Program Fosters Senior Citizens’ Assistance to Students in Need

Erlinda Alandy has two children, seven grandchildren and, for 20 hours a week, one “foster” grandchild.

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His name is Francisco Orozco, and the 15-year-old is in a special education program at Rio Mesa High School near Oxnard. With Alandy sitting next to him, Francisco spent Thursday morning carefully copying words from a textbook to his own sheet of paper.

“That’s very good, Francisco!” Alandy cooed. “Look, you’re almost done with thiscolumn!”

Francisco smiled broadly and returned to his work. This is the way it goes each morning, more or less, between Francisco and his “Grandmama Erlinda.” Alandy, 70, of Camarillo has become Francisco’s foster grandparent under a new program in the Oxnard Union High School District.

In the program, students with severe learning problems are matched with low-income senior citizens from Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura. The foster grandparents help disabled students in special education and mainstream classes by explaining assignments in simple terms, helping them read or solve math problems or simply offering encouragement.

Oxnard Union is the first district in Ventura County to start the program, but districts in the Conejo Valley, Simi Valley and Moorpark are considering similar approaches, educators said.

Because the program is funded entirely by federal grants, it does not cost school districts anything to start, said Wayne Edmonds, director of personnel at the Oxnard high school district. And it is a good way to increase one-on-one teaching assistance for students who need it, he said.

Senior citizens in the program earn $49 a week for their work. But participants said the small stipend is not what keeps them coming back to school each morning when they could be home watching “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.”

“I like to teach these kids,” said Alandy, a foster grandparent for nearly two years. “I treat them like my grandchildren.”

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Camarillo State Hospital has had the foster grandparent program for more than two decades. But it is only this year that seniors began being placed with students in public schools, said Jeri Bond, coordinator of the program.

There are 35 foster grandparents in the hospital program, ranging in age from 62 to 85, Bond said. They are split evenly between men and women, and each grandparent works four hours a day, five days a week.

School districts are interested in such help because students with physical, mental and emotional disabilities are increasingly being placed in mainstream classrooms instead of being cloistered in special-education groups, Bond said.

And those students often need help keeping up with a regular class, she said.

“The disabled get the love and guidance of a grandma for four hours a day,” she said. “And it gives the low-income senior something to get up in the morning for.”

“I am bored at home,” acknowledged Emily Estrella, 82, a one-time teacher in the Philippines who works with four or five students locally. “The moment I go near them, they start to show more interest,” said Estrella, who lives in El Rio.

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Thousand Oaks resident Gertrude Moore, 85, said she decided to become a foster grandparent at Camarillo State Hospital 17 years ago after her husband died and her children moved out of state.

“I was climbing the walls,” said Moore. “It filled up an empty space in my life.”

A former teacher, Moore said it is gratifying to be able to use her skills once again and to feel that she is making a significant contribution to a youngster’s life.

“The institutions provide good care, physically and mentally,” she said. “But these children need that feeling of being close to one person. And that’s what I can give.”