‘Sister School’ Extends a Hand, Offers a Plan

It is 7:30 a.m. at Westwood Elementary School, and 17 adults, some wearing suits and ties, sit wedged into chairs built for children, their pencils poised attentively over yellow legal pads.

“Here’s another grant to apply for,” parent Ted Berkowitz said excitedly, extracting a pink sheet from a thick black binder. “It’s small, just $12,000, but we should apply anyway.”

The conversation flows easily for two hours, from plans for a campus recycling center to outreach programs for students bused from other neighborhoods to a survey of how well Westwood prepares pupils for junior high.

“The seventh-grade kids wanted more emphasis on study skills,” reported teacher Glory Chudnow. “They wanted to know more about sex and drugs and gangs and how to recognize and avoid bad people.’

And so it went one recent morning at Westwood School, one of 27 campuses in the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District that has begun a radical program of restructuring its school. Their goal is to raise academic achievement by giving parents, teachers and administrators more autonomy to pursue what works and throw out what doesn’t.

At the crux of Westwood’s plan is establishing a “sister school” program with Santa Monica Boulevard Elementary School, an overcrowded campus in Hollywood that buses 75 children to Westwood each day.

Westwood educators are establishing ties with parents and administrators in Hollywood, scheduling events there and setting up one-on-one activities between bused and local students to make newcomers feel more at home.

“Bused kids are dealing daily with fear and anxiety and if we can help eliminate that, we can raise the educational caliber,” says Jim Goodman, whose children, Ted, 11, and Spencer, 7, both attend Westwood.

The Westwood planners envision a welcome center to ease bused pupils into their new environment, a student-written newsletter and help from local business that would donate goods and services. Already, Westwood has been adopted by a shopping center, applied for $1 million in grants and requested autonomy to give teachers free days to work on curriculum improvements.

Support for the Westwood plan has come from all sides. Helen Bernstein, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, praised Westwood for “extremely creative ideas that went beyond a traditional approach.” School board member Rita Walters said it stood “head and shoulders” above most of the other proposals and should be used as a model.

“It’s not any kind of magic,” said Michael Hirschfeld, whose 6-year-old son, Benjamin, is a first-grader at Westwood. “It’s going to work where parents are flexible, teachers are committed and the principal is supportive.”

At first glance, this might seem like a place where school-based management should flourish. A number of its students are upper-middle-class high achievers; a number of their parents are educated professionals who work in nearby Westwood or Century City.

But like many urban public schools, Westside is also grappling with dwindling state and local funds and an influx of bused students. About 35% of Westwood’s 630 students--many of them new immigrants who speak little English--come from places such as Koreatown, Crenshaw and East Hollywood. Many live in poor neighborhoods where parents work hard just to put food on the table, never mind buying their offspring trendy designer tennis shoes.

The program began in earnest last fall when the district was asked to bus new students to Westwood only from Santa Monica Boulevard School. The rationale was that forging strong ties with one school community was better than reaching out piecemeal to 15.

Eventually, Westwood hopes all of its bused students will come only from Santa Monica school. However, children currently bused from other schools will continue attending Westwood until they graduate.

Westwood began providing transportation so families of bused students could attend the annual Halloween Hoot, a Parent-Teacher Assn. meeting and Back to School Night. It assigned student “buddies” to ease the trauma of adjusting. And it plans class exchanges between the two schools as well as cultural and historical tours of both neighborhoods.

Parents active in Westwood’s restructuring say they are pleased that their children have an opportunity to interact with those of other races and backgrounds. Westwood’s student body is 51% white, 22% Latino, 14% black and 13% Asian and Filipino.

“I believe in public schools, and I want my daughter to see as much diversity as she can,” said Sharyn McKee, who added that she moved into the neighborhood so her 6-year-old daughter, Carly, could attend Westwood.

Since September, the core group of six parents who signed up to participate in school-based management has grown to 30, and McKee says new parents volunteer each week. But she and others hope that parents of bused children will also sit on the Westwood governing council, which is made up of 18 teachers, parents, staff and administrators.

One who already has signed up is Omar Guevarra, a recent immigrant from Nicaragua whose daughters, Xiomara, 11, and Karla, 8, attend Westwood.

Guevarra, who lives with his family in a tiny Hollywood apartment and speaks no English, says the most important thing in his life right now is to see that his daughters receive a good education.

“My daughters know very little English, but the teachers are very sympathetic and they make us feel welcome,” Guevarra says. “The principal even speaks a little Spanish.”

Guevarra, who has little formal schooling, says he and his wife would like to give something back to the school, even it if means spending an hour on the bus traveling to West Los Angeles.

Another who welcomes Westwood’s overtures is Hasty Arnold, the principal at Santa Monica Boulevard School.

“Normally schools operate independently with very little dialogue,” Arnold says. “It’s very hard to have kids go to a school and have friends there and then walk out and get on a bus and travel 10 miles to a whole different environment.”

After five months on the council, parents talk knowingly about educational legislation and can effortlessly recite acronyms one doesn’t usually hear outside of school board meetings.

Since no extra funds are provided for restructuring and there are few models anywhere in the nation, Westwood’s parents and staff must improvise and follow their instincts. Many say they spend from two to 10 hours a week on plans and have gotten used to lugging around thick black binders filled with notes.

At council meetings, the atmosphere is not unlike an old-fashioned barn-raising, with participants chipping in with whatever they can: sending faxes, designing brochures, networking at their offices. Four subcommittees meet weekly, then report back to the full council twice a month.

The council has drawn up a list of items such as library books and paint that could be donated by local businesses. Members also applied for grants for the student newsletter to develop language skills among immigrant and limited-English-speaking students.

Another grant would fund a multimedia social studies lab to foster understanding and develop the self esteem of new students. A third grant would expand the welcome center to include a bilingual teacher, aides and equipment.

Most say Bennett’s open-mindedness has contributed to keeping enthusiasm levels high.

“The basis of the whole thing is a rapport between your faculty and your administrators, and we have that, Michelle does not feel threatened,” adds teacher Selma Rappaport, the union representative at Westwood.

The two, who have worked together for 10 years, appear more like old friends and colleagues than principal and teacher. Often, one will finish a sentence for the other.

At council meetings, Bennett listens and takes notes, serving as moderator, not boss. “What I’m hearing is,” she will often say to the group, peering above the glasses perched atop her nose. “Do we have a consensus?”

Everyone on the council seems to know someone who may be able to help, from parents who work at UCLA to 20th Century Fox to the nearby Century City Shopping Center & Marketplace, which agreed to adopt the school and holds regular outings for students.

Some educators wonder whether restructuring inherently favors schools in well-to-do areas where parents and administrators can tap into a wealth of private and community resources. Schools in parts of South-Central Los Angeles do not have any shopping centers to hook up with, for instance. And some Westwood parents benefit from being self-employed or having employers who give them time off.

But Bernstein, of the teacher’s union, points out that many poorer schools have launched restructuring programs where Westside schools have not.

“All kids have got to do well academically in order for our plan to work,” maintains Hirschfeld, who is very active on the Westwood council. “It’s either going to work as a team effort or it’s not going to work at all.”