21st-Century Schoolhouse : Small Size, High-Tech Tools Are Key at 9th-Graders’ Academy

At this school, the clang of an old-fashioned dinner bell signals the end of class periods. A ninth-grader who mouths off is sent to help a gardener water the grass. And a staff aide personally calls the parents of any student who is absent.

But if the atmosphere at the Savannah Academy in Long Beach recalls another era’s one-room schoolhouse, its approach to teaching is strictly 21st Century.

In classroom buildings that used to be Navy barracks, each student has use of a computer. Ninth-graders are taught spreadsheets, the World Wide Web and desktop publishing. Before long, teachers will be able to transmit their lessons via closed-circuit television.

Savannah, a ninth-grade-only public school with a curriculum centered on technological skills and advanced math, opened just three weeks ago with a mere 175 students.

The idea was born of necessity.

The Long Beach Unified School District’s student population topped 81,000 for the first time this year, with a particular bulge of students, 5,000 of them, entering ninth grade.

Yet Savannah, which expects to reach its capacity of just 270 by the end of the month, seeks to serve as more than a warehouse for the district’s surplus. The school’s teachers believe its smallness holds the key to instilling knowledge, practical skills and values in students who otherwise might be left to fend more for themselves in larger high schools.

“What we are trying to do is create an atmosphere of smallness,” says Ed Graham, the school’s “lead teacher.”

Its village-style campus, tucked into a relatively quiet section of west Long Beach, is a cluster of 16 squat buildings on a field of dust, an unfinished construction site. Its 12 classrooms are in the onetime Navy barracks, which have been equipped with 90 computers and a closed-circuit television system during a four-month, $500,000 overhaul.

Savannah offers a cadre of 10 teachers, all of whom asked to be assigned there. Students attend four 100-minute classes each day: language arts, math, computer literacy and physical education. At the end of one year, students will receive credit for two years’ worth of math and computer training.

On a recent morning, 14-year-old Darrell Elder sat transfixed in front of a computer, one eye on the roadster looming in the rearview mirror on the screen, one eye on the keyboard under his fingers. He was playing a video game designed to increase his typing speed, while classmates tackled other computer exercises at their own terminals.

In the three weeks since he entered Savannah’s high-tech version of the ninth grade, Elder said he has noticed a key difference between his old school and his new one: “I get more one-on-one.”

Ironically, Savannah’s leaders fear that their smaller-is-better vision could place them under pressure from several sides.

Savannah attracted most of its pioneering students through flyers sent to other schools and an appearance by Graham on a local cable channel. But word of mouth has drawn a steady stream of new students since classes began--and if the school hits its ceiling of 270 at the end of the month, it may face parents who demand that their children be given access to its high-tech training.

And if Savannah’s leaders prove, through higher test scores and other measures, that their program works, district officials might want to expand the school, Graham said, threatening its cozy feeling.

The district also plans to begin building a large high school near Savannah as early as next fall.

Educators are monitoring Savannah’s progress as it tries to follow a state-authored blueprint for the high school of the future. Taking tips from a 1992 California Department of Education report, Savannah has assigned teams of three teachers (one each from language arts, math and computer literacy) to plan lessons together. The report, which encourages schools to prepare students to compete in an increasingly high-tech job market, guided Savannah toward making its computer class mandatory.

While the school tries to establish itself as a model for the future, however, its students must make certain sacrifices. Savannah has no formal science or social studies classes this year (although some students persuaded Graham to teach a world history class for those who show up half an hour before school officially starts each day). It also offers little in the way of team sports--students who want to play football or other organized sports have to try out for teams at other high schools.

Still, teachers insist that the school serves as a checkpoint for students who might not be academically or psychologically ready for the rigors of multigrade high schools. Students say Savannah provides personal attention and a collegial atmosphere that they wouldn’t have elsewhere.

“It’s quieter here,” says Ester Morrison, 14, who recently moved to Long Beach from Salt Lake City. “They have more time for you.”

“You don’t see fights all the time, like at my old school,” says George Chavez, 15, of Compton.

Savannah’s teachers say they have little tolerance for disruptions in class; so far, they have suspended one student, after she had a feisty disagreement with a teacher. The school’s small size, they add, allows teachers to play the role of educator, rather than enforcer, more often.

“It’s humanly manageable,” says Matt Saldana, who goes by the title “lead administrator” instead of principal.

The school, he notes, is not a magnet campus open only to academic achievers. Its registration is first come, first served.

“We have kids who are former gang members and we have kids with 3.5 grade-point averages who probably don’t know what a gang member looks like,” he says.

Saldana says part of his job is to promote respect among students. The word respect is posted inside the doorways of several class buildings. “You don’t throw gang signs in church,” he says. “Well, this is a sanctuary of learning.”

Savannah is not the first school to try the academy idea. At Long Beach Polytechnic High School, which began breaking its students and teachers into clusters three years ago, administrators noted a 2% increase in attendance and a 12% drop in the number of students who failed one or more classes. Both Graham and Saldana spent several years at Poly.

At a time when parents are demanding more personal attention for their children, other schools in the district, which has two other 4,000-student high schools besides Poly, will probably embrace the cluster concept over the next few years, officials say.

“At so many of the schools, they get tired of the kids not caring,” says Linda Dougherty, whose daughter Deanna attends Savannah. “These teachers want to be there. They volunteered to be at this school.”

Savannah’s teachers acknowledge that they have little more than anecdotal evidence to demonstrate the success of their experiment this early in the school year.

“We think we have a fair foundation,” Graham says. “It’s not revolution for the sake of revolution. We think this makes educational sense.”