Differing Schools of Thought

Here is a week in the life at Lampson Elementary School, a pioneer on behalf of its needy:

Five children received free medical exams at the school’s mobile health van, 27 parents learned how to read to their children, and a dozen or so mothers and fathers brainstormed ways to become better parents at a monthly support group.

Toward the end of that meeting, Principal Carolyn Reichert emerged from her baby-sitting duties in an adjacent room, toting bags of toilet paper, Ritz crackers and other goods that she purchased for parents to take home.

With three-fourths of its 900 pupils living in poverty and more than half having limited English skills, Lampson has gone out of its way to launch numerous programs for needy families, utilizing its large network of community resources and scoring remarkable success at drawing grants.

But its efforts now stand in jeopardy as Orange Unified School District trustees attempt to dismantle the very services on which Lampson prides itself. The debate has transformed the campus into a philosophical battleground between those who believe schools should attend to the well-being of children, and conservative trustees who believe schools shouldn’t usurp the role of social service agencies.

The struggle hinges on a proposed policy that would prevent all district campuses from applying for grants not related to academics--the very lifeline of Lampson’s programs. If the policy is adopted, the district’s 37 schools, which serve 27,000 students, won’t have to immediately terminate their social services, but they will be deterred from seeking future funding.

“I think the community is very discouraged that the school district is becoming an experiment for conservative Republican politics,” said Alan Trudell, whose son attends Orange Unified’s Canyon High and who works as a spokesman at the Garden Grove Unified School District. “I’ve been in education a long time, and this is the single worst piece of public policy that I’ve ever seen.”

Trustees drafted the policy after Lampson received $25,000 from the philanthropic Weingart Foundation to hire a family counselor and open a family resource center. By a narrow vote in January, trustees approved the grant but vowed to stop similar contributions in the future.

Five of seven trustees support walking away from grants for which schools throughout the state compete; four of the board members in the majority were elected in the past three years with the stated purpose to advance a conservative agenda.

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During the past three years Lampson has received more than $200,000 in grants; the school district wasn’t required to match that with any money of its own.

Trustee Maureen Aschoff said the board is unlikely to budge from the philosophy that schools should focus on academics, leaving community agencies to provide social services off campus.

“People who go into teaching have giant hearts, and they want to fill the void for children,” she said. “But as a board, we have to set our priorities, and I think we’ve gotten away from academics a bit.”

Said Trustee Max Reissmueller: “I think it has to do with conservative versus socialist [philosophies]. I think people fighting for these programs tend to be socialist or, at a minimum, liberal.”

The district may be the first in Orange County to try to ban certain grants, but educators say the debate in Orange is expected to spread to other communities as increasing numbers of needy students enroll at county schools.

Lampson’s ethnic breakdown is now 48% Latino, 26% Asian, 6% African American and 19% white. A decade ago, the school was more than half white and was more affluent.

“We are the bellwether of what’s going to happen to the rest of the district and in many parts of Orange County,” Reichert, Lampson’s principal, said. “Ten years ago, we had a lot more middle-class families. But a lot of the older people are moving out and renting to families.”

Architecturally, there is little to admire about 34-year-old Lampson Elementary, which sits on a patch of land surrounded by mobile homes, undistinguished apartment complexes and a maze of freeways at the district’s western fringe.

Its sprawling one-story buildings are worn and unadorned. The school’s cafeteria consists of rows of rickety, mustard-yellow benches under an outdoor shed. For assemblies, the school staff sets up chairs and mats on the outdoor blacktop.

But to the moms and dads who live in the neighborhood, says kindergarten teacher Eleanor Stafford, “Lampson has been like a light in darkness.”

The school initiated many of its social services five years ago when it received a $50,000 state grant to start its “Heart to Heart” project. The program, which involves more than 30 community groups and serves about 300 students each year, provides students with free counseling, medical and dental care and a variety of other services.

Among those receiving counseling through Lampson’s “Heart to Heart” program are two brothers and their sister, who have endured much adversity and family misfortune.

Last year, the children’s stepfather was shot to death outside their Phoenix home, allegedly by a neighbor who will stand trial this spring. The 10-year-old girl now blames herself for the shooting because the two men began fighting after she refused to stay off the neighbor’s lawn.

