Alternative School Faces Funding Crisis : Education: The Van Nuys program, New Directions for Youth, is considered a last resort for problem students of junior high age.

The San Fernando Valley’s only alternative school for young car thieves, runaways and gang members has only been open for two months, but is already in danger of closing for lack of funds.

If New Directions for Youth is forced to shut down the alternative school, Michelle Bettis, 14, who said she was expelled from Sepulveda Junior High School for punching her English teacher, will be back on the streets with 27 of her classmates.

“I wouldn’t go back to regular school because they don’t show you nothing there,” Michelle said. “Here, it’s like this place is our house.”

Housed in a former chiropractor’s office in the 7400 block of Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, the alternative school was the scene Friday of a grand opening ceremony tinged by fear that its days were numbered. The program has three teachers instructing 28 junior high school students, ages 11 to 15, who attend classes at the storefront from 8:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. five days a week.

To relieve tensions, the students go to the local YMCA part of the day. School lessons are more practical than in a conventional classroom, focusing on such tasks as learning to balance a checkbook.

Although there are other alternative school programs in the Valley, they serve students at the high school level, said Sally Thompson, the agency’s executive director.

“There’s no other place for these kids,” Thompson said. The school is considered a last resort for problem students.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to contribute up to $75,000 annually to the alternative school, but is now so strapped for cash that it is considering deleting the program to help reduce a projected deficit of up to $600 million next year.

School board member Roberta Weintraub was among the many Valley politicians, judges, business leaders and law enforcement officials who attended Friday’s ceremony to pledge their support to New Directions, a private, nonprofit agency.

“I’m going to fight to keep these kinds of programs in L. A. schools,” Weintraub said. “It’s going to be difficult, though.”

Thompson said the agency will have to rely on private foundations, corporations and the public to meet the school’s $175,000 annual budget. Kaiser Permanente has already contributed $25,000, and Southern California Gas Co. donated $3,211 Friday.

Also attending the ceremony was Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), author of a 1988 law that provides $1 million annually in confiscated drug money to Los Angeles County organizations fighting gangs. New Directions receives some of that money for its other programs, including anti-graffiti and job placement efforts, but not for the alternative school, Thompson said.

Katz praised the school, saying that “rebuilding L. A. includes investing in our kids. . . . Without schools like this, there’s no hope for some kids.”

For youths with poor attendance records at traditional junior high schools, students at New Directions are enthusiastic about the program.

“Before, I wouldn’t even talk to white people, just black people and cholos like me,” said Joelena McCoy, 15, who said she belongs to a gang and has been arrested for stealing a car and shoplifting. “Here, I found out white people are just like me.

“One teacher here even told me I’m capable of going to college,” she said. But if the program closes and she drops out of school, “I’ll have to go back to Juvenile Hall.”