Dark Cloud Over Budget Imperils ‘Horizon Schools’ : Education: The county program to salvage potential dropouts and those in trouble with the law suffers from funding squeeze and growing numbers in need.

When she was 15, Wendy spent five months in jail after she was arrested for her part in a drive-by shooting. Deep into gang life at the time, she was along for the ride when someone else pulled the trigger.

Abandoned by her father as an infant, heavily into drugs, Wendy felt powerful only with a gun in her hand. “It was one way to get respect,” she said.

But all that changed the day she was thrown into jail and she realized she had to grow up in a hurry.

“I had no choice,” said Wendy, whose full name is being withheld because she is a juvenile. “It was time to turn my life around.”

Now 17, Wendy looks forward to graduating from high school next year, eventually going to college and becoming a student counselor some day. She is helping clean up her Anaheim neighborhood, painting over graffiti left behind by gang members who once were her friends.

Wendy is one of the success stories of alternative education, a concept that became popular in the 1970s as a way to prevent students from dropping out of school and providing a second chance for those who had trouble with authorities.

Through these programs, students from seventh to 12th grades are given an opportunity to graduate or earn enough credits to return to their original school districts.

The programs--taught at “Horizon schools” and community schools--now face serious trouble, educators say. Some features that make the programs effective, such as smaller classes, guidance and counseling, are in jeopardy because they are often the targets of budget cuts.

In addition, more students are coming into the programs each year, making alternative education more costly to maintain.

“We are caught between the task of educating our children and the dollar limitations,” said Orange County schools Supt. John F. Dean. “But we have compulsory education laws. We don’t exclude anybody, even lawbreakers.”

Alternative education serves as a “safety net” for students who have problems adapting to a traditional classroom environment, Dean said.

At the same time, with more students getting expelled from school districts for a variety of offenses, including taking weapons to school, there is a growing need to provide education even to juvenile offenders who are behind bars.

Horizon schools offer informal, year-round, independent study programs. In community schools, students who have been placed on probation attend a full day program as if they were in a traditional school.

There are also schools for youths who are incarcerated. They attend Juvenile Court schools such as the Otto Fischer School, Joplin Ranch School, Los Pinos High School and Rio Contiguo School, Dean said.

There are 1,625 students enrolled in the 20 Horizon school sites around Orange County this year, according to Fred Lange, director of the County Department of Education’s instructional services and programs.

When Horizon schools started in 1983 at a church hall in Santa Ana, he said, only five students were enrolled.

As of April 1, there were 1,423 students in the four juvenile court schools, the Glassell Community School in Orange, Summit and Yale community schools in Santa Ana, Canyon Acres Elementary School and William Lyon School, according to John Peshkoff, director of juvenile court and community schools.

“It’s a whole different ball game now,” Peshkoff said.

For the current school year, the County Department of Education has budgeted $15 million for the alternative schools.

Peshkoff said the schools particularly need funding for more counselors. He said there is only one counselor left for the entire juvenile and community school system, down from eight last year.

“Counselors are absolutely vital,” Peshkoff said. “This is the service that makes a difference. Kids need to know, need to feel that they are worth something.” Counselors do the best job of that, he said.

Chris Gober, who handles community relations for Horizon schools, said they have asked the help of other public agencies and some volunteers to provide counseling services.

“We try to bring in whatever is available in the community to help our kids,” Gober said. “We need to be more creative in the face of budget cuts.”

At Horizon schools, probation officers help counsel the students and check on their attendance and progress.

Probation Officer Bill Collins, who works at Horizon’s south region in Laguna Hills and San Juan Capistrano, said he talks with the principal, the teacher or the parents of students under his care. His main concern is to be sure his “client” is not attending a school where rival gang members or a companion in crime are enrolled, Collins said.

In Horizon schools, a large number of students are either graduating from high school or returning to their original school districts. Don Larsen, Horizon schools administrator, said last school year, 288 students graduated from high school while 267 returned to their original districts.

‘We’re like a halfway house,” said Helen Moore, principal of five Horizon schools in north Orange County. “But we may be the end of the line for a lot of these kids.”

One of Moore’s students is Wendy, who has been attending a Horizon school on Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim for the past two years. She goes to school from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday to Thursday.

“Getting a high school diploma may be my last chance to get ahead in life,” said Wendy, who said she never knew her father. She lives with her disabled mother, Maria, 46, in a two-bedroom apartment in Anaheim.

Two other students in the Horizon school site are on the way to improving their lives. Vicente Mendoza, 18, was expelled from Buena Park High School when he was in the ninth-grade for carrying a gun to school.

He is taking a medical assistance course at the Regional Occupational Program in Anaheim. He hopes to find a job once he finishes the course and graduate from high school next year.

Edward Terriquez, 18, pleaded guilty to a burglary charge last year and was placed on probation. He said he has become comfortable with the informal study program at Horizon and may earn enough credits to graduate next year.

“Now that I’m here, I might as well earn a diploma,” Terriquez said.

Educators point to these successes as reasons to expand alternative education programs.

“Some kids do not fit in a particular box,” said Lange, the instructional services director. “They have unique needs that must be met.”