Students in Pilot Programs Have the Right Stuff : Education: Three innovative plans are designed to give teachers more creative time with classes. Those involved are responding well.

Citing improvements in attendance, discipline and student performance, Thousand Oaks school officials are urging the renewal of three pilot programs that restructure the traditional classroom.

Administrators with the Conejo Valley Unified School District also say the experiments of Newbury Park High School and Conejo and Meadows elementary schools have garnered strong support from teachers and parents.

“Our parents have closed ranks with our teachers to build an innovative school for the 21st Century,” said Meadows School Principal Tim Stephens.

Each of the programs will be reviewed by the Conejo Valley school board at a meeting tonight.

While the three pilot programs differ in detail, each is designed to give teachers more time with students and more time to present creative lessons. All of the changes follow reforms recommended in two state reports issued in 1991 and 1992.

At Newbury Park High School, the traditional six-class-a-day schedule was scrapped in favor of three 95-minute periods.

As a result, officials say, students are now more willing to sign up for demanding courses. In all, 160 more students took math this year compared to last, and a higher number of students enrolled in advanced placement courses.

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For teachers, the schedule change meant losing a preparation period and taking on an extra class. Nevertheless, faculty members recently voted 52 to 6 to continue the restructuring another year. In a survey, 79% of teachers agreed or agreed strongly that they can now spend more time with individual students and 73% said they’ve noticed an improvement in student attendance.

Newbury Park teachers also reported that with fewer students changing periods between classes, the campus seems calmer. Forty-eight percent of teachers said they have experienced fewer conflicts with students, while 37% noticed no change.

At Meadows Elementary, a two-class pilot program begun in the fall of 1992 was expanded this year to include all of the school’s 450 pupils. The program emphasizes teamwork among students who are grouped in multi-grade clusters. Teachers work in pairs using a central theme to blend lessons in math, science and English.

The school also tossed out traditional report cards with A’s, Bs and Cs in favor of oversized charts that show a student’s progress in different skill areas. And instead of parent-teacher conferences that leave the child at home, Meadows students demonstrate what they have learned by showing parents portfolios of their work.

The point, Stephens said, is to give every student a sense of accomplishment.

“When a kid gets an F or a D in a traditional setting, the kid doesn’t want to come to school,” he said. “That’s when they end up out on Highway 1, hitchhiking to Santa Cruz when they should be in school.”

Sixth-grader Greg Schwarz said he likes the mixed-grade classrooms and the emphasis on group projects. On Tuesday, he spent part of the morning working on a popup book to illustrate the science-fiction tale “A Wrinkle in Time.”

“If you don’t find a partner, there’s always a lot of people so you can find another partner,” he said.

Teacher Ruth Wiksell said students are more enthusiastic about school when a theme--such as space or the rain forest--is used to tie academic subjects together.

“They are so independent, it’s amazing,” she said. “Their creativity comes out beyond what’s even expected.”

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Conejo School’s pilot program also mixed students from different grade levels. One cluster blended 32 students in kindergarten through the second grade; a second class contained 25 students in the second through fourth grade.

In a letter to the school board, Conejo Valley Supt. Jerry Gross said parents have shown more interest in the class mixing students in the lower grades.

Already, parents of more than 100 students have expressed interest in enrolling their students in the pilot program next year. At tonight’s meeting, Gross will recommend expanding it to include 96 students in three classes.

Although standardized test results are not yet available for students in the pilot programs, board member Bill Henry said he will vote to extend all three.

“There’s some little speed bumps here and there that need to be taken care of, but in general they’re moving in a positive direction,” he said.