Child Protective Services took the children from their mother after she was deemed unfit to raise them, said the children’s step-grandmother, Edith Meevuthi, who now cares for the children and their 3-year-old stepbrother at her Garden Grove home.

The oldest boy “requested to come out here and stay with me because he said he now has a roof over his head, he has food in his stomach, and he doesn’t have to stay up worrying about whether his brothers and sisters are hurt or hungry,” Meevuthi said.

The children’s biological father calls only occasionally, and their mother has not contacted them in two months.

“They are very angry at their mom, and over the whole situation,” Meevuthi said. “Naturally, they’re not doing so good in school.”

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To make matters worse, Meevuthi’s husband is suffering from pancreatic cancer. She also has limited financial resources, working about 60 hours a week as a stock clerk.

After the Lampson staff learned of the children’s turbulent lives, they immediately enrolled them in counseling. They also enrolled the children in the school’s free breakfast program and offered them clothing, food and even Christmas presents.

“They bought the kids two outfits each, including the underpants,” Meevuthi said. “They also sent the kids home with bags of toiletries, sweat outfits and shoes. You know all of what the school has done for me--I never asked for. A lot of schools would have had an attitude like, ‘We don’t want these kids.’ But the people at Lampson are just not that way. They welcomed these kids.”

Leslie Neforos also turned to the school during one of her family’s lowest points.

Not so long ago, Neforos, her husband, mother and three children lived in and out of motels on $1,000 in monthly welfare checks that barely covered the cost of basic necessities.

After enrolling her daughter in Lampson’s Head Start program--a federally funded education program for low-income preschoolers--the family moved to a nearby two-bedroom apartment.

Neforos and her family were able to pull themselves off welfare after her husband got a job as a truck driver and the school hired her as a playground attendant. Every school day, Neforos can be seen on Lampson’s playground in her bright orange security vest, directing the lunchtime crowd.

“We’ve gone from the lowest you can get to what we consider really good,” she said. “When we were struggling, the school gave us clothing, vouchers for food. The whole school is a real tight-knit family. We all look out for each other.”

Many other parents have similar stories because on any given day, some parent or child attends some type of program or receives some kind of service that most other schools do not offer.

“I moved to this area because of this school,” parent Martina Hernandez said. “I was going to move to other apartments but my friend said, ‘No, come here. We have a good school with good programs.’ ”

Despite Lampson’s numerous services, the school’s test scores are still low; the only evidence that social services have helped children in the classroom is anecdotal.

“I know from observation that children who have emotional problems and who are not well fed don’t function well in the classroom,” said Stafford.

For Reichert, the debate over Lampson is particularly sensitive because she was the one who launched most of the school’s programs.

When she arrived at Lampson 10 years ago, Reichert saw a teacher walking to her classroom one morning carrying a large bag from McDonald’s.

“The teacher was bringing in food because she knew the kids were hungry,” Reichert said. “I said this is not good, so we started a breakfast program.”

That program led to others. Eventually, not only was the Lampson staff involved, but dozens of community organizations, businesses and parents were willing to donate their time, resources and money.

Reichert said she was shocked when trustees criticized the school’s programs, because she thought she was doing what she was supposed to do. “We applied for grants that seemed to be relevant to our schools and we’ve been incredibly successful.”

Lampson’s “Heart to Heart” program has become so well-known that five other district campuses--Portola Middle School, and California, West Orange, Jordan and Sycamore elementary schools--have expressed an interest in providing similar services, district officials said.

“A lot of our families are basically just surviving,” said Jane McCloud, the district’s director of health services, who added that none of the schools will move forward on the grants until the controversy over Lampson is resolved.

With other schools interested in seeking similar programs, Board President Martin Jacobson said the board must act now.

“If a school wants to be aggressive about referring families to community clinics, I’m all for that,” he said. “The big issue for me is setting up a facility on campus. I believe it takes away campus space and takes the focus away from education.”

Jacobson said he and other trustees did not act sooner because they previously were unaware of the many social services being offered at Lampson.

“Most of the feedback I’ve gotten [is] from people who also weren’t aware of these programs,” he said. “But now everyone wants to take a closer look.”

Times correspondent Lesley Wright contributed to this report.