COVER STORY : The Language of Learning : Lennox Schools Earn High Marks for Bilingual Program

At first it seems puzzling, that educators from all over the United States and other countries admire, tout and study the Lennox School District. It is, after all, a district whose students consistently perform poorly on state standardized tests.

Then there is Lennox itself, which does not seem a magnet for visitors. A port of entry for immigrants, Lennox has become a textbook example of a community in the grip of poverty, gangs and crime. Most of the children in the school system come from one-parent families. Some live in converted garages; others live in cars.

So what are educators studying that cannot be seen in Lennox’s test scores?

It’s the district’s success in teaching children--who enter kindergarten speaking no English--to speak, read and write in both English and Spanish by the eighth grade. It is largely for that accomplishment that Lennox Supt. Kenneth L. Moffett was chosen National Superintendent of the Year in January.

Of the district’s entering students, 92% speak only Spanish.

“The research is very solid,” Moffett said recently. “If the kids have a good foundation in Spanish then they can be successful. If they have poor tools in Spanish, then they develop poor tools in English, and the youngster is handicapped all the way through.”

The Lennox School District can give the students a good foundation in Spanish because about 70% of the teachers are bilingual--a higher percentage than any other district in the South Bay and one of the highest in the state.

The emphasis on speaking Spanish affects every aspect of education in Lennox, Moffett said. Students see role models speaking English and Spanish fluently, and the message to children is that the knowledge they acquired in their first language is worthwhile and useful. And he added, the high percentage of bilingual personnel enables Spanish-speaking parents to more easily approach the school district or to help with their child’s homework.

Another step that transformed the district was the implementation of a strict program of discipline. Every classroom displays a set of rules, consequences for violations and rewards for good behavior. Fights are rare.

Before Moffett instituted the program, fights were common. Discipline was uneven. One teacher might punish a student for chewing gum while another teacher would not. Some teachers might separate a fight and send offenders to class while others would send them to the principal’s office--an inconsistency that infuriated parents. Now every infraction of the rules is treated the same way.

“I haven’t had a call from a parent about a disciplinary problem in five years,” Moffett said.

Lennox fourth-graders have some of the lowest test scores in the state. But average test scores for students who finish eighth grade are only about 5% lower than the state average. The gap is made up, Moffett said, because English literacy is the most important goal in the district, and he has hired people who agree that it should be. Teachers, aides, secretaries, custodians--all are on a clearly defined mission.

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When Moffett became superintendent 16 years ago, all Spanish-speaking students were taught by aides, and only three teachers in the district were bilingual.

Moffett accomplished the 70% level of Spanish-English bilingualism in the district with a rigorous training program for teachers and a requirement that all newly hired employees speak Spanish.

Teachers who were not bilingual were encouraged to learn Spanish, and bilingual aides were encouraged to become teachers. In the last five years, 35% of teachers hired were once teaching assistants.

In addition, the district made a deal with UCLA and Loyola Marymount: The universities prepared district aides and teachers for bilingual and teacher certification at no cost, and Lennox trained the universities’ student teachers in district classrooms.

“We have worked very hard to make the language in the schools reflective of our clientele,” said Moffett, who is one of the few district employees who is not bilingual.

Lennox lies just east of Los Angeles International Airport and north of Hawthorne. The 1990 Census put the city’s population at 22,757--about 19,400 of whom are Latino and 1,433 are black. The city also has small Filipino, Tongan and Vietnamese populations.

The Tongan population is beginning to grow and the school district may have to offer more extensive bilingual services in the next few years.

The state requires that students with limited proficiency in English be taught major subjects such as science, math and social studies in their primary language.

“The whole aim is for them to learn English, but while they’re taking the five to seven years it takes to think academically in a second language, they’re still learning (other subjects),” said Norman Gold, manager for bilingual compliance for the state Department of Education. “It’s not that teaching in the primary language is always the best answer for every child, but it’s always the best starting point.”

He said that parents who do not speak much English are more likely to become involved in their child’s school and homework if the home language is used.

