SANTA ANA : Celebrity Video Says: Stay in School

When Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jim Everett and “Stand and Deliver” movie star Edward James Olmos tell students that education has been crucial to their success in life, school officials are betting that the students will listen.

Seeking to reduce the dropout rate by offering positive role models, the Santa Ana Unified School District has just completed a 12-minute motivational video starring Everett, Olmos and eight other celebrities explaining how they achieved success largely by staying in school.

“When I saw the video for the first time, it was moving,” school board member Robert W. Balen said at the video’s unveiling Wednesday. “There’s some emotion there. There’s real people speaking to real kids and getting to them a message they may not have heard before,” a message that says they too can succeed, he said.

“A lot of times kids don’t take to preaching very well. ‘Just say no’ is kind of preaching to kids and that kind of message is OK in some circumstances, but this video is an example of what you can do with your life. These are people who have made it. It’s a more positive ‘here’s-what-you-can-do’ message,” Balen said.

In one video segment, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez briefly describes his upbringing in a community of migrant farm workers in Central California. As the screen displays a black-and-white photo of the dusty shack in which he used to live, he says, “My mother believed that education was the only way to get out of the cycle of poverty.”

Vasquez appeared in person at the video’s premiere Wednesday and said he hopes to show students that with an education, a person who grew up in a “rickety old shack” can rise to become chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Students should know that “you can make it. You can come out of adversity and make something of yourself.”

KABC news anchor Laura Diaz appears in another segment, saying that many people talk about growing up in “bad neighborhoods--as though if you are born in that class you can never get out. I don’t believe that.”

Four copies of the video, which also includes segments with Golden West College President Judith Valles and Placentia Police Chief Manuel Ortega, will be distributed to each intermediate and high school in the district, spokeswoman Diane Thomas said. Serafines of Orange County, the community service arm of the California Angels, produced the video.

The tapes, in both English and Spanish versions, will be played in class and will also be made available at school libraries for students and their parents to check out. The district also plans to translate the video into Cambodian and Vietnamese.

Santa Ana schools Supt. Rudy Castruita said the video will aid continuing programs aimed at slashing the district’s dropout rate. In 1987, only 43% of students finished high school. Self-esteem programs and other attempts to retain students increased that number to 75% last year.

School board member Audrey Yamagata-Noji said the video targets the district’s Latino population because it has the highest dropout rate and makes up the greatest percentage of students. However, she said that the tape will also appeal to a wide range of students because of the diversity of the celebrities presented in it.