Arts School Wins Approval in Santa Ana

After months of talks, and a spate of last-minute concerns, the Santa Ana school board agreed Friday night to welcome the Orange County High School of the Arts to a new campus downtown.

More than just a new address, the move from Los Alamitos will lead to significant changes in the school’s racial and ethnic makeup.

As conditions of its approval, the Santa Ana school board required the school to reserve at least one-fourth of its spaces for local students and work toward making the school’s ethnic makeup more reflective of the county’s.

Currently, white students make up 66% of the enrollment, while 22% are Asian, 8% are Latino and 4% are black.

The county, said board member Nativo Lopez, is 50% nonwhite, and since the school serves the entire county, it should strive to achieve those numbers too.

Arts school Principal Ralph Opacic agreed.

“Because we’re in Los Alamitos, we’re serving a distinct demographic, but now that we’re in central Orange County it makes sense that we should strive to reflect the demographics of the county at large.”

Its new location in Santa Ana will mean greater access for local students, Opacic said.

The school is in its last semester at its current location within Los Alamitos High School. Filled to the seams with its 425 students, the arts school is moving because classes are often conducted in cramped or shared quarters.

Musicians wait until science students leave the lecture hall before they can play; ballet dancers take a bus to Cal State Long Beach, and a cramped room that once served as a custodian’s garage houses a painting class.

Last year school founders sought to build an $18-million complex in Los Alamitos, but the attempt was rejected by city officials because of traffic concerns.

So with the Los Alamitos school system’s blessing, the high school became a charter school and looked for a new site. And Santa Ana, with its new hopes of becoming a county arts hub, was immediately interested.

By bringing in the magnet school, which draws students from Orange and Los Angeles counties, Santa Ana pulled off a coup in education and image. The high school will pay for its own new campus, converting commercial buildings into classroom and performing space, while the city will guarantee some of its loans. By bringing in students from outside Santa Ana, the school will help diversify the student population and even alleviate crowding a bit in the congested district.

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Although Supt. Al Mijares strongly supported bringing the arts high school to Santa Ana and several speakers, including artists, teachers and parents encouraged the board to vote yes, board members insisted on being assured that public school students would not be shortchanged because of its arrival.

“We need to ensure it’s not such an exclusive country club that no one can get in,” said member Audrey Yamagata-Noji.

At first, high school officials were concerned about guaranteeing spots to Santa Ana students, since admission always has been based on auditions. But eventually, it agreed to provide a certain number of spaces to local students.

However, the final sticking points were financial.

In particular the board was concerned that the district not be liable for any financial trouble the charter school may encounter, and members also worried that the district might find itself in competition with the charter school for state education dollars.

As a charter, the school acts as an independent public agency and receives public dollars based on student enrollment like any other school.

“Ultimately we have agreed we’re going to work to maximize the opportunities for both entities to seek funding together and minimize those areas of competition,” said Palacio.

Details of the charter remained to be specified in a memorandum of understanding, to be developed over the next 150 days. Should the district and arts school find themselves incapable of agreeing on the fine print, the charter can be nullified within that period.

The 13-year-old high school’s nonprofit foundation is negotiating a purchase agreement for property downtown, and working to finalize funding for the move, Opacic said.

The school would move to a downtown site near 10th and Main streets, said Robert Iger, chairman of the foundation for the High School of the Arts.

“It’s in in a very developed area with government buildings and the library, and will have a school bus stop right at the school,” he said. “The area has a very, very low crime rate, but if it’s necessary we will have private security guards.”

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One remaining question is whether current students, especially those who live close to the current site, will make the move. By leaving Los Alamitos High School, they would be saying good-bye to a campus known for its academic excellence, where 65% of the teaching staff has a master’s degree or doctorate, and going to a district where 78% of the students are not native English speakers and the district’s standardized test scores consistently rank toward the bottom among county schools?

Opacic says the quality of education would not suffer. As a charter school, the performing arts program would be free to pursue its own academic path as long as it meets Santa Ana’s requirements for graduation.

Also, although it would no longer reside in Los Alamitos, the new school “would be adopting the same curriculum, using the same textbooks,” Opacic said.

Vilma Aguet, 39, whose son Philip is a sophomore studying musical theater, said her unfamiliarity with Santa Ana and its distance from their home in Lakewood has her concerned.

“If we have to deal with that 5 Freeway, even with the added lanes . . . that’s no picnic,” Aguet said.

Aguet said she will keep an open mind about whether Santa Ana would be a good place for her son to attend school.

What she knows of Santa Ana comes from the media, Aguet said, and she doesn’t want to be unfair and judge the city on news reports that often focus on crime.

If the school moves there, she will drive the city streets and visit the neighborhoods.

“I don’t like to stereotype because it’s not fair,” she said.

According to the arts school’s timeline for relocation, it hopes to announce its new location next month, secure long-term financing by June and move into its new facility by July.

Time is tight, however. Student auditions are slated for March to June, textbooks and materials are to be ordered in April, course descriptions written by May and student registration and orientation in June.

Staff interviews would take place between May and June.

“I’m devastated to see it go,” said Los Alamitos school board member Virginia Wilson.