County Heeds School District Call for Help : Burbank: A ‘community’ campus for problem students is expected by the end of March. ‘It’s a wake-up call, a whack on the side of the head,’ says an official.

In an unprecedented request, Burbank school district officials have asked the County of Los Angeles to step in and help them with students who are failing in classes and on the verge of dropping out.

Burbank and the county’s Office of Education hope to open a one-classroom “community school” by the end of the month. The county already has 20 such campuses, but this is the first time the program for problem students will be linked exclusively to a single school district.

Community schools enroll youths who regularly cut class or have a long history of bad grades. Some have criminal records and are recently paroled. The program pulls such students out of regular and continuation high schools, gives them individualized teaching for one or two semesters, then sends them back to the regular school system.

“It’s a wake-up call, a whack on the side of the head, which we all need every once in a while,” said Ted Price, the county’s director of juvenile court and community schools. “The kid gets a message: ‘You’re not a bad person but you’re headed in a wrong direction, and we need to take some serious time with you.’ ”

Classes at community schools are small--no more than 17 students per room--and the curriculum is tailored to youths who rebel against or simply fail in the regular system, Price said. Each student gets an individualized lesson plan.

The Burbank Unified School District turned to the county after several months of studying problem students. The district already had continuation classes and independent-study programs, but they failed to help some youths, said Dick Vitolo, director of special education and psychological services.

“The kids are lost. It’s very easy for an education system to give up on them,” Vitolo said. “We looked around for other options. We looked for things we hadn’t done yet.”

Vitolo came to Burbank after serving as principal of a county community school, so he knew the program well and suggested it to district officials. The district agreed to set aside space for a classroom within its administrative offices. The county will supply a teacher and materials.

The pilot class will run year-round and include students who have been nominated by teachers at their regular junior and senior high schools. The Burbank students will have to express a desire to improve their studies and agree to the transfer, Vitolo said.

Price hopes to add another class at Burbank soon after the first begins.

At other community schools--in such locations as Long Beach, El Monte and the Crenshaw district--county teachers prepare students to return to regular classes in nearby school districts, which do not all have the same curriculum. The advantage to working exclusively with Burbank, Price said, is that the county teacher will be able to tailor courses specifically to the city’s education system.

“This will really be an appropriate program for us,” Vitolo said.

When the county established the community school program in 1973, classes were held only in detention centers and camps. In 1978, the program expanded to help paroled youths return to public schools and eventually took in students who had not been arrested, but had grade or disciplinary problems.

“It’s preventive,” Price said. “These kids are one step away from getting violent, from hanging out with the wrong people and doing the wrong things.”