Groomed for Success

The school year was just two weeks old when the Class of ’97 made its stand at the top of the high school heap.

Packed to the rafters in the gym at Thousand Oaks High, hundreds of seniors were on their feet, locked in a shouting match with underclassmen during the first pep rally of the year.

The senior cheer began as a low rumble, surging to an ear-splitting roar that rattled the walls and rocked the gym’s hardwood floor. By the time the chant hit a crescendo--”97! 97! 97!”--the underclassmen had retreated into silence.

And the seniors, burning a brand of back-to-school energy usually reserved for concerts and football games, had staked their claim as the ruling class on campus.

“Seniors rock,” said 17-year-old Katie Krim, a student commissioner assigned to possess the student body with school spirit. “This school has a lot of tradition and because seniors are at the top, it’s up to us to carry on that tradition. I don’t know exactly why or what it is, but there’s something special about what goes on here.”

Around this sprawling campus, they call it Lancer Pride.

It is an enigmatic quality rooted deep in tradition and nurtured by the high expectations of students, teachers and parents. It is the same quality that packs the stands at pep rallies and football games, and pushes parents to support school activities with generous helpings of time and money.

It is a quality that last year produced higher college entrance exam scores and more National Merit Scholars than any other high school in Ventura County.

And now, with the clock ticking on the 516 seniors of the Class of ‘97, it is the quality that is expected to help them find their way in a world outside of the protective womb of public education.

This is a pivotal year for the would-be graduates, a time when they are choosing colleges and charting career paths. Together they stand at the threshold of adulthood, preparing to turn the corner on a lifetime of being told what to do and when to do it.

Some will struggle just to graduate in June. Others will blossom this year, enjoying the fruits of successful school careers. But all will face choices over the next nine months that will launch them headlong into the next phase of their lives.

In every school career, educators say, there are milestones that mark a coming of age: the first day of kindergarten, the leap from elementary school to junior high. But for most students, the senior year weighs heaviest of all.

“It’s a real awakening for them,” said first-year Principal Jo-Ann Yoos, who joins the seniors on this journey of new experiences.

“They are making some real crucial decisions about their lives, whether they realize it or not. Up until now, they’ve been in a real comfortable cocoon. But during the year they’ll start to realize that the day after graduation it could all be different.”

Conejo Valley’s Largest High School

With nearly 2,300 students, Thousand Oaks is the oldest and largest of the three high schools in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Its low-slung buildings are laid out in 11 wings across the 50-acre campus, planted on a square city block at the center of this suburban city.

The hallways drain into a central courtyard, which fills with hundreds of loud and rowdy backpack-toting students at break and during lunch. Off to one side of the quad, a larger than life Lancer--sculpted of melted-down spoons and car bumpers--charges through a bouquet of bougainvillea toward the school office.

The high school offers courses in everything from architecture to floriculture to marine biology. But the core curriculum revolves around old standards such as English, social studies and math.

For seniors, that mix has been narrowed to a handful of classes needed to graduate in the spring, including Ellen Droshe’s semester course on American political systems.

Droshe, who is in her 10th year at the high school, guides three senior classes a day through the complex maze of U.S. government, stopping now and then to examine constitutional issues or review Supreme Court cases.

The highlight for her first-semester seniors, however, comes in a few weeks, when they will cast ballots in a mock election that mirrors local, state and national races, including the presidential contest.

“This is a great time for you to be in here,” Droshe told the seniors on the first day of school. “Hopefully, there are some of you who are 18 who will go out and register to vote in the fall election.”

Droshe knows that message is a tough sell. The interests of high school seniors don’t tend to drift toward politics or public participation. Her fifth-period class, for example, is jammed with students wrapped up in athletics and a wide range of other activities.

“It seems like everybody on campus is involved in some club or some sport,” said Brandy Smith, 17, student body secretary, a varsity cheerleader and a better than B-average student.

“They feel like they belong here, like they are part of the T-O experience,” she added. “I feel like I’m around a lot of people who have great potential. They are really driven to do well for themselves and for the school.”

