Budget Cuts Expected to Boost Ranks of Dropouts : Education: District may lay off those on the front lines of the battle to encourage students to finish high school.

Despite statistics showing that San Fernando Valley schools had fewer dropouts on average than schools citywide, district officials fear the rate will skyrocket next year if proposed budget cuts slash into programs designed to keep youths in school.

Nearly 14% of high school students and 5.5% of junior high school students dropped out of Valley schools during the 1989-90 year, compared with 16.2% of all high school students and 7.6% of all junior high school students in the district, Los Angeles Unified School District records show. But most Valley teachers and administrators agree that the rate will worsen if the school board approves proposed layoffs of counselors, school psychologists and attendance officers to balance the district budget for next year.

“My instinct says more kids will drop out,” said Irving Lane, whose staff of attendance counselors in Valley schools will be cut from 34 to 11 under the current budget proposal. “We know we keep a lot of kids in school. We are the only ones in the district who make house calls.”

Attendance counselors--who play the roles of truant officer and social worker--are among those on the front lines of an increasingly weary battle: keeping children progressing toward a high school diploma despite the distractions of jobs, gangs, drugs and pregnancy. They are joined in the task by dropout prevention specialists who teach classes and counsel youngsters and their families.

Of the 200 or so attendance counselors working at schools citywide, 109 have been told that they may be laid off at the end of the school year. Others involved in dropout prevention may face cuts in their programs by the time the board adopts its final budget this summer.

“We know the dropout programs are effective, and with all the demands we face, I think the district has done well,” said Ruth Rhodes, who is coordinating the district’s dropout prevention programs.

But Rhodes and others are worried that increasingly larger numbers of children will fail to graduate from high school if the district’s money troubles are not solved and dropout prevention programs are cut back or eliminated next year.

Currently, about one-third of Los Angeles students who enter high school drop out before getting their diplomas, state records show.

“If we aren’t here, a lot more kids will end up in the street, go to juvenile hall or end up being moved from school to school because of truancy and discipline problems,” said Matt Martellaro, who teaches a class of 15 students in a special dropout program at Francis Parkman Junior High School in Pacoima.

Martellaro was one of those issued a layoff notice as the school district prepares to cut $317 million from its 1991-92 school-year budget during deliberations over the next two months. Those cuts come on the heels of another $300 million or so already pared from this year’s budget of $3.8 billion.

About 2,100 teachers, counselors, librarians, psychologists and others were put on notice last month that they could be out of work in June. Still more bad news is coming later this month when district finance officials reveal their recommendations to reduce specific school programs.

“We know how to cure the dropout problem,” said West Valley school board member Julie Korenstein. “You begin with early childhood education, starting at 4 years old, reduce class sizes so every child has an educational foundation. But we can’t afford that.”

The decline in the amount of state money for education comes as the Los Angeles district faces increases in enrollment. Another 15,000 new students are expected to swell enrollment next year.

By coincidence, the proposed budget cuts come just as dropout counselor Barbara Zara said she is noticing a turnaround in the attitudes of her students.

“For the first time, they are coming to me and saying, ‘I’ve got to get it together,’ ” said Zara, who works at Canoga Park High School. “They are starting to understand they cannot get a job without an education.”

That sort of attitude does not come easily to students who stop coming to school because they have fallen behind academically or are failing socially. Counselors say there are two kinds of dropouts--the ones having trouble in the classroom and those unable to cope with life outside.

Barry Sicherman, 13, said he stopped going to George Ellery Hale Junior High School in Woodland Hills because he could not take another day of teasing by the other kids.

“I just stayed home, I couldn’t handle it,” said Sicherman, who attends a special dropout prevention program at Parkman Junior High School. “I’ve been learning a lot here. The kids are a lot nicer.”

Besides that, Sicherman and others in the program have one teacher and small classes with no more than 15 students.

Mike Schneider, 14, bounced between three junior high schools before failing all his classes and then dropping out last year. He is back in school at a dropout program at Northridge Junior High School.

