Private (School) Detective : If Prop. 174 Passes, Choosing a School Could Be a Complex Research Project

Today, enrolling a child in school can be as simple as packing a lunchbox: Get the required shots, grab some sharpened pencils and march down to the nearest campus.

But if the voucher initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot passes, selecting a school could become a complex research project.

Orange County already has 224 private schools ranging from a French-American bicultural program to academics framed in Islamic tradition, and experts expect that number to multiply if vouchers become a reality. Plus, the initiative would virtually erase district boundaries, making the county’s 496 public schools available to all residents.

Supporters of the initiative, Proposition 174, hail choice as the essence of the voucher plan, which would give parents about $2,600 of government money toward tuition at any voucher-redeeming school. But opponents warn that the voucher system would spawn a slew of fly-by-night private schools, and that only parents with the savvy, time and financial wherewithal would be able to sort through the dizzying array of options and find the best school for their children.

Private-school parents who already have gone through the process said selecting schools is a tricky business that takes plenty of time, educational expertise, and more than a touch of luck.

“I’ve checked probably every school in the phone book,” said Trina Moorlach of Costa Mesa, whose two school-age children have been in and out of five private schools and now attend Christ Lutheran in Costa Mesa.

“You have to really get in and feel them out to find out what’s available and what’s not,” she said. “It just depends on the person and what you’re looking for. Everybody’s different.”

And so are each of the schools:

Want a religious education? Today you can pick from 42 Catholic schools, 51 schools of seven other Christian denominations or a host of non-sectarian evangelical institutions. Plus three Jewish schools and Orange Crescent, an Islamic kindergarten through eighth grade facility.

Maybe there’s a particular methodology you admire. Followers of Maria Montessori, the Italian physician who suggested that students proceed at their own pace without grade distinctions, have 26 schools in the county. Six other schools teach the philosophy of Mae Carden, a New York educator who spawned a nationwide network of back-to-basics elementary schools.

If you’ve got extra money to combine with the voucher, there’s Fairmont Private School in Anaheim, where the junior-high tuition is $5,985, plus $750 for supplies. Or Harbor Day in Corona del Mar, pricey at $6,285 a year, but popular: 180 applicants for 44 kindergarten spots last year.

Something more specialized? How about the French-American School in Fountain Valley, a bilingual/bicultural experience. . . . Got a genius? El Dorado School for the Gifted in Orange takes the best and the brightest and offers them a well-rounded program stressing art, music and foreign language.

Or, perhaps, you prefer to educate your children yourself: Join one of the six registered networks of home-school programs that provide curriculum guidelines, tests, field trips and advice. Home school programs with more than 25 students will probably be eligible for vouchers.

Tuition, of course, varies as much as the schools’ philosophies. Catholic elementary schools in Orange County average $1,700 a year while other K-8 schools range from $4,000 to $7,000. Among the cheapest are home-school programs, like the Catholic one in Irvine that costs $175 a year; the most expensive is the Mardan School in Irvine, which serves learning disabled and emotionally disturbed children for a price of $19,000 a year, or $102 a day.

“To make a real decision about these things, you’ve got to put a lot of thought and analysis into it and I don’t think most people are equipped to do that. I don’t mean that critically, but they’re just not,” said Charles Turner, who runs three Montessori schools.

“I don’t think that most parents have the interest or the energy to really learn what it is we do,” said Turner, who opposes the voucher initiative. “I don’t think most people have the information or the education to delve into (the private-school scene) and make sense out of it.”

Many private-school parents started their search with recommendations from friends, neighbors or fellow members of church and community groups. Others, like Moorlach, began with the Yellow Pages, or the county department of education’s 21-page city-by-city roster of private schools.

For Stanley Soto-Smith, a teacher who lives in Westminster and has children in two North County private schools, it was an ad in a parenting magazine that caught his eye. Then, like several other parents interviewed, Soto-Smith visited the schools that seemed interesting. Twice, each.

He talked to administrators, observed classes, watched recess out on the playground, studied curriculum guidelines and checked out the activities programs. He consulted his brother, an elementary-school principal, and did some more reading.

“It takes a lot of time if you want to do it right,” Soto-Smith said. “You have to know what you’re looking for, and sometimes that takes a little time. We did a lot of research, and it’s paid off.”

If Prop. 174 passes, parents could receive vouchers good for the current school year, though students enrolled in private schools as of Oct. 1, 1991, would not become eligible for vouchers until 1995-96.

Once the parent picks a school, and the student enrolls, the government would send a check within 30 days, and continue sending payments monthly. Students who do not spend the entire $2,600 during a given year could use the excess toward tuition anytime before their 26th birthday.

Of course, students must be accepted before they can enroll. Prestigious prep schools like Harbor Day have tough admissions exams to match their long waiting lists. Other schools, hungry for applicants to fill their classrooms and coffers, are more lenient.

Any school with 25 or more students that does not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or teach hatred would qualify for the vouchers.

Voucher opponents warn the initiative would give taxpayer dollars to fanatics setting up makeshift schools in garages; but pro-voucher forces argue that the expanded market will apply the forces of capitalism to education and that only the best schools will survive.

“There’s a kind of built-in consumer factor in the private-school movement that’s just not part of public schools,” said Burt Carney, legislative director of the Assn. of Christian Schools International, or ACSI. “Private-school parents have direct impact on their school boards because they’ll walk. They’ll vote with their feet.”

Currently 9.6% of schoolchildren statewide, and more than 11% of those in Orange County, are enrolled in private schools.

Analysts say twice as many students would have to attend private schools for the public schools to break even under the voucher plan. But a study released in February warned that there are only 43,000 empty chairs in private school classrooms statewide, so parents might have to struggle for choice spots as entrepreneurs open new schools and the old ones expand.

Educators expect private schools to increase their marketing operations to meet the expanded market if Prop. 174 passes. Some school administrators said they would consider hiking fees--not the full $2,600, but enough to make teachers’ salaries more competitive with the public-school system or to fund capital improvements and expansions.

Though the state requires private schools to register their name, address and enrollment and monitor students’ attendance, there is no universal standard for evaluating the schools and no required tests whose results parents can review to analyze the schools’ success.

Various safety measures are mandated, including earthquake standards for buildings that house 50 or more pupils or have more than one classroom. Teachers are required only to be “capable of teaching,” and while certain subjects must be included in the curriculum, no specific courses or number of hours are laid out.

Many Orange County schools, though, go beyond the state requirements, hiring only credentialed teachers and voluntarily seeking accreditation by the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.

“We are lucky that in the area we are in there are a lot of excellent schools,” said George Madanat, a pediatrician whose five children attend Fairmont.

“If you really know what you want and you ask the right questions, it should not be a very difficult decision, especially if you have good referrals from people you trust,” said Madanat, who investigated two other schools before settling on Fairmont. “I like it to be a process parents put time into. You should not just send a child to school and go to sleep. I think you get out of it how much you put into it.”

Going Private More than 40,000 children attend Orange County’s private schools, about 15% of which have fewer than 25 students.

Fewer than Type Schools Students 25 students General 54 5,600 12 Religious (total) 131 37,175 9 Catholic 42 17,500 0 Lutheran 24 4,700 0 Baptist 10 2,400 1 Other Christian 51 11,800 8 Jewish 3 500 0 Islamic 1 275 0 Gifted 1 200 0 Montessori 26 1,000 8 Special needs 6 500 1 Home school programs 6 200 3 Total* 224 44,675 33

* Does not include kindergartens

Sources: Orange County Department of Education, individual schools

Researched by Richard Core, Willson Cummer and Jodi Wilgoren / For The Times