Resolute Schools Boss Gives Pupils a Vital CHOICE

Phil Grignon is rattling the nation’s educational cage again.

By juggling his budget, cajoling his teachers and stroking his parents, the rebel among county school chiefs has gotten students and teachers to voluntarily stay in school more days than required--and placed his South Bay Union Elementary School District ahead of the national curve one more time.

More than half his 9,500 elementary students have already tried at least 15 days of CHOICE, a monthly “mobile” school that features reading and writing enrichment across all academic subjects, from music to math.

“This program is A+, 100%, absolutely the best,” said parent Arlen Shire, whose 8-year-old son, Aaron (A.J.), is at his second CHOICE session this month. “It’s helped A.J. greatly in his academics. He’s increased his reading a lot. And by reading and writing about stories in class, he isn’t home watching TV,” Shire said.

By setting it up as a “lab school,” Grignon has persuaded teachers to work for less than their going rate. That means a realistic environment for teachers to experiment with a new bag of educational tricks and work out kinks in California’s new reading curriculum that bedevil their colleagues in San Diego and statewide.

The only drawback facing Grignon now is a lack of classroom space to meet the student demand. At least a third of South Bay’s parents now regularly sign up their children for the extra academic boost when the students otherwise would be on rotating vacations under the district’s year-round schedule.

“The need for CHOICE was obvious,” the outspoken Grignon said. “Our kids go to school 180 days a year while those in Japan and Europe go as much as 240 days. We need more days for our children to be internationally competitive--we need to level the playing field.”

Grignon argued successfully to his trustees that South Bay students in particular needed extra enrichment because the average district family lags behind when measured by socioeconomics--57% are below the federal poverty level, they make lower salaries than a decade ago, and the number on welfare or with only one parent is higher than in 1980.

“Our children don’t come to school with as many experiences as those in Poway or Del Mar,” Grignon said. “They haven’t been to the art museums or the Grand Canyon.

“I want expanded classroom time to give them (the equivalent) of these experiences. We’re not doing remediation, we’re doing enrichment.”

Grignon asked his top assistants to design the enrichment around reading, “because reading is the key to everything in life.”

Despite having average student test scores in the upper quarter of all schools statewide, rich or poor, an achievement unmatched by any other California districts with similar poverty levels, Grignon demands continued improvement.

“Education is a product and we can and must measure to know how we are doing, and we still need to do better,” Grignon said. To understand his determination, Grignon’s staff needed only to see his anger last week after a parent complained to him that his daughter had been in South Bay schools for three years--and still did not read well.

Grignon, parent in tow, drove to the school in question and grilled the principal over why the student had been passed along from grade to grade without sufficient attention to the problem.

“That’s why I’m so big on CHOICE,” Grignon said. “It’s a major way to improve student performance, give them a safe environment, and improve my teachers all at the same time.” Grignon rearranged $1 million in district lottery funds, federal aid and other money to put flesh onto his idea.

Already, standardized test data, as well as teacher observations, indicate students who have taken one or more enrichment sessions read and write better than those who do not, administrators said.

And Grignon is getting calls from all over the country.

Under the district’s year-round attendance system, each student becomes eligible for CHOICE up to three times a year--during regular breaks that occur on a rotating monthly basis for students at all 12 schools, depending on a child’s particular schedule.

Some students even plan to attend the maximum 45 days possible for them in a single year. If followed through over their elementary years, the extra enrichment will bring the equivalent of an extra year’s schooling by the end of the 6th grade.

The other day, 2nd-grader Michael Hastings proudly showed off his writing journal, complete with descriptions about his parents, brothers, cousins and friends, while some of his other classmates worked on writing their own versions of “The Little Red Hen.”

Do the 700 students attending the current session miss their vacation?

“Not at all,” Shire, the father of A.J., said. “A.J. talks about all the stories they’ve read when he comes home, and the kids really like the chance to ride a bus.” Free transportation takes students from their regular school to the particular campus where CHOICE operates during any given month.

District figures show that 82% of students who enroll stay for the entire three weeks.

South Bay teachers rave about the lab school as well, even though they’ve never been known for lavishing praise on their hard-nosed superintendent, whose passion--and detailed management system--for holding principals and teachers accountable for improving student achievement are legend at educational gatherings nationwide.

By giving teachers a “real” classroom in which to practice the new state emphasis on teaching reading and writing in all subject areas, CHOICE proves far more valuable than a traditional staff meeting, program principal Rena Walker said.

In those meetings, teachers receive brief descriptions of new techniques and take home a stack of books and guides to absorb on their own, Walker, a reading specialist, said. “They say, ‘I’ll try it some day.’ Here they can actually try it for 15 days,” she said.

Teachers volunteer for teaching CHOICE classes during their intersession breaks. Their union agreed to a $150-a-day salary compared with the approximately $200 a day under the regular school contract, Grignon said. While the students attend for 15 days, the teachers have an two extra paid days for additional preparation time on the curriculum.

“It’s a great chance to see how the new ‘integration’ works, where you write when reading a new story, or do math problems as part of a story--where reading, writing, making a graph, everything comes together,” Gloria Laguna, a teacher at Berry Elementary said. She has taught twice in CHOICE.

At the lab school, the staff organizes lesson plans around various themes, such as “fear and apprehension.” So when 2nd-grader Michael Hastings and his classmates read “The Gentle Giant,” their teacher Catherine Johnson had them gather in groups and talk about the fear of giants.

Later they wrote their own stories about giants, made papier-mache artworks of giants, and tackled math problems based on “giant” measurements. There are no work sheets or traditional drills.

Many of the essays they wrote involved open-ended questions, such as “How does fear affect you?” with no right-or-wrong answer but meant instead to help them learn how to think critically.

The students keep “portfolios” of their writing and art--an experimental trend in education--which they take home to parents at the end of the three weeks as a permanent record showing their improvement.

“I’ve taken a lot of the ideas back to my regular classroom,” teacher Laguna said. “In fact, every Friday I now organize my class around the techniques from CHOICE. The students even call it ‘Fun Friday’ because they like the way of learning so much.

“And I can tell the difference in skills between those who have been to the program and those who haven’t. I think those in CHOICE even like to pick up a book more, because they’ve found it doesn’t have to mean ‘school’ but real life and interesting things.”

Her principal, Raquel Tellez, said that the teachers returning from CHOICE assignments show a richer mix of instructional ideas.

“They also market the program well with their students,” Tellez said. Because of growing interest, principals now have to limit the number of students who can attend in any given session. Applications are taken on a first-come, first-serve basis and valued confirmation cards are mailed out to parents to guarantee a spot for their child.

No longer do Tellez and colleagues such as Al Resendez at Pence Elementary need to persuade skeptical parents to try the bus ride themselves to a CHOICE program and see how the program works.

“Seeing is believing,” Resendez said. “There’s no hesitation now.”