It’s All in the Cards : Achievement Reports Signal Subtle but Significant Shift for Pupils

Before they reached the sixth grade, many of the students in James Azevedo’s class never worried about getting failing grades.

But the years of gentle grading are over for the 11- and 12-year-olds, who have received their first report cards of the year at Park Oaks Elementary School in Thousand Oaks.

Since the start of the school year, the days have been crammed with the usual kinds of sixth-grade activities: settling into a new classroom, adjusting to a new teacher and classmates, tackling advanced levels of reading, writing and arithmetic and current events--an entirely new subject that has galvanized classroom discussion. Most are looking forward to Christmas break, which starts next week.

Just days ago, amid an atmosphere of tense anticipation, report cards were handed out, signaling a subtle but significant shift in direction for Azevedo and his 37 charges.

One student, Nicholas Westhoff, kicked back in his small plastic chair and watched with a confident air as Azevedo doled out the reports.

“I’m going to get all A’s,” the 11-year-old bragged coolly before tearing into a small Manila envelope. Scanning the small black letters on his report card, Nick nodded his head in agreement, stuffed the document in his backpack and darted outside Classroom 14, swinging the heavy wooden door behind him.

Slam! The door closed on 12-year-old Frank Arambula.

Staring dumbfounded at the letters on his report card, the boy stood in silence as his classmates left the room. “It’s the worst report card I’ve ever gotten,” he said meekly.

Most of the students in Azevedo’s class walked away with sparkling reports--a testament to more than three months of obedient studying and tremendous parent involvement, school officials said.

Even under the best of circumstances, however, a handful of students are still faltering. Azevedo has met with parents and devised individual study plans for some children. But he still sees room for improvement.

“I have three or four kids that, unless something changes, unless they do some sort of turnaround, they will be a statistic,” the 47-year-old teacher said.

The dropout rate in the Conejo Valley Unified School District is 5.2%--among the lowest in Ventura County. But Azevedo fears that some of his students will fall through the cracks and fail to graduate on time with the Class of 2001.

“This is when children drop out--it starts here,” Azevedo said. “They quit. They go to school every day, but they have already dropped out.”

Park Oaks Principal Rachelle Morga said that even among the brightest class there will be some failures. “You’re always going to have that,” she said. “Statistics prove there is no 100% fail-safe situation.”

The distribution of thin yellow report cards was a climactic moment for the students in Classroom 14--tangible results from the weeks of diligent study under Azevedo’s tutelage.

Azevedo has not hesitated in giving some failing scores this fall. His justification: Sixth grade is a pivotal year, a time for children to realize the academic demands that lie ahead.

“I don’t mind giving an F here and there as an eye-opener,” Azevedo said. “Better this year than next year.”

But Azevedo hopes that the youngsters who are doing poorly can pull up their grades in the coming months.

He is relying on one important factor that so far is working in his favor: parent support.

More than 90% of his students’ parents showed up for conferences in early November. And Azevedo was able to contact the other 10% by telephone.

That kind of involvement is unusual--even in Thousand Oaks schools, where parents typically are well-educated and support classroom programs.

It is particularly unusual for Park Oaks, a school largely comprised of single-parent families or families where both parents work outside the home, school officials said.

“For this type of school, to have 90% of your class show up for parent conferences--you’re in fat city,” Morga said.

Schoolwide, parent support is at an all-time high at Park Oaks this year, the principal said. The small elementary school has about 560 students enrolled and about 210 parent volunteers.

Lorraine Grubwieser, whose 11-year-old daughter, Stephanie, is one of Azevedo’s students, said it is extremely important for children to have support at home.

“We go over everything every day,” Grubwieser said. “I know when I was in school, I didn’t have that.”

*

Although Eric Dillon and his wife both have hectic work schedules, monitoring the success of their daughter, Heather, is a priority, he said.

“I think that is where (students) get their support,” said Dillon, a firefighter. “Nowadays, the classes are so big teachers don’t have time for one-on-one.”

Morga believes parent involvement is critical in upholding Azevedo’s educational philosophy that parents, teacher and student comprise a “triangle of responsibility.”

“The parents have the responsibility to monitor and be an advocate for the teacher,” Morga explained. “The teacher has the responsibility to impart information and hold the student accountable. The student has the responsibility of getting the information. If one of the parts falls away, we have a no-win situation.”

Most parents are holding up their end, Azevedo said. “If there is a problem in this triangle,” he said, “it is the students not holding up their end.”

