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The Middle Path of Least Resistance

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Megan Bass-Jackson’s high school didn’t have the theater and culinary arts classes that interested her.

Mariela Arellano was getting poor grades and skipping class. She knew she could do better, and her parents were tired of the phone calls and meetings with teachers and administrators.

Jeff Edwards figured he could get a head start on college.

So the three left their high schools and went to college.

Sort of.

They are attending Orange Coast Middle College High School, a place for bright kids who need or want more than traditional high schools offer. Students take high school classes in the morning and college classes in the afternoon at the school, which is on the campus of Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

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The 3-year-old middle college, part of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, will come of age Thursday when its 33 seniors become its first graduates.

Yet the school has had a bumpy ride to this first milestone, and its existence once seemed threatened. Enrollment dropped after the first year, and the cost per student was the highest in the district. Its top administrator resigned. It stopped accepting sophomores. It never accepted freshmen.

Things have settled down this year, and district administrators defend the school as an important alternative to keep kids interested.

“From the college perspective, it is a great success,” said Lesley Danziger, an Orange Coast College English teacher who has served as liaison to the middle college.

The students don’t want to go anywhere else.

“This is your home,” said 17-year-old junior Lindsay Nunn. “This is where you’re supposed to be.”

Orange Coast is one of two so-called middle colleges in the county, and one of 28 in the U.S. They usually are attempts to provide smaller, more personalized schools for kids considered “at risk,” in the language of school bureaucrats.

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The county’s other school, Middle College High School at Santa Ana College, turns 2 this summer. With 160 students, it is more than twice the size of Orange Coast. Its first senior class will graduate next year.

Orange Coast Middle College High was set up in 1996 for bright kids who were considered unmotivated and underachieving, but these days the admissions requirements are simple: Students must have at least average ability, not be a behavior problem and pass an interview with administrator Joe Fox.

But the school ran into problems almost immediately. Though it started with 90 students, enrollment took a dive after the first year to about 60. Several students were dismissed because they couldn’t handle the work or because of poor behavior. Then administrators decided to eliminate the school’s sophomore year because the younger students were often overwhelmed by college classes.

Now the school has 73 students and three teachers. It still wants to grow bigger; Fox says the biggest problem is making kids throughout the district aware of it. He hopes to increase enrollment to 80 to 100 students next year. District officials say the school could grow to as many as 250 students, if they can find room for them at Orange Coast. Students from other districts can attend if they obtain an inter-district transfer.

The advantages for the students are smaller classes--the average size is 18 students--and a broader selection of classes. Students are eligible for any class at Orange Coast College, as long as they meet the prerequisites, just like regular college students. Students and teachers say that because of the program’s small size, there’s more of a family atmosphere and less of the cliquishness you find at a traditional high school.

“Here they can be who they are and not be judged,” said Kathy Nunn, president of the Parent, Teacher, Student Assn.

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Nunn has a 15-year-old daughter who attends Newport Harbor High, where she is a cheerleader. “She fits perfectly into that atmosphere.”

Her daughter Lindsay, however, wanted to concentrate on her studies and didn’t care about the parties or football games or other high school activities she would miss. “In high school, it’s all busy work,” she said. “In college, it’s up to you.”

All 33 seniors at the school plan on going to college. That’s not so different from the students at the traditional high schools in the school district, where 85% to 90% go to college. Nearly three-quarters of the middle college students say they’ll continue at Orange Coast. Two have been accepted at UCLA and one each at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley.

Some students who were drowning in high school start to swim academically at the middle college.

“They have to have the motivation,” said Anna Katsuki, a counselor at Orange Coast College. “We don’t necessarily have the magic dust that motivates them. Sometimes they come here and get turned on by the opportunities.”

Mariela Arellano found the magic dust. She doubted she would have gone to college had she not attended the middle college. When she graduates next year, she plans to attend Cal State Fullerton or Cal State Long Beach on her way to becoming an FBI agent.

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Although they may miss out on the usual high school activities, the students can take advantage of those Orange Coast College offers.

Despite being in high school, Bass-Jackson has won the lead in two Orange Coast College stage productions.

Jeff Edwards shows what the motivated student at the middle college can do. He will graduate this year with his high school diploma and an AA degree from Orange Coast College. In August, he will start at UC Berkeley--as a junior. He wants to be a priest.

He also took advantage of the activities the college offered and was a member of Orange Coast College’s speech team. He won a first prize at the national tournament in Milwaukee.

“It might be a high school of 70, but you’re on a college campus of 22,000,” he said.

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