A New Course of Action : Program Gives Former Dropouts a Second Chance at Diploma : In the past 2 1/2 years, about 50 dropouts have earned high school diplomas through the program, and hundreds of others are earning credits toward graduation.

LONG BEACH — There are no ringing bells, no formal classes, no teachers lecturing in front of blackboards, none of the usual characteristics of the traditional high school. But for kids who have given up on school, Educational Partnership High School in Long Beach may be the best--and the last--chance to earn a high school diploma.

Someday, it may also be a chance for a group of private investors to make some money.

Partnership High is a unique arrangement between the Long Beach Unified School District and a private Torrance-based company called Ultimate Resources Inc. The company retrieves students who have dropped out of the district’s high schools and allows them to earn high school credits through closely monitored independent study programs.

As the students earn credits, the company gets the money the school district would have received from the state if the students were still attending regular classes.

The program has had some problems. For one thing, Ultimate Resources hasn’t yet shown a profit through the arrangement--in fact, it’s been operating at a loss. Also, some school district officials seem concerned that the program could adversely affect its efforts to keep borderline dropouts in traditional classroom settings.

Still, in the past 2 1/2 years, about 50 dropouts have earned high school diplomas through the program, and hundreds of others are earning credits toward graduation.

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Partnership High administrator Dale Fairbanks, who works for the school district, calls the school “a triple miracle.”

“You have to remember that our ‘clientele’ are kids who hated school, kids with family problems and severe personal traumas, kids with police problems, kids who for whatever reason had dropped out of school,” Fairbanks said. “So the fact that they even show up is miracle one. That they show up with their work completed is miracle two. And that they take more assignments home with them is miracle three. There are miracles happening here every day.”

Although they don’t use the word “miracle” to describe Partnership High, many students agree that it is better for them than the schools they left. And it’s certainly better than no school at all.

“I like it here a lot better than regular school,” Sandra Lopez, 17, said as she sat at a table in a crowded but silent classroom, working alone on a thick sheaf of math exercises.

Like every student at Partnership High, Lopez, who spent a year as a dropout before entering the program three months ago, will spend no more than two hours a day at school. She will complete the rest of her written assignments at home.

“They don’t teach you nothing at regular school,” said Charles Fraiser, 18, who is just starting at Partnership High after a year and a half out of school. “At least here they teach what you need and then you can move on.”

Regular school was boring, said Keirayshaun Daniels, 18, a 10th-grade dropout who has spent the last five months studying at Partnership High. “This can be boring too, but it’s not as boring.”

Partnership High got its start in 1987 when Ultimate Resources, a group of private investors, approached the Long Beach school district with a proposal. The company would open a school, staff it with qualified teachers and aides, and fill it with the district’s dropouts and potential dropouts. The students would spend about two hours a day, four days a week, at the school, where teachers in various disciplines--English, math, science, social studies, business and electives such as fine arts and Spanish--would be available for individual assistance.

Most of the course work, however, would be completed at home, with each student having to complete at least three eight-hour assignments per week to earn credits; students and parents would sign contracts promising that they would do the work. If the work wasn’t done, or if it was done incorrectly, no credits would be given. The student would have to keep working until he got it right.

“You either get it right or you get it back,” said Diane Paull, one of eight teachers at the school. Like all Partnership High teachers, Paull has a phone on her desk to take calls from students at home who are having trouble with an assignment, or from parents who want to discuss their kid’s progress.

Under the Ultimate Resources proposal, students earning the required numbers of credits through independent study would count as full-time students for the school district. This would allow the district to collect the same amount of state money for the independent study students--about $16 per student for each day of attendance, or about $3,000 per student per school year--as it would collect if the students were sitting in traditional classrooms. After deducting money for teachers and administrators’ salaries, the district would pass the money on to the private company.

The school district agreed to give it a try. It was the first--and still the only--program of its kind in California.

Now, nearly 475 students attend the school, which is headquartered in a low-rent, no-frills building on East 8th Street near downtown Long Beach. Two other smaller branches of the school are on the west and north sides of the city.

“It was a good deal for us,” said Tomio Nishimura, chief financial officer for the school district. “(Dropouts) were a loss to the system anyway, so it didn’t cost us anything. And it was good for the kids.”

Financially, however, it hasn’t been that good a deal for Ultimate Resources.

“There’s no question that the project has been successful as far as the students are concerned,” said Ultimate Resources President Rodgers Dorr, noting that about two-thirds of the dropouts who have entered the program have either graduated, returned to traditional classrooms or are continuing their independent study. But Dorr admits that financially the project “hasn’t been a barn-burner.”

After a $360,000 initial investment, and thousands more in annual operating costs, the project has yet to show a profit.

But Dorr is hopeful that will change.

“We’ve learned enough to where the thing eventually will make some money,” Dorr said. The company recently signed another two-year contract with the school district to continue operating the program.

One problem the school encountered was its own success in attracting students, many of whom seemed to look on the Partnership High study plan as a teen fantasy come true. (Two hours of classes? Four days a week? And I can do most of my schoolwork while I’m lying on the beach? Where do I sign up?)

Originally, the school had a waiting list of students, some of whom--perhaps many of whom--were not truly at risk of dropping out. So recently, the school district implemented a rule limiting attendance at the school to students who have been out of school for 45 or more school days--in other words, serious hard-core dropouts.

“The 45-day rule complicates life for us,” Dorr said. “The longer a student has been out of school, the harder it is to get him back in school, and to get him to stay in school.”

Even without the 45-day rule, however, administrators and teachers caution that Partnership High isn’t for everybody.

“There are a lot of things we can’t offer,” said teacher Paull. “We can’t offer cooperative learning or classroom discussion. We don’t have sports, or a prom.”

What the school can offer, Paull said, is a chance for kids who for one reason or another--academic, social, behavioral--couldn’t adjust to traditional high school but still want a high school education.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Pamela Morse, whose son James Love, 17, dropped out of Woodrow Wilson High in the 10th grade. James has spent the last two years at Partnership High, Morse said, and has earned almost enough credits to graduate.

Morse herself dropped out of Woodrow Wilson High School in 1967 and wasn’t able to get her high school diploma until she went to night school at age 21.

“I wish there’d been something like this when I was in high school,” Morse said. “I think it really would have made a big difference.”