In Lennox, students who speak limited English are taught subjects in Spanish from kindergarten through third grade. Students take courses in both English and Spanish in fourth grade and are in English-only classes by fifth grade.

But long before their students make the transition to English-only classes, teachers in Lennox are using English in their lessons and in their classrooms.

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It is the last day before spring vacation at Whelan Elementary school. Only an hour is left in the school day, and the second-graders in Lisa Falagan’s class are fidgeting with excitement, talking and jumping out of their chairs to ask her questions.

Falagan, a first-year teacher, is urging them to finish their final project, a timeline of important events in their lives, before vacation. As part of a social studies lesson on biographies, the children have written dates on the front of index cards and important events in their lives on the back.

Veronica Ochoa, 7, wearing a hat with a big carnation pinned in front, finishes early.

“Here is my timeline,” she said in Spanish, flipping the cards to the year 1987. On the back was written in English, “I was born!”

Falagan walks through the room, punching holes in the index cards and measuring string for the children to make necklaces of their work.

The daughter of Cuban refugees, Falagan worked full time in the Lennox School District to put herself through college. Before becoming a teacher, she was a teaching assistant, a technician in the Whelan computer laboratory and a preschool instructor.

She is one of the teachers district officials point to with pride when they discuss the aide-to-teacher program.

In the lesson in biographies, the children also studied the lives of famous people, including Martin Luther King Jr., Shakespeare and Pablo Picasso. The lessons on Picasso were particularly popular.

First Falagan asked the children to draw a portrait of her. Then after teaching them about Cubism, she asked them to draw her portrait a la Picasso.

“Look, this one’s mine,” said Veronica, pointing to a multi-nosed drawing. “Isn’t it pretty?”

To drive home her lesson, Falagan, who lives in Long Beach, has been taking students, four at a time, to see the Picasso exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

For the creativity and zeal Falagan displays in her teaching--in school, after school and on weekends--Whelan Principal Ken Knott is nominating her for district New Teacher of the Year.

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Falagan’s dedication is not unusual in the Lennox district. Teachers arrive long before the students do and stay into the evening to tutor, mentor and coach.

For their dedication, the teachers are paid more than those in similar districts. Nearly 70% of the 216 teachers make more than $40,000 a year and, of those, 32% make more than $50,000.

“We staff lean, but we pay teachers well,” Moffett said. “We have to have something to attract people to come here.”

At Lennox Middle School, the sports clubs have no funding for transportation, so the teachers, who volunteer to coach, also transport the students to and from games and often take them home afterward.

Among its many activities, the school has a handball club, a drama club and a group that helps homeless people. Teachers take students to plays, to movies, sports events and museums, fighting to keep them off the streets and out of gangs. They stay late to help with homework or console a child who’s having trouble at home.

But the activism sometimes takes its toll.

“This is a good place to work, but it can be hard, very hard,” said physical education teacher Karen Korzelius.

At Lennox Middle School, she coaches the girls basketball team, teaches class, and takes kids to games. If their parents don’t show up afterward, she takes them home.

“That’s why I bought a Blazer when I traded in my Nissan pickup truck,” she said with a sigh. “It has more room for the kids.”

Newly married, Korzelius is trying to balance her students’ needs with her home life.

“But it’s not easy,” she said. “I don’t know if I can keep everything going.”

Moffett’s rule requiring Spanish speaking for just about anybody in the district who has to speak out loud is not always easy to follow, some administrators say. But most seem to agree with him.

“That’s something that Dr. Moffett has been relentless on, which has been good for us as a district--frustrating for me as a principal, but good,” said Lennox Middle School Principal Larry Kennedy.

“Some people say that we cater too much to the necessities of our kids, but the majority of people here accept that bilingual education is the way to go,” he said.

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Head Counselor Pam Rector is often the last person to leave Lennox Middle School. It is her job to see that more Lennox students go to college. Even former students who are now in high school visit after school, and parents come when they get off work.

