Northridge School a Must on the Educators’ Tour : Learning: The innovative program is being described as the front-runner in the evolution of junior highs.

It was a scene not unusual in Southern California: a tour bus unloading sightseers from towns such as Cumberland, R.I., and Eau Claire, Wis.

But unlike most tourists, this group of 23 teachers and school administrators was more interested in math lessons than movie stars. To heck with Hollywood. They came to see heterogeneous grouping.

Northridge Junior High School was the main attraction Friday on a special tour by members of the National Middle School Assn., in town last week for their annual convention. Although the association scheduled visits to five other city schools, Northridge is considered the shining star in the Los Angeles Unified School District, far ahead of others locally in what education experts are describing as the evolution of junior high.

Ten minutes into the tour it was clear that for most, junior high school was never like this:

At Northridge there are no lockers. The 1,000 students enrolled at the school, 80% of whom are minority, get to pick at least two non-graded classes each semester. Every week teachers counsel youngsters on matters from romance to study habits. Smart kids and average kids sit side by side in just about every classroom. Attendance is up, discipline problems are down and, on this day at least, everybody is smiling, braces and all.

“The most important measure is the smile level,” Principal Beryl Ward said. “Do the teachers feel like they are respected and valued? Are they excited about what they are doing? Are the kids happy to be here? Are they having a good time?”

So far, so good, say faculty, students and district officials. Beginning this fall, after some years of planning, Northridge started its middle school plan. It is supposed to combine for the school’s sixth- through eighth-grade students the personal nurturing of elementary school with the academic choices of high school.

“Junior high schools have been modeled after high schools, a structure designed for 15- to 20-year-olds,” said John Liechty, the district administrator in charge of planning changes in the way junior high schools operate in Los Angeles. “We need to restructure them for the needs of 10- to 15-year-olds. At Northridge, I believe they are hitting on something that will make a dramatic difference for those students.”

The methods being tried at Northridge derive from studies of junior high schools by the Carnegie Foundation and the state Department of Education, and from others released in the past decade. Educators, especially in urban areas such as Los Angeles, agree that problems such as high dropout rates and low college eligibility are traceable to junior high school troubles.

“Students between 10 and 15 are social, emotional, physical and academic beings,” said John H. Lounsvury, publications editor of the National Middle School Assn., a nonprofit research group that includes teachers, administrators and academicians.

“Typically, high schools ignore, for example, their social interests,” said Lounsvury, a retired professor of education at Georgia College. “While school is not a party, you have to make sure they are having a good time, remembering that they are not children who will always do as they are told and not adults who will operate independently.”

Part of the fun at Northridge comes during seventh period on Mondays and Fridays. That is when students have one of nearly 50 non-graded courses such as knitting, ceramics, calligraphy and basketball. Students sign up every 10 weeks for the classes, which are taught by teachers also responsible for recruiting their enrollees.

“I jumped at the chance to teach sewing,” longtime English teacher Walt Uchiek said. “It’s a great stress reliever.”

One of his students, Carlos Basulto, 11, said it has been fun so far learning how to use the school’s sewing machines, which until this year had been stored unused for nearly a decade. “I’ve made some cushions and pillows,” Basulto, a sixth-grade student, said.

Educators say students of junior high school age should be encouraged to try different courses before high school, when college entrance requirements leave little time for photography, music, poetry or crafts.

“Schools need to accommodate their growing curiosity and ability to experiment before the hardball starts in high school,” Lounsvury said.

Across campus, another group of sixth-graders is studying math and the metric system by competing in games that require them to estimate the weight of marbles, the distance between the stage of the school auditorium and the back row, and the number of square centimeters in their own footprints. Watching over the group are math, social studies and English teachers who form one of the school’s teaching teams, responsible for a group of about 120 students.

“By getting their hands on it, they can actually see math,” math teacher Grace Hutchings said. “I want them to be able to not only do the work on paper but to eyeball distance and make estimations.”

In accord with the team method at Northridge, Hutchings will help her colleagues with their lessons later in the semester. Elsewhere at the school, history teachers will teach about the Civil War while English teachers on the same team will have students read the Gettysburg Address.

During seventh period on Wednesdays, students go to classes where they are expected to do no more than make friends with each other and the teacher. The purpose is for teachers to become acquainted with students who are not hustling for a grade, but who may want advice on matters important to them, school officials said.

“The students learn to set goals, as well as self-esteem building techniques and conflict resolution,” said Susie Shapiro, a Northridge coordinator and teacher. “Teachers learn to be advocates for the students.”

Students are also learning from each other, officials said. In what is known as heterogeneous grouping, students are no longer divided according to ability, which tended to keep gifted children away from average children. Instead, students are mixed randomly by computer in all of the academic courses. The idea is that bright children are not hurt by sharing courses with slower students and slower students are helped a lot by having brighter students in their classes, educators said.

School officials say discipline problems have declined this year. Most school suspensions have been eliminated, replaced by so-called in-house suspensions, in which a student is disciplined by being kept away from other students in a room supervised by a campus employee.

The benefit of the practice is that most students hate it, and the school does not lose any income from the state, which pays the schools based on daily attendance, school officials said.

School officials eliminated the use of lockers, which in cities such as Los Angeles have become repositories for guns and drugs. Students do not seem to mind the change because they do not have to lug any books at all. The school issues students a set of books for the classroom and a second for the home.

All these programs are extra work for teachers without extra pay. One benefit of the new program for teachers, however, is an extra 80 minutes a week for team planning sessions. Some of the teachers said they do not mind the extra work because they believe it will translate into better achievement by students.

Physical education teacher Marilyn Hayes said most are enthusiastic about the new program because it was designed and carried out mostly by teachers. The innovations being tried at Northridge come as schools districtwide are asked to share greater and greater decision-making powers with teachers and parents.

It is ironic that Northridge made the most sweeping changes of any junior high school in the district under past school district rules, which gave most power to school principals, rather than under the district’s shared decision making councils.

Hayes and other teachers say it is because the principal has allowed them to try new ideas. Principal Ward says innovation is good as long as everyone keeps in mind the goal of providing better education for students.

“Teachers want to be the captains of their own ship, but I remind them they are sailing with the fleet,” Ward said.

After seeing Northridge, visitor Bob Wallace, a Cumberland, R.I., principal, said, “This is a shot in the arm for me personally and a motivator.”