The Future Is Now at Magnet School : Education: A cross-section of L.A. students attend new program that stresses technology through math and science instruction.

“Pul- leeze ,” the teen-ager implored in exactly that tone employed when pleading for the car, a sleep-over or extra money for junk food.

But this request was different.

”. . . Can’t we change the log-in script? Please?”

Retired geophysicist Alan Hoffman said no, grinning at his students’ enthusiasm as they tackled a computer problem at Westchester High School’s new math-science aerospace magnet program.

“These are eight especially talented kids in computer science who are getting individual attention and helping us set up and understand the network,” Hoffman said, his words drowned out by the noise of a jet passing overhead.

They are also a cross-section of Los Angeles, all drawn to this Westside school-within-a-school almost directly under the LAX flight path, they say, in search of “something better than the regular school program.”

And is it?

“Yeah,” said David Clinger, 16, of Westchester, who chose the magnet for its math and science offerings, not out of a specific interest in aerospace. “It’s smaller, you get more attention, we’re more carefully watched, it’s not overrun like other schools, and most of the teachers are good.”

Westchester’s computer technology lab draws a sleepy-eyed Pedro Baltazar, 16, of Huntington Park, onto the school bus at 6:45 each morning, while curiosity about opportunities in the aerospace industry gets Terrence Dagley, 15, going even earlier in South-Central Los Angeles.

They are among the magnet’s first 100 students, and as such, share in both the excitement of a new program and the frustration over delays in getting equipment installed and the wide-ranging curriculum humming. About 20 students have dropped out of the magnet for various reasons, including out-of-district moves, too-long bus rides and dissatisfaction with the slow start-up.

Richard Battaglia, a Los Angeles Unified School District administrator for magnet programs, acknowledged that there have been a few hitches in the early going.

“Westchester has designed a rather ambitious program,” he said. “But we wanted them to think big, and obviously these things take time.

“Nearly 300 youngsters have applied for next year so far,” Battaglia said. “Theirs is a classic case of a successful magnet in the making.”

Although one in four Westchester magnet students is classified as “gifted,” principal Eileen Banta emphasizes that the program is designed for all levels--for those who want to be aircraft engineers or astronauts, those who are college-bound or who want to go directly into industry. It is not limited to preparation for jobs that may not be available in a depressed aerospace industry.

“The emphasis is on math and science, but it’s a program that will prepare you to live in the 21st Century,” Banta said, adding, “The teaching has a bias toward technology,” even when the topic is literature or business.

What that means is “futurist” reading assignments, space geography, wind-tunnel tests, computer probes, encyclopedic discs and charting calculators. In an old metal shop that has been converted into a space-age technology lab, students are working out glitches in a new computer system that will eventually enable them to explore 17 different technologies--from robotics and computer-assisted drafting to desktop publishing and rocketry.

It is a world foreign to most adults, although perhaps not to many in Westchester, home to Hughes Aircraft as well as many airline and aerospace industry workers in the LAX area.

Locating an aerospace magnet nearby seemed natural, and local scientists and engineers have been involved in designing the program. United Airlines “adopted” the students, agreeing to provide “speakers, field trips, mentors, tutors and tours,” magnet coordinator Ron Keating said.

Hughes also supplies tutors, and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission provides on-campus instruction in discrete mathematics twice a week after school.

Internships, “job-shadowing” opportunities, scholarships and summer jobs in local industry are also part of the program.

Each magnet student is required to take four years of English, math, science and social studies, with aerospace electives sprinkled throughout.

Six years in the planning and even longer in the dreaming, the aerospace magnet was the brainchild of a group of parents. Former Westchester Principal Jim Davis and former Orville Wright Junior High Principal Jackie Tucker put the plan on paper, school board member Mark Slavkin pushed for it and, once approved, parent Elaine Bodenburg coordinated the selection of five teachers from 50 applicants.

Classes began last fall with 120 ninth- and 10th-graders. The program will expand next fall to include an 11th grade with another 60 youngsters, and grow eventually to 240 students. A second magnet at Westchester’s feeder school, Wright Junior High, is also envisioned.

Federal funds provided $330,000 in set-up costs; an extra $50 per child per year is provided by the state. In addition, several Westchester teachers have been awarded government and industry grants to further integrate technology into education.

Hoffman, who is setting up the computer lab, complains that misunderstandings, bureaucracy and still-missing pieces of equipment have held up parts of the program, which still exists primarily on paper.

But most students say they will stick with it.

“Since I gave up music, my career choices mostly include math and science and some sort of engineering,” said 15-year-old Jelani Ferguson of Ladera Heights.

“It’s going to be better. We are getting all these new things (equipment and materials), and hopefully the aerospace and science parts will kick in soon, by next year. I probably will stay.”

Program coordinator Keating hopes others will stay too, even if they have no specific interest in the aerospace industry, although many of the magnet’s first students say they want to be engineers or pilots.

“What this is going to give a student,” he said, “is a strong academic background with an emphasis on math and science, with the use of up-to-date technologies that will prepare them to enter the work force or higher education.”