School Means Business : Corporate Help Gets High-Tech Institution Off and Running

The Long Beach Unified School District has opened its first new public school in 21 years, and administrators hope the experimental classes and partnership with big business will make Juan Bautista Alvarado Elementary School a model of public education.

The school’s main goal is to develop youngsters who are more career-minded, while encouraging parents, teachers, students and administrators to decide together what will be taught in class.

“We want to build sophisticated students who know about career possibilities beyond the typical goals of being a fireman, doctor or nurse,” said Rozanne Churchill, principal of the $5-million school at Cherry Avenue and 21st Street in Signal Hill. “We want them to use computers as much as students in the past used pencils. We want them to carry computer disks instead of notebooks.”

Aided by a $200,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation, the district has stocked every classroom with a television monitor and videocassette recorder. Nearly every desk has a computer. The library has laser discs and videos.

During one school day recently, the fourth-graders in teacher Jim Crowell’s class were learning to use the Apple II computers. Next door, Tom Malkus’ aerospace science class viewed models of rocket ships and high-tech computers. And in Kathy Henry’s class, first-graders read books in a walk-in “Castle Read-a-Lot” in the corner.

Already, students spend much of their time studying topical issues rather than traditional subjects. For example, a class may spend the day learning about global warming and integrate math, reading, social studies, geography, computers and science in the exercise.

“They’ll learn the three R’s, but not just by rote drill and practice,” Churchill said. “We want to make sure they will all want to come to school, make it through school and be successful.”

Officials are still considering other concepts such as making Alvarado a school without grades, or allowing students to choose their own course of study.

Alvarado is one of seven schools selected so far to receive grants from the California Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives from the state’s largest corporations, including Wells Fargo Bank.

The school was chosen because of its diverse enrollment, enthusiastic staff and the willingness of school district officials to encourage different approaches, said Barbara Barnes, president of Managing Excellence in Education, an organization that serves as liaison between the business group and the schools. Barnes meets once a month with Churchill, the Alvarado principal, to discuss innovations for Alvarado.

“We are here strictly as advisers; there are no strings attached to any of the money except that the school is willing to be creative in its curriculum,” Barnes said.

At the school’s opening ceremony last month, Long Beach Supt. E. Tom Giugni endorsed the effort, saying “the alternative is to continue the status quo. That means more youngsters joining the annual exodus of dropouts that already cost our nation about $260 billion in remedial training, lost earnings and uncollected potential taxes.”

The school’s teachers met throughout the summer with parents and students to discuss ideas, Churchill said.

Felice Strauss, president of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach, expressed some concern about the added workload for Alvarado teachers. “The teachers are very excited about being part of a school that will allow great freedoms in teaching, but inevitably the training and planning will take place on the teachers’ time,” she said. “It’s too bad teachers can’t be compensated for their extra work as they would be in a corporation.”

Churchill acknowledged that the teachers are going to be putting in long hours but pointed out that the teachers sought these positions and that some have enrolled their children at the school.

Several parents also have signed up to help.

Suzanne Vittote, who works as a speech therapist at another school district, said she volunteered to teach English to some Alvarado students because “the influx of those who speak limited English is such a tremendous drain on our teachers. I want this school to work. It’s a good positive learning atmosphere for squirrelly little boys like mine.”

Vittote’s 9-year-old son, Kyle, who enjoys working on computers, travels across town from his home in Belmont Shore to attend the school. Kyle’s father, sales representative Craig Vittote, is a volunteer on the school’s aerospace committee.

The school has a gifted-student program and classes for the severely mentally handicapped, but most students live in the mix of expensive and low-income homes in the Signal Hill neighborhood. The 380 students match the ethnic breakdown at other Long Beach schools: about 30% Anglo, 30% Latino, 27% Asian, 11% black and 2% other.

To help children understand mental handicaps, classes take turns adopting one of the severely retarded children from the special education classes and have a buddy system during playground recess and lunchtimes.

The new school, which was planned by the district to help relieve overcrowding, still needs some finishing touches. There is no grass on the soccer fields yet, and students agreed to help plant flowers on campus.

Students have decided on school colors--bright blue and magenta. But a decision on a mascot is still pending. They are also making a time capsule and have voted to include a Bart Simpson T-shirt, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figure in the contents.

BACKGROUND

Juan Bautista Alvarado Elementary School, the first new school to be built in the Long Beach district in more than two decades, was named after an early Mexican governor in California who was a strong supporter of education. The $5-million school opened this year at Cherry Avenue and 21st Street in Signal Hill, the former site of the Southern California Military Academy for boys.