“I think I’m going to stay,” Schneider said. “My teacher is pretty cool.”

Compounding the dropout problem and sometimes confusing the district’s accounting are immigrant students whose families pull up stakes and return to their native countries, often with little notice. Under state guidelines, the district counts these departures as dropouts--even though the students may re-enroll in schools in other countries or states--unless a formal request is made to transfer the students’ records.

Students who transfer to private schools without a formal transfer of their records are also counted as dropouts in the district’s accounting method.

“The dropout rate is a phony statistical number,” said Richard Cord, principal of Portola Junior High School in Tarzana. “If a kid leaves here and is in the community, we will bring him back here or get him into another program. But if the family goes back to Mexico, I don’t have the personnel to get them.”

Cord and Martin Pattee, principal of George K. Porter Junior High School in Granada Hills, are critical of the district dropout statistics, especially because their schools this year showed dramatic increases in the percentage of dropouts.

Regardless of the numbers, however, the principals joined others in expressing worry about the consequences of next year’s budget cuts, which will affect teachers as well as students.

Attendance counselor Nathan Martin, 53, has received a layoff notice even though he has worked for the district for 23 years. He cannot return to the classroom because he is also a vocational education teacher, another field being cut.

“This year I’m keeping kids in schools, going to their homes and bringing them in,” said Martin, who has a master’s degree in counseling. “Next year, I don’t know. I need to work one more year before I can retire or I lose all my benefits.”

SAN FERNANDO VALLEY DROPOUT RATE

The Los Angeles Unified School District counts as a dropout a student who is absent without explanation for more than 45 days, who fails to have his or her records mailed to another school or is absent at the beginning of the school year. Critics of the count say the method can be misleading because it fails to account for students whose parents take records with them, immigrant families who move back to their country and some students entering the juvenile justice system.

HIGH SCHOOLS

Enrollment Dropouts % Birmingham 2,112 167 7.91 Canoga Park 1,319 156 11.83 Chatsworth 2,580 333 12.91 Cleveland 1,227 274 22.33 El Camino Real 1,797 121 6.73 Francis Poly 2,369 332 14.01 Granada Hills 2,405 225 9.36 Grant 2,712 354 13.05 Kennedy 2,226 249 11.19 Monroe 2,333 482 20.66 North Hollywood 2,184 359 16.44 Reseda 1,579 158 10.01 San Fernando 2,764 404 14.62 Sherman Oaks/ 480 12 2.50 Center for Enriched Studies Sylmar 1,850 358 19.35 Taft 2,261 386 17.07 Van Nuys 1,555 305 19.61 Van Nuys/ 597 9 1.51 Math and Science Magnet School Van Nuys/ 315 8 2.54 Performing Arts Verdugo Hills 1,526 318 20.84

Rate for Valley high schools: 13.77 Rate for high schools districtwide: 16.22 JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Enrollment Dropouts % Byrd 884 23 2.60 Columbus 1,173 59 5.03 Frost 1,653 80 4.84 Fulton 1,381 92 6.66 Hale 1,977 86 4.35 Henry 1,101 62 5.63 Holmes 784 58 7.40 Lawrence 1,817 45 2.48 Maclay 1,256 88 7.01 Madison 1,423 68 4.78 Millikan 1,631 51 3.13 Mt. Gleason 1,420 103 7.25 Mulholland 1,270 73 5.75 Nobel 1,041 53 5.09 Northridge 995 34 3.42 Olive Vista 1,636 58 3.55 Pacoima 1,753 97 5.53 Parkman 1,300 43 3.31 Porter 944 83 8.79 Portola 1,991 181 9.09 Reed 1,635 79 4.83 San Fernando 2,080 217 10.43 Sepulveda 1,456 106 7.28 Sun Valley 2,254 91 4.04 Sutter 1,456 80 5.49 Van Nuys 871 41 4.71

Rate for Valley junior high schools: 5.51 Rate for junior high schools districtwide: 7.59 Source: Los Angeles Unified School District 1989-90