Magnetic Attraction

Watching a tap class at Santa Susana High School is like witnessing a dress rehearsal for a Broadway show.

The young dancers scoot around the sparkling new hardwood dance floor, eyes bright and smiles wide.

Take a gander at the art studio, where an animation class is creating cartoons. Hunched over spiral note pads, the student artists draw, erase, draw, erase until they get their perfect image.

Onward to the technology center, where on this day the class is learning about copyright laws on the World Wide Web. As the students click around on the Internet, weird, complex shapes take over their computer screens.

Welcome to “Santa Su,” the name the teachers and teens affectionately call Ventura County’s first and only magnet high school for performing arts and technology, now in its second year.

Although the two disciplines may seem far apart, school administrators say the mix is just right.

“Initially, it sounds like a weird combination, arts and technology,” Principal Patricia Hauser said. “But they complement each other. There is technology in theater, like lighting and sound. And the serious techies need an artistic perspective.”

Students concur that the unlikely bedfellows get along.

“For shows, you can’t have one without the other,” said 10th-grader Rebekah Pearson, referring to the thespians and stage crew. “We hold each other up. It’s hard to tell the difference” between the students taking performing arts classes and those on the technology track.

Despite rave reviews from student body and staff, the school still has hurdles to clear.

Enrollment, now at 650 students, is down from last year’s 775. And the smaller student body, with its higher concentration of administration, means the school costs more per student than the typical high school.

All this fuels critics’ claims that the school is a waste of money, draining funds from other schools. They also say the magnet school goes against the neighborhood feeling of the Simi Valley Unified School District.

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“Can our district afford a specialty school?” asked Nan Mostacciuolo, a parent who ran an unsuccessful bid for school board last year. “The sign from parents is there is no need for it.”

But these voices are a lot less vocal today--a far cry from the hundreds of protesters who came to board meetings two years ago to try to stop trustees from closing Sequoia Middle School and turning it into a magnet school.

In a 4-1 vote, trustees decided to create Santa Susana, disperse Sequoia students throughout the district and add the ninth-grade level to each of the three high schools. Last year, the school opened with eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders. This year, the school runs from ninth to 11th grade; and next year, it will be a full four-year high school with the addition of a 12th grade.

Today though, Hauser is not dwelling on the trickle of criticism. She proudly tells how the magnet is different from other high school programs, based on its focused atmosphere and high level of teacher commitment.

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“Maybe the individual courses aren’t so different,” Hauser said. “But it’s the whole program . . . We’re a total school devoted to performing arts and technology. All the teachers use computers. They are all committed to maximizing technology. For instance, we look at art from a digital aspect.”

Longtime critic Debbie Sandland, a former school board trustee who voted against the new school, doubts the classes at Santa Susana are anything special. And although she won’t say she is completely anti-magnet, she said she is a firm believer in “comprehensive neighborhood” schools.

She added: “Technology and performing arts should have been infused at all of our schools. Santa Susana doesn’t offer the kinds of comprehensive education offered at the traditional schools.”

It’s true.

Although the core classes at all three high schools are the same, the electives are worlds apart.

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You’d be hard-pressed to find hip-hop, swing dancing, graphics publication, animation, Web-page construction and Claymation at Royal or Simi Valley high schools, which instead offer home economics, industrial technology and business.

Nor do students at the traditional schools put on four major productions a year or create graduate portfolios on video, as they do at Santa Su.

“We look for programs that kids can use and will be applicable after high school,” said Deni Byrnes, an animation teacher and a professional artist of 30 years. “Our hope is to make courses more marketable.”

The only problem with the school--according to its busy students--is that the intense curriculum leaves them with too many choices and too little time to take advantage of everything offered.

“There is so much stuff to do, you have to choose,” said David Brown, 15, who is the student body treasurer and takes both arts and technology courses. “I want to do everything, but it’s impossible.”

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As Hauser touts the activities and courses at Santa Susana, she also points out areas that need improvement.

Overall, the board approved about $660,000 to spend this year on the school’s theater, dance floor, career center and library renovations. The money also includes a little more than a quarter-million dollars to transform a home economics room into a high-tech science laboratory, likely to open this summer.

And the school is considering spending thousands more--which it hopes to receive in private donations--to implement a prestigious, high-powered program called International Baccalaureate, a globally recognized version of Advanced Placement. That program, now only offered at Newbury Park High School, is one of several efforts to draw more students not only from Simi Valley but from around the county and surrounding communities.

