Parents, Teachers Question Spirito’s Back-to-Basics Plan : Ventura: The superintendent hopes to see uniforms and the ‘three Rs’ carry the day at Will Rogers Elementary. But support is far from overwhelming.

Three times in the past year and a half, Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito has offered parents a plan to send their children to school in uniforms.

And three times Ventura parents have turned him down.

So when Spirito announced this month that Will Rogers Elementary School will probably be converted to a back-to-basics facility--where students wear uniforms and are held to strict standards of behavior--some teachers and parents began questioning why the schools chief continues to push the issue.

“I thought I already said no to that,” said Will Rogers parent Rachael Garcia, referring to a survey on the basics-school issue taken earlier this year. “Why is it coming back?”

Good question, some parents and teachers say, adding that there is less than overwhelming support for such a school at Will Rogers, which encompasses kindergarten through fifth grade.

In a recent survey, about 56% of parents who returned a questionnaire supported the idea while about 44% said no. Despite that lack of consensus, Spirito and Will Rogers Principal Jose Montano have said they will spend the coming school year drumming up support for the basics program among parents and teachers.

One teacher in the district, who requested anonymity, said he believes Spirito looks at the back-to-basics school and the concept of school uniforms as his legacy in the Ventura Unified School District.

The 60-year-old administrator has announced he intends to retire at the end of 1996.

“It’s kind of like the Egyptian kings and their pyramids,” said the teacher. “He wants to be remembered.”

But Spirito dismissed that assessment.

“I’m not going to jam this down anyone’s throat,” he said. “If the parents and the staff say yes, then I’m for it. If they say no, then I’ll go away.”

If he has any passion, Spirito said, it is to increase parental involvement in education.

“I am thoroughly convinced that parental involvement is very important to educational success,” he said. “Study after study shows that students with involved parents do better in school, go to college in higher numbers and get better jobs.”

Besides mandating uniforms, the basics school would put extra emphasis on the traditional “three Rs” curriculum: reading, writing and arithmetic, Spirito said.

And parents would be required to sign a contract saying they will volunteer several hours each semester at the campus, take parenting classes and sign homework to make sure it gets done, he said.

Enrollment at the school would be open to all Ventura students, although children in the mid-town Ventura neighborhood where Will Rogers is situated will get first priority, Spirito said.

He got the idea for the back-to-basics school during a 1993 campaign by conservative critics of education to pass Proposition 174, Spirito said. That measure would have provided state-funded education vouchers for redemption at public or private schools.

Although the measure was soundly defeated, conservatives have vowed to bring it back to the ballot box, possibly next year, he said.

If the basics school proves successful, Ventura Unified could designate other elementary schools as magnets, offering special courses in music or science, he said.

“We have to offer parents choices,” Spirito said. “That is what public education in the ‘90s is all about.”

Teachers at Will Rogers said they will likely get behind their principal’s efforts over the next year to sell the basics school to parents. It would begin in the fall of 1996, under tentative plans.

But some instructors wish they had been given a greater say in the decision. Montano called them together to tell them that Will Rogers was selected about an hour before district administrators announced it at a public meeting, said Marsha Tryforos, who teaches second and third grade.

“Jose told us we would get first shot at keeping our teaching positions,” Tryforos said. “But that’s not really a say in the matter.”

The school’s 14 teachers have concerns about other aspects of the conversion. Who will coordinate the parent volunteers? How will the strict behavior codes be enforced?

And will women teachers be required to wear dresses and nylons each day?

The teachers now come to school most days in jeans and a comfortable T-shirt or sweat shirt. Tryforos and others want to know if that casual standard will change.

Leslie Golden, who teaches kindergarten, said she was pleased to learn that the school will keep its bilingual program. About 63% of the school’s 427 students are Latino, many of them with limited English skills.

“I like the idea that it’s going to be a bilingual program so all kids will have access,” Golden said. “I wouldn’t want it to become an elitist school.”

Opinion on the proposed basics format was split among parents interviewed at the school. Many liked the idea of a renewed focus on basic classes, strict discipline and parental involvement.

“I would support it, even though I really like the way it is now,” said Cassandra Mills, a Ventura homemaker. “And with uniforms, they can concentrate on their work rather than who has the best Power Rangers sneakers.”

But other parents shied away from the more structured program.

“It sounds like the military,” said Eric McDonald, 26, whose son is in the fourth grade. “Isn’t this the ‘90s? I thought we were in an age where we teach kids to be independent thinkers, not following some rigid line.”

The issue of uniforms appeared to irritate parents the most.

“I would like them to focus on reading, writing and arithmetic,” said Ramona Foiles, 33, a Ventura homemaker. “And I don’t mind volunteering. But wearing a uniform has nothing to do with getting a good education.”

Spirito and Montano said they will listen to the concerns of parents and teachers and try to resolve any differences. For instance, Spirito said students will not necessarily have to wear the plaid uniforms seen in parochial schools.

The school could decide simply to ask students to wear certain colors to school--blue pants and white shirt, for example, he said. And the issue of whether teachers must dress up will be worked out between Montano and his staff.

Furthermore, Montano will hold a number of information sessions in the next school year to inform parents about what is expected from parents and children in a basics school, Spirito said, adding that it will be an evolving process.

“We’ve got until fall of ‘96,” Spirito said. “We’ve got a ways to go.”