SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Equation Provides Formula for Success

For San Juan Elementary School Principal Michael Hoy, the equation 7x3=21 will have special significance for his students in the coming years.

Recently, the school was one of 138 in the state to receive a five-year state grant to restructure its educational program by expanding efforts already under way in creating a so-called tri-literacy program for students in English, Spanish and technology.

“Our efforts will emphasize a new equation for 21st-Century learners,” Hoy said. “As a mathematical formula, this is written 7x3=21. In practice, it is translated: seven years (kindergarten through grade six) times three languages (English, Spanish and technology) equals the skills needed for success in the 21st Century.”

The San Juan Capistrano school--which has attracted state and national attention in the past for its efforts to work with an increasingly diverse student population--will receive $160,000 for each year of the state grant, approved by the Legislature and sponsored by the California Business Roundtable. About 50% of the children at the school speak Spanish and have limited English skills.

“We’re trying to make the educational process and educational program effective to meeting the needs of the immigrant and diverse population while at the same time serving the English-speaking students already here,” Hoy said.

The legislation makes more than $11.6 million available to schools to develop restructuring programs. More than 820 schools applied for grant funds.

At San Juan Elementary, one of 21 elementary schools in the Capistrano Unified School District, the grant will be used for a variety of efforts already under way, such as expanding community involvement and increasing partnerships with private businesses.

In the classroom, educators are developing programs to help students learn language and technological skills that will help in the workplaces of the future. These include the skills to work cooperatively and the ability to communicate in a variety of media and languages, Hoy said.

“It’s obvious to those of us in education that in order for today’s students to be successful workers in the 21st Century, they will clearly need to be multilingual,” Hoy said. “They will need to be fluent in their native language and a second foreign language, and most definitely they will have to be proficient in the language of technology as well.”