Focus on Parents Reducing Schools' Inequities

By MARIA ELENA FERNANDEZ

Nov. 26, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Robert Barbot leads the way he lives.

Puerto Rican-born and California-bred, Barbot has spent his life reaping the cultural benefits of his Latino and white worlds. Bilingual and bicultural, Barbot is the product of a hard-working family that lived in an East Los Angeles housing project until his parents could afford middle-class suburban living.

Now, as superintendent of one of the most demographically divided school districts in the nation, Barbot is using his experiences to bridge Costa Mesa’s Mexican neighborhoods and upper-class Newport Beach.

“We are about as diverse a community as you’re going to get, both economically and ethnically,” said Barbot, who took the job two summers ago. “We have kids who have very wealthy parents who don’t see their parents much. They’re being raised by the housekeepers. Then, we have children with limited language skills who live in low-income areas but receive a lot of love at home. The emotional needs as well as the educational needs of our students are vastly different.”

Straddling two worlds may be second nature to Barbot, 53, but for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, it is a matter of survival.

“There’s definitely a haves-and-have-nots attitude in our district,” Newport-Mesa Trustee Dana Black said. “But the biggest issue was that no one was ever on the same page. Now that we have a vision and a focal point, all of the schools can fall back on the same expectations. We’re always going to have the have-and-have-nots, but for the first time in 20 years we are dealing with that.”

As if the multicultural backgrounds and varied income levels of the families served by the school district did not prove challenging enough, Barbot also inherited a system that was still reeling from a 1992 embezzlement scandal and effects of the county’s 1994 bankruptcy.

Newport Beach parents had no faith in their elected officials and school administrators, school board members say. In Costa Mesa, particularly in the Latino neighborhoods on the west side, parents did not know how to approach teachers about problems with their children, according to board members. Schools were led individually instead of as part of a team with a shared vision.

“There was a time when there was a lot of distrust in the communities,” school board President Serene Stokes said. “We did not have people in leadership who could address all of the needs of all of the schools. Because of the socioeconomic differences and ethnic differences in our schools, you need someone who can reach out to people in both of those areas so that their children are getting the best education possible. That’s what Dr. Barbot’s goal is.”

Barbot, who was superintendent of the Chico district for seven years, envisions a system in which all parents help improve the district’s 30 schools and all students have equal access to learning.

To that end, Barbot spent the first few months of his job holding community meetings in both cities, seeking feedback from business owners and other professionals, and visiting schools without giving administrators notice. Then he assembled a team of 40 to help him write a strategic plan for all schools.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District still has a sharp ethnic divide. Overall, 57% of the 21,000-plus students are white and 36% are Latino, according to enrollment records. But in 13 of 20 schools in Costa Mesa, Latinos make up the majority. All 10 schools serving Newport Beach and unincorporated Corona del Mar are predominantly white.

The district also is divided economically. According to 1997 figures derived from census data, per capita income in Costa Mesa ranged between $12,906 and $36,125. Comparable numbers for Newport Beach were $34,413 to $107,491.

The two cities differ significantly in student performance, as well, Barbot said: Test scores are consistently lower in Costa Mesa than at the Newport Beach schools.

“We have the widest span of poverty-to-wealth of anywhere in the nation,” Barbot said. “But what all of our parents have in common is that they all want the best for their children. Some parents just don’t understand how to be involved or they don’t believe they can be involved. As educators, the best thing we can do is give people a helping hand to move forward--not a handout.”

If anyone can relate to a family’s hard times, it’s Barbot. Born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, to a Puerto Rican mother and an American father of French heritage, Barbot was the third of four children.

Barbot’s father, a U.S. Navy officer, left the island in 1950 to work as a machinist in Los Angeles. He saved his earnings until he could afford to have his family join him.

In 1952, a 6-year-old Barbot, with his mother and siblings, embarked on a two-week voyage aboard a sugar freighter. The ship stopped in Havana, its waters “absolutely lime-green,” then sailed to Houston, where the family boarded a train to Los Angeles.

The Barbots set up house in an East Los Angeles housing project. Barbot’s mother cleaned walnuts at a factory; his father worked two jobs, as a machinist and janitor at dental offices in the evenings. The children spoke only Spanish until they arrived in Los Angeles.

“If you think about it, it is the same experience that many people in California have had,” Barbot said. “My parents were big on education. They brought us here because they knew we could receive a better education. They were such hard workers.”

