Success Is Academic : La Reina High’s No-Nonsense Approach Focuses on Individual Development

Chewing gum in class costs three points. Tardiness detracts two, while cheaters lose 10 points from their good citizenship record. Rack up a total of 15 points, and you’re suspended from La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks.

La Reina--a private Catholic school that is the only all-female school in Ventura County--draws attention to itself without dramatics. No Friday night football, no marching band, no cheerleaders.

But La Reina does have no-nonsense discipline and strong academics based on a solid religious foundation.

“I have high expectations and I’m demanding of those,” said the school’s principal, Sister Mary Megaffin, who, like all of the school’s administrators, teaches at least one class per day.

The strict approach pays off in higher test scores and waiting lists for enrollment, Megaffin said. And, recently, the school beat out 14 others from Ventura County to win its third championship in five years in the intellectually challenging mock trial competition.

*

Class size averages 25 at La Reina, so teachers can focus more attention on each student, Megaffin said. In addition, the single-sex setting eliminates the distraction of dating and competition for attention, students and teachers said. About 560 seventh- through 12th-grade students attend classes on the well-manicured campus, which is on West Janss Road.

“You can become something here, where you might be swallowed up in a school of 2,000,” said Betsy Potts, an Advanced Placement English teacher.

Only about 60% of the school’s students are Catholic, Megaffin said. The rest are typically students whose parents are in search of a safe campus, a challenging curriculum and strict moral teachings, she said. About 65% of La Reina students attend four-year colleges or universities after graduation, she said.

Don Glynn, a senior prosecutor in the Ventura County district attorney’s office, volunteered to coach the mock trial team when his youngest daughter was a student at La Reina. He continued his coaching duties after she graduated in 1990.

Now, Glynn said he wishes that he had enrolled his two eldest daughters at La Reina instead of sending them to public schools.

“If I had anything to do over in my life, I would have sent them to La Reina,” he said.

Students say a school without boys, filled with highly motivated girls, fosters a kind of positive peer pressure under which academic achievement is cool.

“At public school, you might be considered a nerd to get straight As, but here, it’s considered a good thing,” freshman Tina Gottlieb said.

*

Without boys in class to garner more of the teacher’s attention, female students are allowed to flourish, Megaffin said.

“The girls can really focus on their education without boys around,” the principal said. “The discussions can be freer without them worrying, ‘What will the boys think of me?’ They’re not competing. They get all the attention.”

In single-sex settings, girls have more of a chance to take on leadership roles in student government and other organizations, said Prof. Mary Margaret Thomes, who teaches sociology and directs the graduate program in marriage and family therapy at Cal Lutheran University.

“What we know from a number of studies is that the boys--for whatever the reason--do get more attention and more opportunities in a coeducational school” than girls, Thomes said.

Given an atmosphere to develop their capabilities without competition from boys, girls who leave single-sex schools to go to coeducational colleges or workplaces tend to have the self-confidence to succeed, Thomes said.

“I think it empowers girls to develop themselves more fully intellectually and academically,” Thomes said.

Studies of single-sex schools show some benefits for girls, but the effects on boys are not as clear. And researchers have found that girls at single-sex Catholic schools tend to have higher aspirations and achievements.

Many La Reina students agree that they have an advantage over their coeducational counterparts.

“When you see teachers constantly call on the boys over the girls, you think subconsciously, ‘Maybe I ought to just sit here and do nothing,’ ” said senior Stefany Wolfsohn, 17, who attended public schools in Camarillo through the eighth grade.

*

Similarly, a strict dress code requiring the girls to wear plaid skirts and white socks with a blouse or sweater may seem a rigid policy for the 1990s. But it actually tends to free students from worrying about fashion, teachers said.

“A girl’s personality really emerges here and, ironically, I think the uniform helps that,” said Potts, who has taught at La Reina for 20 of the school’s 30 years. “There’s nothing in the way to interfere with us seeing the true individual.”

Respect for the individual is one of the benchmarks of the school, Megaffin said, referring to the school’s motto, “La Reina . . . Where quality and the individual count.”

However, students must also learn selflessness through community service, which is a graduation requirement, she said. A highlight for many students is adopting a needy family at Christmas and delivering all the holiday fixings, including food and gifts, Megaffin said.

“It’s like I’m always telling them, God is not going to ask their (grade-point average) or (standardized test) scores,” Megaffin said. “He’s only going to ask them how much they loved God and other people.”

Service to others is closely linked to the religious aspect of the school. Students learn the tenets of Catholicism in required religion classes, but many girls said they do not feel forced to believe without questioning.

“A lot of people don’t realize we’re not sitting there praying but we are discussing our faith” in the religion classes, said senior Kerrie Krol, who has attended private Catholic schools all her life.

The all-year religion courses do not bother Stefany, even though she is Jewish, she said. In fact, she said the emphasis on religion led her to a deeper devotion to her own faith.

“The whole idea of coming to this school is to learn to think for yourself,” she said.

Neither gangs nor weapons are problems at La Reina, which parents often cite as a reason for choosing the school, Megaffin said.

“Some people say we’re sheltered here, but I don’t mind it if it means being safe,” said junior Claire Hansen, who has been at La Reina since seventh grade.

*

But just because violence has not become an issue doesn’t mean that La Reina is free of social problems, Megaffin said.

“We can experience every emotional problem on the adolescent gamut in one day, from teeny-bopper problems to depression--everything,” she said.

For that reason, the school employs two personal counselors in addition to an academic adviser and career counselor, she said. Students can drop in to talk or be referred by a teacher who notices a drop in performance.

“Show me a kid who’s having academic problems and I’ll show you a kid who’s got something going on in her personal life that is so important, it’s affecting her ability to concentrate in the classroom or complete homework,” said Patty Pappas, a licensed child and family counselor who works at La Reina.

Heidi Heidel, a senior at La Reina, said the personalized attention helped her find her voice. It also made her affection grow for a school that she wasn’t too sure she wanted to attend because of the uniforms and no boys, she said.

“Now I’m down to my last three months here and I really don’t want to leave,” Heidi said. “I’ve come to love this school.”

Profile of La Reina High School

Location: 106 W. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks.

Enrollment: 560 girls.

Tuition: $3,150 per year.

Annual budget: $2.2 million.

Administration: Sisters of Notre Dame.

Admittance requirements: Entrance examination and “a desire to attend.”

Motto: “La Reina . . . where quality and the individual count.”