CLAS Scores Perk Interest in Local Site

The definition of effort , according to 9-year-old Chris Chappell, is “trying hard” in school, baseball and basketball. Without effort, he advises, students “would get an F.”

An obvious lesson, perhaps, but one that paid off for Chris and 86 other fourth-graders at Woodland Hills Elementary School, where their collective efforts tallied up some of the most impressive scores in the Los Angeles Unified School District on statewide learning assessment tests.

For instance, while math scores throughout the giant Los Angeles district were dismally low, more than half of the youngsters at Woodland Hills demonstrated a far better than average grasp of math concepts and their application to everyday life.

Writing scores there also excelled, surpassing even those at traditionally high-scoring schools for gifted students.

Woodland Hills school officials attribute the youngsters’ success to a focus on creative writing and thinking exercises, and applying those analytical skills to all disciplines, including math.

“We believe in teaching everyday problem solving rather than rote learning,” said Jeanne Luna, a fourth-grade teacher at Woodland Hills. “We look for a lot of different reactions from children in the way they interpret things. No matter what their interpretation, everybody is right and nobody is wrong.”

Results of the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) scores, released this month, show Woodland Hills garnered the highest score for writing proficiency among all fourth-graders in the district and had the highest overall scores in the Valley for a school not designated for gifted students.

Districtwide, the overall scoring leader was Balboa Elementary School in Northridge, a magnet center for 650 children from throughout the district who have been identified as gifted or high achievers. Second in the district was Wonderland Avenue Elementary in the exclusive Trousdale Estates neighborhood above Beverly Hills.

Yet Woodland Hills, which placed third districtwide in overall points, scored higher than Balboa and Wonderland in writing proficiency and tied with Wonderland in math.

The impressive results in CLAS scores, along with other test results in the last two years, have triggered a groundswell of interest in Woodland Hills Elementary that may force the school to curtail new enrollment this fall, said Principal Bonnie D. Bishop.

In the last few weeks, since the CLAS scores were released, as many as 150 parents have inquired about transferring their children into the school, Bishop said.

Enrollment has already increased 17% since the school became one of the first 34 LEARN campuses, or schools engaged in a 2-year-old reform plan known as the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now. It is expected to climb another 8% to a near-capacity 632 pupils next year, according to district officials.

Much of the growth, Bishop said, is due to students enrolled by parents who live outside the neighborhood but who obtain permits for their children to participate in the school’s extended day-care program and then transfer them into classes there. Currently, 224 students of the total 583 enrollment--more than one-third--are attending on permits, Bishop said.

The school’s policy permits the transfers if a parent works near the school, located at 22201 San Miguel St., and if a child-care program is not available at the parent’s own neighborhood school. Extended care is provided at Woodland Hills from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for a daily fee of $7. For a student to qualify for child care, both parents in the household must work.

“The school is getting more and more popular,” Bishop said. “The test scores have a lot to do with it, and word of mouth.”

Although students currently attending on permits will be allowed to continue, along with siblings of all current students, Bishop said she expects to stop issuing new permits for students living outside the neighborhood come fall.

“We won’t have any seats left,” Bishop said.

Officials cite the LEARN concept, which fosters local control and heavy involvement by teachers, administrators and parents in the educational program, for the success at Woodland Hills.

Because of such involvement, absenteeism among students has dropped dramatically within the last two years, Bishop said. The school this week was commended for having one of the highest attendance records in the district, said Joe Luskin, the district administrator who oversees 27 elementary, middle and high school campuses in the West Valley, including Woodland Hills Elementary.

He said the students’ success on tests can be attributed to “a very dedicated staff, concerned and informed parents and a very proactive principal.” Luskin added that at a recent open house at the school, he met a “packed audience in every classroom.”

In addition to lending support in the classroom and helping to plan the curriculum, parents also raise funds to purchase books and computer equipment, officials said.

Teachers credit regular cooperation by staff and parents for the success at the school. “We very much have a team effort at all levels,” Luna said. Children receive nightly homework assignments in reading, writing and math. Every month, children in all grade levels from kindergarten through fifth are assigned to write about their definition of a particular human attribute, such as effort, responsibility, initiative or confidence.

In one recent assignment, fourth-grader Amanda Taber defined responsibility as feeding her cats, frogs and a fish, as well as helping her mother empty the dishwasher.

But classmate Rachael Evans saw responsibility as the ticket to being allowed to do more things. “Responsibility is a good thing to have,” she concluded.

Another youngster, who forgot to sign his paper, combined responsibility with initiative as “cleaning up after my dog” without being told.

“I tell children that if they are able to talk about it and say it in words, then they are able to write it down,” Luna said.

“I don’t want children to write just one sentence that says reading something makes them feel sad. I want them to write why they feel sad, to relate what they have read to their own experiences.

“That is teaching reality,” she added.