His parents’ drive, and their unconditional support, motivated Barbot to excel in school while delivering newspapers in the mornings and cleaning dental offices on the weekends with his father. He was fluent in English within two years.

In 1964, Barbot graduated from Excelsior High School in Norwalk, where he had longed for a career in law enforcement. His life changed during his senior year at Cal State Fullerton when he was assigned to visit a special-education class.

“I was there one day and I knew this was it,” Barbot said. “I became a teacher and I was very involved with the kids.”

At districts in Ojai, Norwalk and Huntington Beach, Barbot worked as a teacher and a counselor. At Marina High School in Huntington Beach, Barbot had a remarkable accomplishment: He was appointed principal at age 28.

“Education allowed me to get to where I am,” Barbot said. “I remember what it was like to sit in a class and not speak a word of English. I also know that kids can pick up a language very quickly if you give them an opportunity and a sense that you want them to do well. Everyone deserves an opportunity to have that. There is no question that there still is tension in our communities, but everyone is going to be treated the same.”

The disparities in parent involvement between Costa Mesa and Newport Beach schools was one of the first problems Barbot attacked as superintendent. The core problem, Barbot discovered, was that many Latino parents don’t speak English. Students also were not learning it fast enough.

To help parents communicate with teachers, Barbot hired bilingual community coordinators, professionals who serve as liaisons between families and 18 Costa Mesa schools. The coordinators translate, keep in touch with parents and arrange parenting and English classes for parents. Barbot also worked with Costa Mesa city officials to obtain a $1.5-million grant for after-school tutoring programs at some Costa Mesa elementary schools.

Through her relationship with community coordinator Marcy Brown, Vicky Bravo was inspired to volunteer at Sonora Elementary School, where her three children are enrolled. Brown encouraged her to take the district’s English classes and to become a parent leader of the school.

“The education of my children has always interested me, but my English is not so good and I always thought I couldn’t really be involved because of that,” Bravo said. “The classes are great. I’m learning, and I get a lot out of volunteering at the school. My children are doing better. They feel I am more attentive and I understand more what they need. I can help them with their work.”

While it is the responsibility of the parents to learn English, the school system also needs to do its share, Board of Education Trustee Martha Fluor said.

“The district didn’t necessarily hear what [Latinos] were saying” she said. “It’s not a question of giving special treatment to our Latino students. But, rather, it’s making sure that all of our resources are distributed equally.”

Although Barbot’s philosophy of inclusion has been welcomed by most of the district’s parents, some have complained about the emphasis on improving the schools in Costa Mesa.

This year, parents protested the Board of Education’s decision to earmark $500,000 to build a pool at Costa Mesa High School and a stadium at Estancia High School.

“The new schools in Newport Beach have those things,” Fluor said. “We decided to give the schools in Costa Mesa what the other schools have had all along.”

At College Park Elementary School last year, some white parents complained that teachers spent too much time teaching reading to students with limited English skills and failed to challenge white children to advance. But this year, the reading curriculum at College Park allows for children to progress at their own level, parents said.

“Dr. Barbot has been able to foster that openness in all of the schools,” said Linda Mook, president of the Newport Mesa Federation of Teachers. “It really boils down to the openness and trust that a person of integrity can bring to the district.”

For the first time in four years, students at Whittier Elementary School improved their standardized test scores in all subjects. Community coordinator Isabel Vinson said she believes the academic success of the school’s students, 95% of whom are Latino, stems from greater involvement by the Latino parents.

“Let’s face it, the Mexican children in our schools are not going back to Mexico,” Vinson said. “They’re going to be part of our culture. If they’re going to be a part of us, shouldn’t we want them to have the best education possible? Kids see that their parents are learning at the same time they are, and they do better. That is the way the district sees things now.”

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A DISTRICT DIVIDED

Orange County’s Newport-Mesa Unified School District is sharply divided both economically and ethnically, creating special challenges for its superintendent. Schools west of Newport Boulevard serve predominantly Latino families, while those in the more affluent neighborhoods east of the street have largely white student populations.

ELEMENTARY: % White Students

1. Adams 38.4

2. Andersen 94.6

3. California 71.3

4. College Park 32.6

5. Davis 39.3

6. Eastbluff 93.6

7. Harbor View 91.9

8. Kaiser Primary 60.2

9. Kaiser 72.0

10. Killybrooke 35.7

11. Lincoln 87.7