Still, academics are key, especially for seniors like Brandy who will start filling out college applications later this fall. No one knows that better than Droshe, the mother of two recent Thousand Oaks High School graduates who went on to pursue higher degrees.

So she teaches on, laying down the fundamentals of federalism and the demands of a democracy. It isn’t easy. Her fifth-period class bulges with 39 students, and first period has more than 40.

With so many students and so little time, the veteran teacher knows she needs to make government meaningful to their lives. So when they research court cases, she includes some that touch on issues of locker searches and student rights.

They clip current events and bring in political cartoons for extra credit. The best of those join a growing collection of strips that line the walls in Room D-7.

It’s an uphill battle. But Droshe believes in what she’s preaching. And she believes in the ability of teachers at the school to drive home lessons that mean something now, but will mean a lot more down the road.

“The most important thing is for them to know that voting is not only a privilege, but a responsibility,” said Droshe, a New York accent bending her words ever so slightly. “If I can encourage voting to become part of their lives, then I will have done my job.”

By a variety of measures, plenty of people at Thousand Oaks High are doing their jobs.

The campus boasts the highest average Scholastic Assessment Test scores of any high school in the county, and last year produced a dozen National Merit Scholars. About 70% of the student body is enrolled in honors, advanced placement and college preparatory classes. Of the nearly 300 students who took advanced placement tests last year, nearly 80% passed and earned college credit.

At year’s end, about 80% of the graduates will go on to college.

“It’s hard to argue with success,” Yoos said. “When it comes down to it, what we are really doing is preparing these students for the rest of their lives.”

An Emotional Journey

For the Class of ‘97, barreling now toward the rest of their lives, this final high school journey is loaded with conflicting emotions.

Scott McEwan’s future appears to be paved with gold. The popular varsity quarterback, who for the third year in a row is at the helm of Thousand Oaks’ highly rated football squad, has accepted a full scholarship to play at UCLA next year.

And because he is considered one of the best high school quarterbacks in the state, coaches say he has a good shot of going on to play professional football.

“I do see that my future, at least for the next five years, is pretty well set,” said the 18-year-old senior, who is full of the awkward silences that betray a fundamental shyness. “I feel really fortunate. I know that because of football, there are a lot of opportunities available to me.”

But the pull of college life is balanced by a desire to slow down and enjoy his last year in high school. There are other considerations as well. For the first time in his life, he has a serious girlfriend.

Jenny Hansen, an 18-year-old graduate of rival Royal High School in Simi Valley, showed up for the first game of the season with her mother and sister. Together they formed their own card section, holding up three panels that read: We Love Scott.

Already, the year is off to a magical start for the young quarterback, who is also a solid B student.

After leading the team to an easy victory in the first game of the season, he ran for a game-tying touchdown the next week, capping a 21-point comeback against top-ranked Hart High School. The extra point won the game for the Lancers with no time remaining.

Scott knows that the heart-stopping heroics will eventually come to an end. He also knows that after the football season, there is a whole lot of school left before graduation.

“I think my biggest problem is going to be staying focused as I go through this year, because I’m so excited,” he said. “But I don’t want this senior year to end because I want to be able to look back and say this was the best year of my life.”

A good year in high school, however, can come with a hefty price tag.

Educators estimate that seniors could easily spend $1,000--and as much as $2,500--factoring in such traditional items as a yearbook, senior portraits and graduation announcements, and all the trimmings and trappings that revolve around the homecoming dance, the winter ball and the prom.

To help keep pace, and start saving for next year, 17-year-old senior Denise Sherman rises at 3:30 each morning to begin a paper route held by her family since 1980. Afterward, she showers and speeds off to a 6 a.m. seminary class at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Thousand Oaks.

She’s at school by 7, completes a full load of classes and heads to The Oaks mall, where she dishes up ice cream for a few hours before returning home to do schoolwork.

The pace is exhausting. Often in class she finds herself losing a battle to stay awake. But she insists there is no other way.

