success Down on the Farm : Continuation school: Aliso creates an intimate atmosphere and helps teen-agers escape feeling like ‘throw-a-ways.’

The neighborhood is typical of many in the San Fernando Valley. Acres of homes are packed into tidy rows. Blue and yellow mailboxes shaped like tiny houses dot crew-cut lawns, and sunny garden windows jut out from appliance-laden kitchens.

Suddenly, the suburban paradise gives way to something else. A white sign, splattered with a rainbow, signals the entrance to a large compound. Down a path, teen-agers tend plants in a scrubby greenhouse. Some talk with teachers who are dressed much like themselves; others turn over a compost heap, clean out a chicken coop, hand-feed some mash to a few baby goats and rummage for goose eggs in the bushes.

Aliso continuation school could be described as a high school with one foot planted in the 1960s. And that seems to help students who have trouble staying on an academic track, say teachers and administrators at the three-acre Reseda campus.

“This is the first time many of them ever feel comfortable in school,” said Principal Jay M. Kessler. The campus includes a small farm stocked with goats, geese, ducks, chickens and a few rabbits. “This gives them a real family feeling.”

Continuation schools were created to provide specialized help for students who are apathetic about learning and who have high truancy records. Each has a parent school (in Aliso’s case, Grover Cleveland High School) from which they draw their students. But most other continuation schools, none with the capabilities of a farm, are bundled up into one or two portable classrooms and squirreled away in a corner of the main school.

Kessler said Aliso’s separate campus makes for an intimate atmosphere and helps teen-agers escape the feeling of being “throw-a-ways,” a label that other continuation students often shoulder. “We try to break down the barriers to learning and make school a more personal experience,” Kessler said.

Continuation schools remain connected to parent high schools because of resources, such as libraries and athletic fields, that main campuses provide, said Howard L. Marcus, administrator of the Los Angeles Senior High Options program, which includes 43 continuation schools, a pregnant-minor program and an educational placement center.

Each year, the Options program serves 15,000 Los Angeles teen-agers for a variety of reasons, including truancy and learning difficulties.

Aliso has three classrooms and five teachers, including two who run the horticulture and animal science programs. The school was moved to its present location after its former buildings, near a creek on the Cleveland High campus, burned in 1979.

Mark Torralba, now 19, of Canoga Park arrived at Aliso in 1988 after completing 10th grade at Cleveland High. He said he didn’t learn anything at Cleveland. “I would just go to class, take naps and screw around. I wasn’t interested in my education, and the teachers weren’t interested either.

“I only went to school two or three times a week, and then I would just go during second period when they took roll.”

Torralba said he now feels at home at Aliso, where he enjoys working with animals.

Paul Trapani, director of the animal science program, said the 100 students enrolled all contribute to the farm in some way. Some choose to take an elective class in the subject.

“The animal science program teaches responsibility,” said Trapani, 27. “Students have to see that the decisions they make here affect the lives of animals. They have to show a consistent effort, which helps to develop long-term motivation.”

The farm, adjacent to Blythe Street Elementary School, was previously run by the school district, which abandoned the project in the late 1970s. After Aliso took charge in 1979, the property was stocked with choice breeds. Now, animals are entered in the San Fernando Valley Fair each year, often capturing top prizes for their breed.

Aliso is one of 10 Valley high schools with animal science programs. The others include Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Sylmar and Canoga Park.

The farm at Aliso, teachers and students said, is just the backdrop to the real work of the school--creating trusting relationships that promote healthy attitudes about learning.

Joan Coston, a volunteer at Aliso, provides much of the psychological glue that has transformed the campus into an extended family for students, said Kessler and Trapani.

Coston first became acquainted with Aliso as a parent of one of its students. Her daughter Caroline transferred from Cleveland to Aliso as a junior in 1985.

“As a parent who went through a lot with her own daughter, I feel Aliso is a real godsend,” Coston said. “She wasn’t going to class, got into the wrong crowd and was very rebellious.”

Caroline Coston, now 21, went on to study at Orange Coast College after her time at Aliso. “Aliso really got me back on the track of school,” she said. “It gave me the opportunity to do a lot of things in a smaller place that I wasn’t doing in a big high school, like working on the student newspaper and being on the volleyball team.”

Caroline’s mother stayed on at Aliso. These days, she bakes cupcakes, makes morning wake-up calls, tutors, chauffeurs and counsels students, said Trapani. She is at Aliso five hours a day, five days a week, and also serves as a continuation high school representative for the Senior High Advisory Council, a school district organization that attempts to resolve public high school problems in Los Angeles.

At first, Coston believed continuation schools were “full of criminals and crooks,” but she soon realized that Aliso provided a learning atmosphere in which her daughter thrived. (Coston said less than 5% of Aliso students have police records.)

“Here there is communication with parents,” Coston said. “When a child is absent, we call the parent, and there’s also a report card sent home every week. The parents can see progress, or lack of progress.

“In a regular high school, a student can be absent and no one ever knows. I would get an absentee report and would find 40 to 50 absent marks, but not one teacher or administrator had called me about it. High schools are dealing with up to 3,000 students. No one seems to be able to go the extra mile with students who are having real problems.”

Los Angeles public high schools now use a computer with an automatic dialing function to notify parents of daily absences, said Daniel M. Isaacs, superintendent in charge of Los Angeles senior high schools. Mailers also are sent out to parents if absences of three to five days occur.

On a recent morning at Aliso, students were busy in all parts of the campus.

“This pond is mostly just fish and little creatures,” said Melissa Shively, 16, who arrived from Cleveland High two years ago and who expects to graduate early next year. “We grow cattails in here and then sell them to florists.”

The students net about $100 a year from this enterprise, and also recycle aluminum cans to cover the cost of feed and other farm supplies. The school district does not provide funds for the farm, but a local companies pitch in supplies when needed.

Students volunteer their time on weekends and during summer months to help with the farm or prepare animals for the fair.

The school enters about a dozen animals each July. Prize ribbons, including ones reading “Best of Breed” and “Champion Female,” hang in classrooms.

The students are especially proud of several chickens known as Japanese White Silkies, which are distinguished by their fluffed, snowy-white feathers and blue skin.

Torralba held out a couple of Buff Brahma and Jungle Fowl roosters, showing off the bright green, gold, vermilion and rust feathers that he hopes will win ribbons at the fair.

“I’ve really learned a lot from caring for the animals,” Torralba said later, as he raked the grounds near the main pond. “I treat myself with more respect now too.”