Setting a New Course : Opening of Strict School Gives Expelled Students a Second Chance

Eight students were enrolled to attend the opening day of the Mira Loma Community School on Monday, but only seven made it there.

One had been arrested the day before.

This was not a big surprise. The school, located inside what used to be Mira Loma County Jail, is a last-chance institution for students who have been expelled from the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

This one-room Mira Loma school, in what was once the visitors center, features a highly regimented curriculum that calls for students to be escorted to the bathroom in groups and marched in and out of the classroom prison-style, with their hands behind their backs.

The inmates may be gone from Mira Loma--the jail was shut down in 1993 due to budget cuts--but the ambience lives on. When the students step outside the classroom, their view is of razor wire and barred windows.

“I don’t like it already,” said Tommy, 16, a former Palmdale High School student returning to classes for the first time in nearly a year. “I want to be out of here.”

Most of the students herded into the barren classroom for the first day, however, said they were glad to have gotten this chance. If they maintain at least a 2.0 grade-point average and earn enough points (they can be awarded up to 36 points a day for on-time attendance, adhering to the dress code and behaving in a prescribed manner), the students may be permitted to petition for re-entry into a regular district school.

“It’s impossible to get a job unless you’ve got a diploma and graduate,” said Armando, 16, a student expelled from Antelope Valley High School for pulling a knife on another student. He knows that this school gives him a last chance to graduate and go on to further schooling.

“I wanted to go to college,” Armando said, “but that looks kind of difficult now.”

The seven students--including one girl--at Mira Loma for opening day, had all volunteered to come to this school. County authorities said they expect as many as 23 more to be enrolled within the next few weeks.

Mira Loma, like several other schools established for expelled students in Los Angeles County, is operated by the County Office of Education. But the others are neither in a jail setting, nor do they follow a highly regimented program with far stricter rules than at regular schools, Principal Sheldon Epstein said.

Those rules, established by the county and the school district, are set down in a pamphlet issued to each student. Under the section about the dress code, the student learns that he or she must wear, “Blue or black jeans of regular length and non-baggy . . . the jeans must be worn up around the hip bone.”

The shirt must be “a clean white golf-style” shirt with no writing or insignia of any kind. Furthermore, “the shirt must be worn tucked into the pants at all times.”

The shoes must be white athletic shoes with white laces. Deputy Probation Officer Jerry Cohen gave a warning to one student wearing black shoelaces.

“I don’t have any more shoelaces,” the student protested.

“Tomorrow you do,” Cohen told him.

Banned are belts that extend more than two inches past the buckle, dangling earrings and “pierced jewelry worn anywhere but in the ears.”

The students are told they are also not to bring into the school any electronic devices, such as Walkmans or pagers, and no chewing gum. Profanity is banned, as are any racial or sexually offensive remarks.

Violations of these rules can result in a student being sent home with an unexcused absence.

Illegal activity will result in far more drastic actions.

“If a student is found with a controlled substance, I can guarantee that student will be arrested,” Epstein told the students on the first day. “If the student brings a weapon, I can guarantee the same thing.” All students, he said, will be subject to surprise searches. The first came right after lunch.

The strictness of the rules is meant to instill discipline in the students before they get into further trouble and end up incarcerated at the nearby Challenger Memorial Youth Center, said Harry Hartman, a county education counselor.

“We’re here so they don’t end up over there,” Hartman said.

The school is taught by Scott Schaufele, a former pastor who worked with at-risk kids for 14 years until he started teaching at Challenger a year ago.

On the first day, Schaufele had the Mira Loma students go through an exercise he had used at Challenger. He had them focus on their futures by having them write down some of their goals. Then they were to draw tombstones on which would be written the year they died and their epitaphs.

The girl put on her stone the year 2006. Schaufele asked her why she would die so young. “Probably because of my mom,” she said, without further explanation. One of the boys, who was born in 1978, was more optimistic. He said he wanted to be known as a man who “loved his mother,”’ raced motocross cycles and lived until 2082.

At the end of the school day, which normally extends from 8:05 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., Schaufele announced he would release the students a few minutes early.

The students were obviously and audibly pleased to be getting out early. But Schaufele twice called them back to their desks because they failed to keep quiet as they lined up to march from the room.

“We’ve got to line up and do it all over again,” he said, ignoring the grumbles. “You can’t leave here until you get it right.”