High-Tech Teaching

With the poise of seasoned professionals, Delacy Watts and Carla Lopez waited for their cue, issued a brief welcome and then introduced State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin to their fellow students, who were watching in classrooms throughout the school.

With that, the two sixth-graders-cum-anchorkids kicked off the first live broadcast from a new closed-circuit video network that puts the Fenton Avenue Charter Academy in Lake View Terrace on the cutting edge of California education.

“One day when I see Delacy as Dan Rather’s replacement, and Carla has taken over for Barbara Walters, I’ll know it all started here,” said Eastin, who toured Fenton for 1 1/2 hours Thursday.

“When we see a program like this we are not seeing a frill, we are seeing our children being given the tools they need to compete in the 21st century,” said Eastin, who praised the school for its “entrepreneurial spirit.”

The $1.3-million video hookup, with its high-quality camera, fiber-optic cables and television monitors in every classroom, was made possible through a combination of school funds, grants and business support, said Fenton Principal Joe Lucente.

Lucente said the system is the only one of its kind at a public elementary school in Los Angeles and will be used for a variety of educational purposes, such as weekly news broadcasts anchored by Fenton students.

“Because we are a charter school, we have control over our budget and we have the ability to make decisions quickly to do things like this to benefit our students,” Lucente said.

A 1992 state law paved the way for the emergence of schools that operate under individual “charters,” freeing administrators from many state and district rules and allowing them to tailor the school environment to the needs of their students.

Whether students at charter schools perform better than their counterparts at other public schools remains the subject of debate in educational circles, but Eastin said Fenton is an example of how the program can lead to positive results.

“I’m a big supporter of the charter school program. It gets parents and administrators together working as a team,” Eastin said.

“Like businesses in the 1980s, public schools need to reinvent themselves or they are not going to make it--not with wild ideas, but with solid administrative processes,” she said.

Neither Delacy nor Carla showed signs of nervousness as they prepared for their anchor duties, even as the small studio filled up with Eastin, City Councilman Richard Alarcon and about a dozen school administrators, reporters and photographers.

“It was fun. I think it’s good for every kid in the school because they will get to experience what we experienced,” said Carla, who would like to be in front of the camera as an actress someday.

Doug Bean, a sixth-grade teacher and the architect of Fenton’s technology usage programs, said his objective is to make students “stronger partners in their own educations.”

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That is accomplished, he said, by giving students access to tools, such as Internet access and broadcasting equipment, and letting them explore at their own pace.

“Our whole multimedia approach is orchestrated to hit as many senses as possible. We want to see the students get excited and take an interest in exploring on their own,” Bean said.

“The key is, this is not just a game,” Eastin said. “Technology is not just the room down at the corner of the building, it’s an integrated part of the learning at Fenton.”

Eastin praised teachers, staff members, parents and students at the northeast San Fernando Valley campus for “working together to build a great school.”

“This is not an affluent community,” Eastin said, “but it’s not a function of the income of the parents that determines the results of the kids.”