Grants to Allow Curriculum Overhaul

At Wilson Junior High School, administrators fear that the academic curriculum does not adequately address social issues like homelessness, racism and drugs confronted by many of their students.

And they fear that many students feel alienated from the school community.

But Wilson now has an opportunity to remedy these problems. The campus is among three Glendale schools and one Northeast Los Angeles school that will receive planning grants from the state Legislature this year.

The planning grants were created by the Legislature so educators could rethink their teaching methods and develop specific proposals to address the most pressing problems they face.

Teachers, administrators and parents will all be involved in the planning process, which is intended to result in the overhaul of many campuses.

A total of 210 campuses were selected statewide from among 1,500 schools to share in the $6.3-million grant fund. The money is to be used to pay for educational consultants, staff training and release time for teachers who participate in the planning process.

In the Glendale Unified School District, Wilson will receive $43,740; Columbus Elementary School, $32,190, and Roosevelt Junior High $37,350.

Glassell Park’s Irving Junior High School, one of 11 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District to receive the grants, will get $45,900.

“Every school is facing the problems of educating today’s student but continuing to use old methods,” said Terry Dutton, principal of Columbus Elementary in downtown Glendale. “It doesn’t work.”

At Columbus, 80% of the students speak Armenian, Spanish, Korean or other foreign languages at home.

Dutton wants to involve non-English-speaking parents in the school’s English as a second language program and figure out how bilingual children can assist peers having trouble in English classes.

“We have trouble with a lot of kids ever making it into a regular English program,” he said. “We want to figure out how can we get kids to teach one another.”

Glassell Park’s Irving Junior High School is being changed into a middle school, serving sixth- through eighth-graders instead of seventh through ninth, and Principal Thelma Yoshii wants the campus to be more hospitable to younger students.

In addition, she seeks more integration of academic disciplines.

She believes both results could be achieved if groups of students were placed with teams of teachers in a single classroom for most of the day, rather than moving independently from subject to subject during different periods.

“The whole idea is to make this school, a large school, into small units--to have small communities with corps of teachers teaching a corps of students so they get to know those students really well,” she said.

Administrators at Wilson and Roosevelt junior high schools also hope to explore and eventually adopt the “middle school” structure, which they believe provides a more nurturing environment for young adolescents.

“Young adolescents need a little help in making the connection between one subject and another,” said Ruth Lander, principal of Wilson Junior High. “When the history teacher does the Civil War, the English teacher might do ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ and help the students make the connection between history and literature.”

Lander said that the state funds will give a tremendous boost to the overhaul efforts.

“Change comes hard,” she said. “With this funding, we are able to send our people off to learn, to see other middle schools, and to be trained so they are comfortable with these practices.

Planning Grants for Area Schools Wilson Junior High: $43,740 Columbus Elementary: $32,190 Roosevelt Junior High: $37,350 Irving Junior High: $45,900