Charter Middle School Planned for Pacoima

Worried about overcrowded, financially strapped and impersonal middle schools, parents with children at one of three elementary charter schools in the northeast Valley wonder, what happens when students graduate?

Jackie Elliot, a former Los Angeles teacher, administrator and health educator, hopes to have a place for 100 of those students.

For more than two years she’s been developing plans to open Community Charter Middle School in Pacoima, which would integrate reading and writing skills into science and social studies classes, require parents to volunteer and, possibly, extend the school day to include tutoring and lessons in visual and performing arts.

Drawing upon a number of studies on the needs of middle schools, Elliot said she and the school’s four teachers would nurture the preteens and try to instill the self-worth needed to be successful in high school and college and avoid such dangers as drugs, gangs and sexual promiscuity.

“Middle school is often the last chance to really help a child,” said Elliot, who in January left Montague Charter Academy in Pacoima so she could work full time on opening a school. “If you can give [students] a sense of connection to the school and community, and let them know they’re important, then many of them will be able to get through high school . . ..

“Do I think this school could make a difference? Yes, I do, I really do.”

Hoping to open the school Aug. 2 with 100 sixth-graders, Elliot is fine-tuning the charter school petition she will present later this month to the Los Angeles Board of Education. A vote is expected in April.

In exchange for pledges of higher student achievement, charter schools operate outside most state and school district guidelines and control finances and curriculum.

The school, which would have 300 sixth- through eighth-graders by 2001, would be the first charter middle school in the Valley, and the third in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Elliot, 49, of West Hills, has secured state and private grants, a partnership with Cal State Northridge and 156 signatures of parents interested in sending their children to the school.

The campus would be located on property leased from the Boys & Girls Club of the San Fernando Valley, at 11251 Glenoaks Blvd. LeRoy Chase, president and chief executive officer of the club, said he has reached an agreement with Elliot for the school to share the club’s gymnasium, computer lab, art studio and other facilities.

Kathy Swank, LAUSD’s administrative coordinator for charter schools, said her staff has advised Elliot on the development of her proposal. The staff is also working on two other plans for charter schools, a K-6 program in the Crenshaw-Dorsey area and a K-12 independent-studies program.

Officials declined to comment on the fate of Elliot’s proposal, other than to say they are reviewing it and preparing to make a recommendation to the Board of Education.

Calls come in every day from parents, teachers and nonprofit corporations wanting to start charter schools, Swank said. “They think they have a better idea on how to educate children,” she said.

County and state officials explained that it has become easier to start a charter school because more grants are available, more communities support charter schools and a new law, which took effect Jan. 1, has increased the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the state and decreased the number of signatures needed to start a school.

In the past year, 41 charter schools have opened in the state, according to the California Department of Education.

Elliot hopes her school will be next. She already has about three times the number of signatures required by law for her to start the middle school, but she’s trying to gather more at community meetings, such as the one to be held at 5 tonight at Broadous Elementary School, 12561 Filmore St., Pacoima.

One of the first things Elliot would do as head of the school is screen and assess students who scored at or below the 30th percentile on the Stanford Nine standardized achievement test. As part of the partnership, CSUN’s school psychologists, for free, would examine 15 neurological factors--such as motor development maturity and spatial organization--that could be associated with learning difficulties.

“Once identified, we can move forward with the learning,” Elliot said, as she roughly outlined her plan:

The school day would start at 9 a.m., later than most schools to capture students at their peak learning times, she said. Teachers would have 25 students in a classroom and instruct in English, although they speak Spanish in case there’s a student or parent struggling with language.

Students would receive daily lessons in reading and writing, as well as having those skills integrated into other classes such as science.

Lessons would last until 3:35 p.m., at which time students will exercise, socialize, play instruments, dance, paint and be tutored until 6:30 p.m.

Too often, Elliot said, after-school is an unsupervised time when young people get in the most trouble. “Parents won’t have to worry about what their children are doing in the afternoon,” she said.

Representatives from CSUN and California Federal Bank have agreed to mentor and talk with students about education and job opportunities.

Joe Lucente, co-director of Fenton Avenue Charter School in Lake View Terrace, said he welcomed Elliot’s proposal. “We’ve had success here with charter schools, and people in the community have said they’d support more,” he said.

Lucente added that he hopes a charter high school is also started.

“Because we wonder, what happens when they leave here?”