Frank Arambula is one student who wants to improve his grades--the last thing he wants to become is a dropout, he said.

“I’m going to do better,” the 12-year-old said. “I have to.”

While some students are struggling academically, Azevedo has several overachievers who are equally demanding of his time. They are bright, eager students, some working at the seventh-grade level, who are seeking academic challenges.

Chris Pentis and Adrian Apricio, two learning-disabled students who are being mainstreamed for the first time this year, are also among the overachievers, Azevedo said. They are participants in a pilot project launched this fall at two Conejo Valley schools, where special-education students have been assigned to regular, mainstream classrooms.

Both Chris and Adrian have made tremendous strides this year and have been eager to participate in a mainstream class, Azevedo said.

“It’s been super-positive,” he said of the mainstreaming experiment. “And they seem to be real happy.”

Heather Dillon, 11, is another achiever. She knew her report card would be all A’s: a good thing, she said, because those scores will help dictate her academic future.

“Most of our sixth-grade grades decide what classes we get in seventh grade,” she said. “It’s important.”

Her father agreed. “The study habits that you form in sixth grade hopefully carry over into seventh grade and from there on out,” Eric Dillon said.

During the first three months of the school year, students’ academic strengths and weaknesses have begun to appear as they confront increasingly in-depth studies of literature, basic geometry and algebra, science and current events, a topic that has sparked free-ranging classroom debate.

Each day, a group of students must present an oral report to the class on a news event from either television or newspaper reports.

Although current events are not part of the district’s approved curriculum for the sixth grade, Azevedo has incorporated them into his class as a way to teach civics at an early age.

When he was a substitute teacher in the district two years ago, Azevedo said, it seemed not many teachers taught current events, “and there aren’t many others at this school who do.”

“Nothing is more interesting to kids or anybody than current things,” he said.

This fall, amid a season marked by sensational headlines, student protests and emotional politics, even the peaceful world of Azevedo’s sixth-grade classroom was rocked by some of 1994’s tumultuous events.

One brisk November morning the current event of the day was the O.J. Simpson murder case.

“They picked the jury for the Simpson thing,” Frank reported to the class. “And most of the jurors are black.”

“What does that mean?” Azevedo asked. Frank shrugged.

“I think it should be kind of even,” one boy said of the jury’s racial make-up, which triggered a loud debate among the class over why ethnicity mattered in a case like Simpson’s.

Leaping from her chair, Amy Bishop assailed the topic.

“I feel very strongly about this!” the 12-year-old yelled above the din. “Just because O.J. is black, doesn’t mean they are going to find him not guilty,” she shouted passionately.

*

Azevedo quieted the room. “Do you think we’re going to come to an agreement on this?” he asked the class. “No!” they shouted in unison. That is all right, Azevedo explained, because people often disagree on such volatile topics.

“I think that they need to see other perspectives,” Azevedo explained later. “I want them to be knowledgeable--that’s part of being a citizen.”

One news event that struck a personal chord for some students was Proposition 187. Some children--and parents-- expressed fears that their families might be deported if the measure passed, Azevedo said.

As a result, Azevedo talked to his students about the controversial proposition to soothe some of those fears--a move some school officials wanted to avoid.

The issue came up during the midst of student walkouts across Southern California against the measure. But his decision to talk about the proposition met with some disfavor from the school administration.

“We didn’t want to fuel a fire here,” Morga said. “It was better if we just didn’t get in the middle of it. It is not part of the curriculum.

“How much of the day do you want to talk about something that is going to end up in court anyway?” she said. “I’m talking about stirring volatile issues into no-win situations.”

But Azevedo disagreed.

“The philosophy of the school was, maybe students shouldn’t spend too much time talking about it,” he said. “For two months we talked about it, so there wouldn’t be any confusion . . . I really believe we diffused fears in here by discussing it.”

The morning after the November election, Azevedo talked to the class about Proposition 187’s passage. Some children had expressed concern about what would happen in the wake of the measure’s approval.

“I know some of you are worried,” he told the class. “There’s no reason to be worried. (The proposition) will have to spend a lot of time in court.”

Some students said they were confused at why voters would support a measure that would bar children from schools. In response, Azevedo simply said: “The adults of California perhaps don’t feel that way.”

In another week, the students will take a two-week break for the holidays, and, the teacher hopes, return to Classroom 14 recharged for the new year.

“It’s a class I really enjoy,” Azevedo said. “They don’t whine; they have a nice work ethic. Most of the time they seem to be smiling. We have a camaraderie here.”