High-Tech High School Is ‘Debut of a New Era’ : Education: New O.C. school’s state-of-art computers will link students to a vast information network.

Orange County’s first new high school in four years cost $25 million, but there isn’t a stick of chalk or blackboard in sight.

Instead, each classroom at Aliso Niguel High School features an Apple Macintosh computer and a remote control linking a 27-inch television monitor, via fiber-optic cable, to a library nerve center filled with racks of laser disk players, CD-ROM machines and other state-of-the-art gadgets.

At the stroke of a computer key, another information network will let students browse through the data banks of the Library of Congress, or look up documents at the United Nations in New York or Geneva.

Welcome to what educators call perhaps the most technically advanced high school in California, and what Aliso Niguel Principal Denise Danne declares “the debut of a new era.”

This school symbolizes the future of education, according to state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach).

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for the parents and the students to really take part in a very historic event as far as the advent of education reform,” said Bergeson, whose district includes parts of South Orange County. “I think the entire state will be looking.”

Aliso Niguel High School opens Thursday for about 1,600 students in grades 9-11. It is the first new high school in Orange County since the 1989 opening of Century High School in Santa Ana.

The high school, which will reach a capacity of about 2,000 pupils next year when seniors are added, is the first since 1972 for the fast-growing Capistrano Unified School District, which has 30,000 students.

About half of the campus, including classrooms and science labs, will be ready Thursday. Construction, held up by heavy rains last winter, continues on the campus stadium, gyms, aquatics center and athletic fields, as well as a food court, 375-seat theater and student center.

The school’s innovative data systems, including the fiber-optic video information network created by Indiana-based Dynacom, go on-line next month. Aliso Niguel is the first high school in California and the first high school on the West Coast to feature the Dynacom system.

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Students, who selected teal, black and white as their school colors in April, will be greeted Thursday by balloons, food and music. One banner will proclaim, “Yes, there are Wolverines in Orange County,” a subtle poke at those who have suggested that students should have picked an indigenous animal as their mascot.

Students are excited about the high-tech school.

“They say it’s a model school,” said Ashley Antal, a freshman from Mission Viejo. “That will push us to be better. We want to be the best.”

Technology isn’t the only novelty here.

To combat graffiti, theft and contraband items, there will be no lockers, except in the two campus gyms. Instead, students will be given two sets of textbooks, one to keep at home and the other to remain in class.

The school will have a fast-food lunch court with such restaurants as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, similar to the facility that opened at Capistrano Valley High School last year.

As for curriculum, career skills will be emphasized through schools within the school, including a Culinary Arts Academy where students will learn about the food service industry and nutrition.

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Still, the school’s computerized information systems are causing the most buzz.

“People are calling from all over the country wanting to know about this new high school,” Tom Anthony, director of secondary education for the Capistrano Unified School District, said.

The school PTSA, which has so far attracted more than 100 members, has trained volunteers to conduct tours of the school for the educators and business people that are expected to visit.

The district is spending about $900,000 on technology-related items. Half the money for the school came from the state, while the rest was generated through Mello-Roos taxes, a special assessment paid by homeowners in some newer communities to finance schools, roads and other public facilities.

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With ever-shrinking budgets, district officials acknowledge that they couldn’t have built the school without the $14 to $70 in Mello-Roos taxes paid each month since 1987 by homeowners in Aliso Viejo and parts of Mission Viejo.

The main high-tech feature in all 77 campus classrooms and labs will be the Dynacom video information network, which Danne describes as a “superhighway.”

Indeed, the system works through a powerful highway of television cable and fiber-optics, which are bundles of thin glass tubes that carry light--rather than electrical impulses--at extremely high speeds.

By pressing a key on a small remote control, teachers and students can gain access via their classroom television monitors or computers to materials on satellite, cable television or from pre-loaded laser disk players, compact disk interactive machines and other equipment in the library.

For example, teachers could call up lesson plans they had put on floppy disks the night before. They could broadcast a plant dissection recorded on laser disk, or punch up a CD-ROM with pictures of Renaissance art.

The school also invested in a $6,000 tower of seven CD-ROM drives for the library/media center, which will be accessible to students using Macintosh computers in their classrooms or the media center lab.

Through the use of CD-ROM technology, educators say, study materials will literally come alive for students. CD-ROMs are just like audio compact disks, except they hold text and pictures, both still and animated. It takes a CD-ROM drive and computer to play one.

In 1989, Ball State University in Indiana became the first in the country to install the Dynacom system, followed by Penn High School in South Bend, Ind. About 100 schools and colleges in the United States and Canada have the system, according to company officials.

“Basically the company started in response to a need for user-friendly information access in the classrooms,” said Karen Hiles, western regional manager for Dynacom.

Aliso Niguel also will be one of 17 California schools involved Pacific Bell’s “Knowledge Network” test project.

This phone network will let students and teachers use computers to tap major data banks throughout the country, including those in the Library of Congress, NASA and the National Institutes of Health.

Technology teacher Brian Devaney, who will help train his colleagues to use the systems, believes they’re ready for what officials are calling the classroom of the future. Teachers will go through 24 to 30 hours of training this school year on the Dynacom system alone.

“It’s going to be challenging, but the good thing about it is they knew the job was dangerous when they took it,” Devaney laughed. “The people coming here are very motivated. They’re ready to see these changes.”

Many students and their parents also chose the school because it is on the cutting edge of change.

“There seems to be so much more opportunity here,” said Jeanne Guerreiro, president of the PTSA. “We just want to make it the best school, new or otherwise.”

While most of the students come from Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, about 2,700 students who live within the boundaries of Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo were given the choice of attending the new school. About 500 of those students in grades 9-11 opted for Aliso Niguel.

“I like the idea of being in a brand-new school,” said junior Lima Nabi of Mission Viejo, who picked the new school over Capistrano Valley. “And it’s like we’ll be seniors for two years.”

Freshman Shawn Anthony figures her class will have it better. “The freshmen aren’t the only people who are new,” she said. “We won’t be the only ones lost.”

Sophomore Brian Basinger of Mission Viejo said many people decided to stay at Capistrano Valley High School because they were involved in its strong athletic programs. But many others chose Aliso Niguel because of the school’s high-tech academic offerings, he said.

Julie Dirpes, a junior, agrees: “I just like the idea of this new type of technology, considering most schools don’t even have computers.”

School officials say involvement by students and parents, and the enthusiasm of the school’s 58 teachers, most of whom competed for transfer from other parts of the district, will be crucial to the school’s success.

“The key is to create excitement and enthusiasm and a positive attitude,” student activities director Bruce Carlisle said.

Parents and community leaders believe the school will play an important role in the young and growing communities of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel.

“A new high school always generates a lot of excitement, but especially in a community like Aliso Viejo that’s been waiting 11 years for it,” said Wendy Wetzel, a spokeswoman for the Mission Viejo Co., the developer of Aliso Viejo.

John Willard, a member of the Aliso Viejo Community Assn. board of directors and a local real estate agent, said he has already seen people moving to the area specifically for its schools.

“The demand for the area has just skyrocketed,” he said.

In October, the district will open a middle school in Aliso Viejo, which also will have a Dynacom system and was half funded by Mello-Roos taxes. The other funds came from the state.

In the coming months, Aliso Niguel school officials expect glitches and growing pains as teachers and students learn to use the school’s information systems.

But for those times of frustration, principal Danne has only four words of advice: “Smile and fix it.”

“The words that don’t exist in the vocabulary are ‘no way,’ ” she said.