It’s the money that really bothers parent Mostacciuolo.

“I see nothing different at Santa Susana than at any of the other high schools,” she said. “And yet they’re wasting money by underutilizing the campus. If Simi Valley High School has 2,000 students with two vice principals, then why does Santa Susana have 650 students with two vice principals? I don’t see the benefit versus the expenditures.”

Santa Susana does spend more money per student than the city’s typical high school, but that amount should drop next year when more students attend, which almost seems guaranteed with the inclusion of 12th grade next year, said Dave Kanthak, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services.

The magnet school has three top administrators for 650 students, costing between $500 and $1,000 more per student at Santa Susana than at the other schools. Royal and Simi Valley also have three top administrators, but they each serve about 2,200 students.

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Beyond the administrative costs, Hauser said much of the money that the school received this year is a one-time expenditure to even the playing fields between the high schools.

“You can’t compare what we get to another school,” she said. “We needed to convert into a high school. It’s apples to oranges. . . . The $80,000 we got for a dance studio can’t be compared to the multimillion-dollar stadium built at Royal,” or millions spent building gymnasiums at two of the district’s middle schools.

School board members--even the ones on the fiscal and political right--say they are committed to supporting Santa Susana.

“I want to invest in that school,” board President Norm Walker said. “It has potential and it sets us apart. We can’t just offer cookie-cutter public education. For being such a stodgy old conservative, I still like variety.”

Aside from criticizing the expense of the magnet, Mostacciuolo also points out the enrollment drop.

“I don’t see community support for the school,” she said. “I see the low enrollment as a sign from parents that there is no need for it.”

District officials admit the ideal is to have 300 students per grade. So this year, there should be 900 students for the three grades there. Next year, a total of 1,200 students could technically fill the school when a senior class is added.

But Principal Hauser, a district educator for 21 years, said these district goals are premature and unrealistic.

“If you’re looking at enrollment strictly by the numbers, then yes, we are down,” Hauser said. “But there are factors to explain it.”

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She said it’s understandable that many students chose to start and finish a traditional high school in the magnet’s first few transition years.

Enrollment will rise when incoming ninth-graders can spend the entire four years at Santa Susana, Hauser said.

Two years ago, many ninth-grade students chose to go to the other two high schools, as they probably had planned before the magnet school was created, she said.

Hauser added that she could not have accepted all the eighth-graders last year, anyway. There would have been no room for 400 ninth-graders this year if all the eighth-graders had stayed.

“With 300 kids per grade as the goal, I expect maximum enrollment in three years,” Hauser said. Currently, there are 275 ninth-graders, 225 10th-graders and 150 11th-graders.

Santa Su also isn’t a school for everybody, Hauser admits.

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“If you don’t have an interest in either one of the tracks, you won’t do well here,” she said. “I don’t want kids to be here if they are not going to be happy. But if you want to be a big fish in a little pond, it’s a good place for you.”

One parent, who asked to remain anonymous, said Santa Susana was not for her son. After spending eighth grade there, her son now is a ninth-grader at Simi Valley High.

She said she took him out of the magnet because he preferred to play basketball and baseball at the traditional school.

While adults are fighting to get attendance up, the kids who go there say they love the cozy ambience of the school.

“I didn’t want to go to Royal,” said 14-year-old Ashley Sax, while sketching a caricature in an animation class. “I like the hands-on learning of the smaller classes here.”

By having intimate sessions with teachers and classmates, Ashley said she gets to concentrate on what counts.

“We have goals here,” she said. “We’re focused on our talents. There is not as much pressure to be popular.”

Tenth-grader Marisabel Viramontes agrees.

“I love it here,” she said, slightly sweaty after practicing a snappy tap routine. “You can do everything here, chorus, dance, acting. At other schools they have sucky dance teams. It’s not the real stuff.”

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As to whether these students feel like they’re missing out on a so-called normal high school experience with football games and cheerleading, the answer is unequivocally no.

“I don’t have to run track now,” laughed 13-year-old Jamie Giodehaus, a dance whiz who says she wants to be a doctor. “I loooooove that.”

And if students really want a traditional experience, they are allowed to play sports or join activities at the other two high schools.

“But the people that come here aren’t focused on that stuff anyway,” said 15-year-old Marie Rheinschild.

“Some of my friends said before I came here that I’m a dork. . . . We know other schools think we’re kind of weirdos. But you know what? I’m proud to be.”