In Sight, Higher Education

The San Fernando Valley’s first charter middle school already is showing signs of the innovation that is part of the promise of the charter school movement.

The Community Charter Middle School’s founder, Jackie Elliot, ran into problems securing a school site. Undaunted, she opened the school anyway Tuesday in temporary quarters on the first floor of Cal State Northridge’s College of Education.

The location--a welcome example of cooperation between educational institutions--had the advantage of reminding the new school’s 100 sixth-graders just what the outcome of their hard work could be. A number of the students were impressed enough by their first-day surroundings to talk excitedly about going to college one day.

The school will move to its permanent site in San Fernando in about a month, once renovations to a former preschool are completed.

Laboratories for change, charter schools are publicly funded but control their own finances and curriculum and operate outside most state and local regulations. In return, they promise to improve student academic achievement.

The goals of the Community Charter Middle School are to integrate reading and writing skills into science and social studies classes and to work with CSUN in identifying those students who may have difficulties on standardized tests.

Elliot, a former teacher, administrator and health educator, chose to work with this age group because she believes middle school is the last chance to reach still malleable preteens and instill the self-worth necessary to be successful in high school and college--and to avoid such dangers as gangs and drugs.

Whether the new charter school can accomplish its goals is the laboratory part. But judging from it’s first-day ceremony--with uniforms and balloons and a proud march across the CSUN campus--it’s off to a good start.