Thanks to a less-than-stellar driving record, she must set aside $300 for her car insurance deductible. She is also saving money for college, although she hasn’t settled on whether she will go. She’s also trying to put away $2,000 for a summer trip to Europe, although her travel plans have not earned her parents’ blessing.

“My dad wants me to be able to take care of myself,” explained Denise, who in June will become the fifth member of her family to graduate from Thousand Oaks High.

“But I don’t want to get so caught up that I forget to have fun,” she added. “It’s scary to think that the decisions I make this year are going to add up to what I turn out to be. I just want to make sure I end up making the right choices.”

For a handful of seniors, some of those adult-sized choices already have been made. Ben Cooper, who will turn 18 at the end of the month, already lives apart from his parents. He is on the football team and pulls down mostly Bs and Cs in the classroom.

He said after he graduates he is thinking of becoming a building contractor or automotive technician. But for now, he said, he is more worried about being able to graduate with his class.

“I’m in serious danger of not doing that,” he said. “I have this horrible habit of not turning in my work.”

But in the next breath, he is quick to point out that he doesn’t take his senior year too seriously. He recently had his tongue pierced, just because he had $60 to spend and thought it was a cool thing to do.

“After you graduate, your whole world changes,” he said. “I just want to kick back and enjoy my last year. They say you’re supposed to look back and say this was the best year of your life or whatever. I’m just going to try to make the most of it.”

For other seniors, the biggest choices remain.

Student body President Brett Vogel recently returned from a tour of East Coast colleges that included visits to Cornell, Colgate and Duke. The 17-year-old senior is due to complete a West Coast swing in coming weeks before deciding where to go.

Like many of his fellow seniors, Brett follows a tradition of older siblings who excelled at Thousand Oaks High. His older brother was also student body president his senior year, his sister senior class president.

“I think I’ve gotten pretty much what I wanted out of high school,” he said. “I think the possibilities are endless. I think that’s true for a lot of people here.”

Doing the Right Thing

At many high school campuses throughout America, the ravages of time and a lack of money become more evident every year, educators agree.

But at Thousand Oaks High, teachers and parents believe they are holding the line against such erosion. Thousand Oaks represents much of what’s right with education today, they are fond of saying, a shining of example of public high school at its heart-pounding, chest-thumping best.

“They say we bleed green-and-white around here,” Assistant Principal Anne Hetu said. “This is a great school. We have high expectations and the kids just perform. That’s not to put down the other schools; we are just so proud of our kids.”

That is not to say there aren’t problems. But it’s not a campus that has seen a need for bulletproof glass, metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs.

At the core is an attitude that the campus will be a safe place that promotes learning, and a school staff dedicated to that vision.

“We believe that if students feel secure, they are going to focus in class and instruction is going to be meaningful to them,” said Steve Myerchin, the school’s welfare and attendance officer. “We want them to have all the opportunities available to become good, productive American citizens. We want them to feel that when they leave here, they are prepared for whatever they want to do.”

On this campus, that line is repeated like a mantra. Because beyond the athletics and the academics, away from the pep rallies and school dances, teachers and parents share a singular mission of preparing youngsters for a lifetime of success.

It is a watershed time. And as the school year progresses, parents and teachers say, the reality of what lies ahead will come into focus.

“It’s their last year in high school, its a very special time,” said Brandy Smith’s mother, Francien. “They’re going to leave here and start a whole new journey. The senior year is goodbye childhood, hello adulthood.”

Across Ventura County, about 7,000 high school seniors face that prospect this year.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” conceded Katie Krim, the school spirit commissioner. “You’re expected to be the best and know the most. I just want it to be really fun and a really good experience, something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

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About This Series

“The Final Lessons: The Last Year of High School” is an occasional series chronicling a year in the life of the senior class at Thousand Oaks High. Over the past two years, Times reporters and photographers have highlighted school life in pivotal years for students in their final year of elementary school and at the halfway point of middle school. This year, the four-part series focuses on high school seniors as they prepare to graduate and chart a course into adulthood.