She often takes students to see college campuses.

“Unless kids can visualize themselves at a college, they can’t get there,” Rector said.

Before spring break, mentors from Loyola Marymount University, who tutor Latino students at the middle school several times a week, invited them to spend the day at Loyola and then sleep over. The program is called El Espejo, The Mirror.

“We call it that because we hope they look at the college students and see themselves,” Rector said. “In return, the tutors look at the kids and remember themselves at a young age.”

Toting sleeping bags, the students arrived early in the morning, both boys and girls wearing the urban adolescent uniform of flannel shirts and loose jeans.

They were surprised to see so many Latinos on campus and to find out how much fun it was to be at college.

“I thought that college would be, like, all work and homework and that the people would be, well, kind of geeky,” said Danny Godoy, 13. “But they’re nice; they’re not racist at all.”

Godoy’s mentor is Juan Cueva, 18, an engineering major who graduated from Lennox Middle School and Hawthorne High School.

“You know, it feels good to do something and give back to the community. I wouldn’t be here if somebody had done it for me--if it weren’t for Pam (Rector),” Cueva said.

Cueva turned to Rector, even though he had left the district. Lennox schools only include kindergarten through eighth grade. After middle school, students attend Hawthorne High School, where Lennox counselors say their former students either have great success or tend to get lost in the crowd and drop out.

“They tell us that we coddle the kids and spoil them so that they’re not ready for high school,” Rector said. “We feel like they’re just not as supportive as they should be of the kids.”

Lennox officials yearn to have a high school in the community but say there is no money to open one. So the Lennox staff tries to nurture the students from a distance.

Rector holds college application sessions for former students applying to college. She helped Cueva register for the Scholastic Aptitude Test, fill out college applications and apply for financial aid. Cueva is the first in his family to go to college.

After the Lennox students’ recent overnight stay at Loyola, about 25 parents visited the school to see it and hear a talk by Latino officials urging them to keep their children focused on going to college. Financial aid is available, they stressed.

“It’s just marvelous,” said Samuel Cruz, whose daughter, Marisol, an aspiring veterinarian, had spent the night. “I’ve never been to a college before.”

Sitting at the same table with Cruz were Maria and Alvaro Espinoza, eighth-grader Erica’s parents.

“This is incredible,” Maria Espinoza said in Spanish. “We could never even convince her to go spend the night at a cousin’s house, she is so attached to home.

“But now I see her walking around so comfortably and happy, it’s very reassuring to me,” Espinoza said. “Now I can really picture her coming here to the university.”

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Moffett’s crusade to educate the children of Lennox is, in part, because he looks at them and sees himself.

Moffett’s German grandparents immigrated to the United States and came West in a covered wagon, happy if they found enough food for the day, he said. His family settled in a small logging community in Washington state, and he grew up poor.

“I’ve been on my own since I was 17, and I put myself through college,” the 58-year-old Moffett said. “I think I’ve always liked working with poor children. They’re very honest. What you see is what you get.”

Before becoming superintendent in Lennox, Moffett was assistant superintendent in Inglewood. He credits his experiences there with teaching him how to be comfortable with people of all races.

“I went through court-ordered desegregation there, and all the trials and tribulations of that,” Moffett said. “I think that the first black students I had in Inglewood, I probably was uncomfortable. But then after that I was very comfortable.”

So he can appreciate when teachers or administrators are uncomfortable in Lennox, he said.

“The truth is that some people are just really uncomfortable being in a minority district,” Moffett said. “And I can understand when others are uncomfortable. It’s my job to be willing to address that face to face and help those people.

“How can I help them? Well, I can help them find another district.”

When he was a finalist for the National Superintendent of the Year Award, Moffett and three other superintendents flew to Washington to interview with a panel. To this day, he is not sure why he was chosen.

“Well, they asked me what I’m proud of,” he said. “I told them that I’m most proud of the attitude we’ve been able to create here, because it’s an area people could really give up,” Moffett said. “And we don’t.”