ANAHEIM : School TV Program May Be Eliminated

At 1:10 p.m. every weekday, the pupils in Carol York’s third-grade class at Francis Scott Key Elementary School settle into their desks and click on the television to watch whatever’s on.

It could be a trip to a reptile farm, or a trip through the solar system with a science teacher who has created a TV program that simulates space travel. It could be a jaunt through time, via the Natural History Museum, to the period when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The shows are produced by Instructional Television, a 31-year-old Anaheim City Elementary district program that has been proposed for elimination in the current round of budget discussions.

Teachers throughout the district have high praise for the program, saying that they rely on it to help teach social studies, science, arts and music. Its demise would save the district nearly $500,000. Some educators, however, have said the program is somewhat outdated.

The district is faced with making a $2.5-million budget cut to meet the state cuts in money going to the school district. District officials say there is little else they can trim from the $54-million spending plan for the 21-school district.

All 12 of the technical staff members who produce the program will be laid off, and the five teachers involved with it will be reassigned to classroom jobs.

“It’s just a real shame; I think it’s going to be sorely missed,” Bobbie Whitaker, a fourth-grade teacher at Benito Juarez Elementary School, said about the plan to end the program. “It brings into the classroom 15 to 20 minutes of pictures, films, portions of films that I do not have time to put together.”

The programs, which each take about 15 hours and a staff of 17 to create, combine information from a variety of sources, such as film clips, model displays and on-location footage about a particular topic. The variety includes everything from science experiments to the life-cycle of an insect to the rich cultural heritage of San Juan Capistrano, and include interviews from a range of people that goes from scientists to historians to factory workers.

Teachers say the daily programs represent hours of research and information that they would never have the time or resources to come up with themselves for four courses every week.

Besides, with each class limited to just two field trips a year, the teachers say, these in-class “trips” are a way to introduce children to other places and other cultures.

“It’s a world of help and assistance . . . and adds a world of information to the classroom,” said Neva Hoofnagle a fourth-grade teacher at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.

And as the number of limited English-speaking children in the district increases, the teachers say, it is particularly unfortunate to lose a program that helps keep those pupils involved with their lessons.

“It is especially helpful for the Spanish-speaking students because they can hear English while they’re watching TV,” York said. Half her pupils have a limited command of English, she said, and there are no Spanish-language textbooks in social studies or science for them.

School Board President Betty Patterson said she hopes that the program can be revived and that what she hopes will be a hiatus will give educators a chance to re-evaluate the program. She agrees with those in the district who say it is somewhat outdated and that it could be enhanced by improvements such as Spanish subtitles and videocassettes that allow the teachers to show the programs at their convenience.