Hook ‘Em When They’re Young : Five area schools, including Santa Ana’s Franklin, are targeting students at risk to dropout in a four-year, federally funded program.

The last thing Ramon Mendoza is thinking about right now is dropping out of school. After all, he’s just started first grade--and besides, he’s having too much fun learning to read and write. By the time he’s in junior high, his teachers hope that Ramon will be so successful in school that dropping out will still be the last thing on his mind.

Ramon is one of about 240 first- and second-graders at Santa Ana’s Franklin School who are benefiting from a four-year, federally funded dropout-prevention program.

“Children drop out because they are not able to function in school,” says Victoria Boyd, a first-grade teacher at Franklin. “So they drop out and get involved in gangs. Our ultimate goal is to prevent dropouts.”

Santa Ana Unified School District has a 24.6% dropout rate, and even though that rate has been reduced by 41% since 1985, it remains one of the highest in the county. The dropout rate from district to district countywide ranges from a low of 4% or 5% to nearly 30%, according to the Orange County Department of Education.

To help reduce Santa Ana’s rate further, five area schools, including Franklin, are receiving funds from a federal grant. At Franklin, the money is being used to help cut class size for first- and second-graders.

Everyday for a 1 1/2-hour period, first- and second-grade classes, which average about 32 children, are cut in half so that pupils can get more individual attention. That’s important, according to Marie Johnson, also a first-grade teacher at Franklin, because ultimately it is the bond between teacher and child that enables a child to learn.

“For years I’ve said the answer to our education problems is smaller class size,” Johnson says. “It is the relationship between the child and the teacher and the other children in the class that causes the child to learn. With a group of 15 or 16 we can do a lot more hands-on activity than we can with 32, which is the normal size--and that is going up.

“If you have 32 kids, not all are developmentally ready at the same time. Sometimes that shows itself as a behavioral problem. When you have small groups, you can really see that and work with the child.”

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Franklin’s dropout program began in January and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

“Only a limited number of such programs were funded nationwide,” says Linda Genis, principal at Franklin, “and ours is the largest in terms of dollars.”

The four-year federal program receives about $1.4 million a year, which is split among the five participating Santa Ana schools. Franklin is the only elementary school in the program.

One of the reasons Franklin was chosen, according to Genis, is because surveys show that most of its pupils come from low-income families.

“According to socioeconomic statistics of the area, 84% of our children are eligible for free or reduced (price) lunches,” Genis says. “Also, the school is 97% Hispanics, (who) have a high dropout rate.”

Both Boyd and Johnson are bilingual, and first-grade classes are conducted mostly in Spanish.

“But we don’t just focus on Spanish,” Boyd says. “We do English too. We try to get them to be verbal. The goal is to get them proficient in Spanish and then make the transition (to English). It’s much easier if you’re already proficient in your primary language.”

During a recent class, Boyd led her pupils in the reading of a simple songbook called “Querida Amiga Luna” (“Dear Friend Moon”). First the children read the book together, then they sang the lyrics to recorded music. Next, they sat with crayons and drew pictures based on characters in the book.

Nearby, in Johnson’s portable classroom, first-graders were asked to write about their favorite color.

“Our goal is that children learn to read at an early age with more ease,” says Johnson, a reading specialist who earned her master’s degree at UCLA. “The dropout (rate) and gang problems relate to the same thing. Children don’t feel included, and the truly disenfranchised are the illiterates.”

Although the program is in its first year, Johnson says she already has seen results. In one of the first-grade groups, Johnson says that only three or four children could read when the program started, but at the end of the semester all the children were reading.

Teaching children to read, getting them excited about school and showing them they can succeed will help prevent them from dropping out in the future, Johnson says.

“The reason kids drop out, it’s a hostile environment,” she says. “When they can’t compete, can’t read, can’t get into the system of studying in seventh or eighth grade. Nobody sticks with anything they are not successful at. So early success is important.”

To help the children succeed, teachers at Franklin identify pupils who are having problems, and each afternoon those children receive one-on-one tutoring.

Johnson, who tutors during daily afternoon sessions, helps pupils make their own books in an effort to learn more about each child’s interests and abilities.

“They dictate (the book), and I write it,” Johnson says. “Then, afterward, they illustrate it and read it.”

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Because the child actually spoke the words that went into the book, learning to read the words Johnson writes down is easy, she says.

Other rewards surface too. During a recent tutoring session, one of Johnson’s pupils drew an intricately beautiful picture to illustrate his story. Johnson had no idea the boy was so gifted. From now on, Johnson says: “I’ll obviously try to work on this child’s artistic ability.”

In addition to the individual tutors and smaller class sizes, the dropout program also stresses parent involvement.

“We do parenting classes too,” Boyd says. “These parents want to help their children but just don’t know how.”

Having highly motivated parents and highly motivated pupils can work wonders, says Boyd.

“The teacher who got the kids we’ve had (in this program) said they were all so willing to learn.”

Genis says the program also helps the children feel better about themselves and about being in school.

“It keeps them from falling behind. Once they fall behind it’s very hard to catch up. I think this has had a real positive effect on our school. We’ve seen (the program) make a difference already.”